Although the Coronavirus has stalled many forms of industry, it has spurred a creative energy among our city’s artists. They have kept going - producing dynamic new work that uplifts our communities while simultaneously documenting this time. 

 A commercial photographer by trade, Lou Bopp is best known for his ability to capture authentic images of ordinary folks living and breathing in the moment. These images offer glimpses of our world that profoundly resonate amidst changing times. Having traveled the world for decades and documenting the lives of people with realistic vibrancy, Bopp was intrigued with the idea of exploring a city that came to a grinding halt. Inspired to capture the stark reality of quarantine, he snapped more than 100 pictures of its sequestered citizens for a project dubbed, “Portraits from Mandated Isolation.” 

His process evolved through a rigid daily regimen that included posting a new picture each day for nearly two months. Operating mostly on impulse, Bopp contacted his subjects in advance to set up the shoot but gave them little direction to avoid any dressing up or cleaning windows. Because none of his subjects were posed or positioned, Bopp was able to maintain an absence of physical contact and create natural looking pictures. 

Bopp addressed how the pandemic stimulated him creatively. “I had quite a few commercial jobs that were postponed or canceled but in March I made a decision to do some things on my own to stay busy, to keep my sanity and for therapy. But most importantly, I wanted to document what was happening because I thought it was critical that this moment is documented. However, I didn’t want to be on the frontline or in the trenches. My history is in photojournalism but I really felt like that wasn’t my place for this. I didn’t want to clog up the system. I wanted to stay out of hospitals and ambulances and instead document the isolation. Then as things started to ease up a little bit, I started to shoot these kinds of emergence photos of people gently coming outside and opening doors and windows and going out and wearing masks.” 

He elaborated, “It was the perfect project for me because I started it organically and I worked alone. Then it began to take off as I started to get some press. The Missouri Historical Society wanted images for their permanent collection and I was profiled on CBS Sunday Morning. This all happened within four months, so it was like all the stars lined up for a perfect project.” 

A self-described ex-hippie, Michael Eastman is a world-renowned photographer whose work has been collected by many prominent museums. When COVID-19 struck in March, Eastman responded with a flourish of creativity. When asked how making art during the pandemic affected him, Eastman answered, “It saved my sanity; doing nothing is not an option for me. My work has been the only thing that has helped me in terms of doing something that was normal and worthy of effort. It kept me engaged.” 

The inspiration for his latest endeavor stemmed from Richard Powers’ “The Overstory,” a novel centering on nine Americans whose experiences with trees bring them together to help prevent the destruction of forests. After finishing the book, Eastman, curious to investigate trees again, decided on his next project. “I created a body of work that I had been thinking about for years and years and years but never really had the time to get to. With everything shut down, I wanted to create artwork that I could produce entirely myself in my studio and darkroom. So, I made cyanotypes, a very early photographic process where I could create the negative, hand coat the paper, expose and develop the final print.”  

The pandemic also inspired Eastman to return to Forest Park, a place he has photographed for almost 50 years. “As an artist I have never been more productive than I have during this crisis. I saw this isolation as an opportunity and not something to stop me. I wanted to do something that was significant to me. The cyanotypes gave me that opportunity. I always had a relationship with the park, so during the lockdown I went about four times a week and took these photographs that I thought fit in my mind with this being a scary time. I ended up getting these shots of white trees against a dark sky, which were both haunting and powerful.” 

Like other artists, Andrew Millner was emotionally and creatively jostled by the COVID-19 shutdown. A visual artist with more than 15 solo exhibitions to his name, the pandemic disruptions upended his scheduled show, Floating World, at the William Shearburn Gallery. Deciding early on to be at home with his family, he set up a mini studio there which allowed him to work remotely.  

Since 2004, Millner has used a digital stylus and tablet to draw the outlines and contours of plants and trees into a computer, resulting in hundreds of freehand botanical drawings that the artist refers to as “a quasi-nature preserve, encompassing an enormous amount of time of looking and drawing.”  The exhibition, now rescheduled for October, will feature work that cobbles together this archive of digital drawings into larger, novel landscapes mounted to linen.   

Addressing how the pandemic affected him artistically, Millner replied, “At first of course, my family just focused on the fundamentals and staying healthy.  Since technology is a primary medium in my body of work, I was able to shift my location and continue to work from home.  Seeing the rest of the world shift to using technology as a primary output of information and connection was eye opening as well, in terms of what it can and can’t do.  When I slowly began to return to my studio, I saw my work  from a different perspective.   Artists reflect their time...  what changes and what remains the same.  I had always intended for the landscapes in my work to act as protagonists and the figures as the empty space.  For me, this crisis is a stark reminder of how vulnerable we are to changes in the natural environment and I think this new work reads differently in the present context.”  

For Phillip Slein, one of St. Louis’ most prominent gallerists, the lockdown provided an opportunity to return to his love of making political cartoons. “I have always been an artist, but when you are in the gallery business that all goes on the backburner. This crisis changed that and gave me more time to work on them. I grew up in a family interested in politics and started doing cartoons because it combined art, drawing and humor, all of which really sparked my creativity,” Slein explained. 

During quarantine Slein created iPad drawings and posted them to Instagram where they were well received. He commented on the impact the COVID-19 crisis had on his gallery and how it influenced him artistically. “When the pandemic came, things were really uncertain and there wasn’t much we could do because so much of the business we do is done through personal interaction. We didn’t want to unnecessarily stress people out by trying to sell to them while they were still figuring out how they were going to live their lives. So, I was inside with time on my hands and I was feeling angry about the current state of things. That’s when I decided to do something broader - my satirical political cartoons.” 

Although the doors at his Central West End gallery are now open, Slein has not lost momentum in making new cartoons. “During the lockdown I was able to focus on it every day. Now, even though things have changed, I am still going to continue. The response has been really good, and people seem to like it.” 

Seeking to release their creativity and explore new projects, these and other St. Louis artists have incorporated the emotional realities of this strange time into dynamic and revelatory visual art that speaks to us in inventive new ways during this fluctuating moment of cultural ambiguity and social anxiety.