strikeWear collective is a group composed of artists Mollye Bendell, Christopher Kojzar and Jeffrey L. Gangwisch have come together to create pieces of work using multimedia. They all met in a graduate program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County for the Master of Fine Arts, MFA, in intermedia and digital arts. Not work together on pieces and also have other art pieces they work on that are separate from the collective. These artists live in different states and come together to work on pieces they are approached about, such as “Unrested,” which debuted in the Julio Fine Arts Gallery this month.
The studio they use for their artwork is in Baltimore and Bendell owns it. Kojzar and Gangwisch come to Baltimore when they are working on a project in the area. Bendell mentions that communication is the key factor when they are all working together. Bendell said that working together is so important to create cohesive artwork. Talking out the ideas and information helps the artists create artwork people will come and see.
“It starts with a napkin sketch and then other people revise. You can’t have an ego about it, you’ve got to be willing to try out the other team members of the group suggestions, that’s what makes it a collective labor,” Bendell said.
The three artists Gangwisch, Kojzar and Bendell all have their own definition for how strikeWear lives on the line between human and user experience. The usage of digital media, drawings and sculptures brought together is what makes their art pieces an experience. The experiences are considered as quantifiable for the user design when communicating the attention of the audience and how they interact with it. The experiences are important for people to understand how they interact with the artwork and its being digital and how much it affects people.
“I think that the difference between art and design is present in how we think of designing our interfaces and communication pieces, which are softwares people use. I think that the difference between user and human in a lot of ways is important for artists and creators and receivers of art experiences,” Gangwisch said.
The three artists Kojzar, Gangwisch and Bendell do research for any piece; it’s just a matter of how they want to approach it. They were sent the archival research for the project pertaining to Loyola’s history with slavery, and used that document, but also furthered their research to figure out what they wanted to make. They find something in the archives that sticks with them and they create artwork using that information. The information gets created into a piece of artwork that will help educate someone on art.
“I was looking for individuals that were in the article archives, whether it be photographs or something related to something other than writing, and it landed me on a lot of the letters that were written. I found that it pushed me to think about the written form in the written material and how to use that for generating sculptural pieces,” Kojzar said.
The three artists were hoping to have a more interactive work where students would be able to participate in the exhibits. They mix virtual reality with art to make a type of art that people normally don’t see.
“I really like how it’s planned out in VR. So there’s an element of it in the VR experience and it really all relates back to visuals that were unique to Loyola,” Kojzar said.
Bendell has a solo exhibition in Blackrock Art Space in Germantown Maryland called “How to Breath Underwater” opening April 20th.
Kojzar has two public artworks that will be up in 2025. One is outside of Saint Louis, it hits upon the story of an ophthalmologist who lost his land due to eminent domain because of racial discriminatory laws. The other is in Burlington, Vermont and looking at the queer archives as a source for inspiration about dance in public space.
The three of them are all doing a masterclass for the Maryland Center for creative classrooms through the spring and will have a showcase in the BMA. The workshop was created by Gangwisch. To learn more about strikeWear visit https://xxxxware.com/work.
