"Simon O'Corra is quickly becoming known as the "conscience of our community ." View his work and the reason is obvious. O'Corra tells us tales we do not wish to hear, shows us what we wish were hidden from view.
He confronts his viewers with humanity's dark periods of history and warns us: 'Never Forget!' The admonishment is valid in any time and place, but particularly critical in this time, this place". (Dave Russo)
ARTIST'S STATEMENT.
In Primo Levi’s 'If This is a Man', the narrator is accosted by a guard in a concentration camp when he is trying to break an icicle off, which is hanging from a gutter, just to get some clean drinkable water. The guard snatches the icicle and the narrator asks “Warum?” or “Why?”, to which the guard responds “ Es gibt kein 'Warum' hier..” or “There is no why here”. Note the lack of the question mark in the response of the guard, Why is there no punctuation here? Because none is called for. For the guard and the inmate this situation obviously just is, both are bound by the complex systems which governed these death camps. This is true even for us all now more than seven decades after the events. 'Why?' is simply not the answer, especially when one is routinely confronted by a hierarchy of oppression and a warped presentation of the facts by the ruling powers. Most importantly this quote is directly pertinent to some of my work in the WHY project which is involved in exploring and exposing the plight of homosexuals under the Nazi regime in Germany from 1933 to the late 1960s. However, in my other work focussed mostly during World War One, the main emphasis is on presenting alternative truths to this epic, historical event, rather than asking why they happened. In my work I seek always to avoid the question ‘why’? My pragmatic and fatalist personality seeks to simply present truths and perspectives, not ask 'why?', because 'why?' for me is not the issue. The work also has a socio-political viewpoint but also gets to the heart of the human stories played out during major conflicts or world events.
I work primarily with acrylic paints and collage on canvas and/or wood.
To contact Simon, please email him: socorra@mac.com
He confronts his viewers with humanity's dark periods of history and warns us: 'Never Forget!' The admonishment is valid in any time and place, but particularly critical in this time, this place". (Dave Russo)
ARTIST'S STATEMENT.
In Primo Levi’s 'If This is a Man', the narrator is accosted by a guard in a concentration camp when he is trying to break an icicle off, which is hanging from a gutter, just to get some clean drinkable water. The guard snatches the icicle and the narrator asks “Warum?” or “Why?”, to which the guard responds “ Es gibt kein 'Warum' hier..” or “There is no why here”. Note the lack of the question mark in the response of the guard, Why is there no punctuation here? Because none is called for. For the guard and the inmate this situation obviously just is, both are bound by the complex systems which governed these death camps. This is true even for us all now more than seven decades after the events. 'Why?' is simply not the answer, especially when one is routinely confronted by a hierarchy of oppression and a warped presentation of the facts by the ruling powers. Most importantly this quote is directly pertinent to some of my work in the WHY project which is involved in exploring and exposing the plight of homosexuals under the Nazi regime in Germany from 1933 to the late 1960s. However, in my other work focussed mostly during World War One, the main emphasis is on presenting alternative truths to this epic, historical event, rather than asking why they happened. In my work I seek always to avoid the question ‘why’? My pragmatic and fatalist personality seeks to simply present truths and perspectives, not ask 'why?', because 'why?' for me is not the issue. The work also has a socio-political viewpoint but also gets to the heart of the human stories played out during major conflicts or world events.
I work primarily with acrylic paints and collage on canvas and/or wood.
To contact Simon, please email him: socorra@mac.com
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