Portraits of men by feminist artist Gwenn Seemel created in 2006.!
Art as a form of vigilantism: A talk with Gwenn Seemel
DAVID VANADIA
Gwenn Seemel has covered the handrails of this New Jersey bridge with rainbow art.
What do you do when you are offended by graffiti?
Do you ask an authority to remove it, or do you scrub it off the wall yourself? Or do you pass it by and pretend you never saw it?
In creating this series, I learned about a world I knew very little about, and this blank painting represents the most unsavory part of that world.
The prolific Lambertville-based artist Gwenn Seemel isn’t the type to ignore something bothersome. Much of her work is an attempt to reframe misapprehensions and intervene in injustices. So when she noticed that a vandal had carved Donald Trump’s name into the wooden handrail of the Alexauken Creek Spillway Bridge in the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park in Delaware Township — and when the supervisors of the park were slow to take action — it demanded a response.
Seemel made large paint-and-paper Band-Aids and covered over the scrawled name of the former President and his familiar slogans. The message was clear: The vandal had wounded the