2007
2007 Artists-in-Residence:
The following artists lived and worked at the Bemis Center during the past year, indicating the breadth and depth of their talents as well as the international character of our residency program.
David Matysiak, Omaha, NE
October 1, - December 30, 2007
Music
Playing music with a hard rock-guitar accent, guitarist/singer David Matysiak, along with friend and collaborator Mason Brown, fronts the Omaha-based band Coyote Bones. Following the disbanding of their former project Jet By Day, Matysiak and Brown hit the road and stopped in different cities to record collaborations with other musicians. The resulting LP, "Gentleman On The Rocks," is Coyote Bones' debut recording, a startling document that highlights the diverse backgrounds of its contributors without straying from the solid center of it founding duo. The different sounds evoke a wide array of musical influences, including Buffalo Tom, The Psychedelic Furs, Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, Dinosaur Jr. and Elliot Smith. Gentleman features contributions from members of Azure Ray and Tilly & The Wall and was partially recorded in the basement of Joel Peterson from The Faint. With his musical mastery, Matysiak produces classy songwriting and positive songs that resist that resonate with passion, screaming solos and gritty blues power.
Listen to a podcast interview with David Matysiak.Caitlin Applegate, Lincoln, NE
October 1, - December 30, 2007
Ceramic
Through subtle distortion of form, exaggerated gesture and an emotional color palette, sculptor Caitlin Applegate emphasizes those parts of our bodies of which we are individually most conscious, enlarging or shrinking them to emphasize the awkwardness many of us feel in our own skin. Ranging from life-size to half-size, her sculptures raise feelings of isolation, distance, intimacy, voyeurism and empathy. Applegate received a BFA in Ceramics and Printmaking from the University of Hartford's Hartford Art School and an MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Department of Art and Art History. She has participated in large-scale public arts projects, including the Lincoln Art Council's Stories of Home Project, for which she created a narrative sculpture. The artist has exhibited nationally, and her work has been covered in publications such as Ceramics Monthly.Listen to a podcast interview with Caitlin Applegate.Tomiko Pilson, Chicago, IL
October 1, - December 30, 2007
Painting
Informed by classical figure painting, Tomiko Pilson created work rooted in the grand narrative tradition. And as a woman of mixed racial and ethnic heritage, she also draws from her many experiences as an "other," providing for a synthesis of the two. She uses the narrative structure to take viewers to imagined places, such as lush jungles of distant lands, which explore "dangerous territory." As a result, her paintings function like gigantic postcards from alluring, fantastical places. Pilson received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions at venues such as The Contemporary Museum (Honolulu), Western Exhibitions (Chicago) and Artist Commune (Kowloon, Hong Kong). Pilson's work has been reviewed in publications such as The New York Times, F News Magazine and Art in Review.Listen to a podcast interview with Tomiko Pilson.Jason Peters, Brooklyn, NY
September 1, - November 30, 2007
Installation/Sculpture
Jason Peters’ installations investigate the relationships of space, environment and materials. He challenges intrinsic perceptions by suggesting that the objects of our reality are not always what they seem. By using urban objects, he therefore alters our perception of an artwork’s authorship, sociological place and purpose. The question he poses to viewers is: "Are these familiar objects just as recognizable when serving an entirely different purpose? And just as importantly, does their transformation modify their value?" A graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, Peters exhibited in numerous group exhibitions as well as several solo shows. Listen to a podcast interview with Jason Peters.Jon Taylor, New Bedford, MA
July 31, - October 31, 2007
Sculpture
Jon Taylor constructs humorous situations that critique disturbing human habits. He utilizes aspects of sculpture, performance, photography, video and drawings to address basic, universal needs such as food, shelter and companionship. Through this light-hearted approach, he seeks to expose selected absurdities of modern life and explore new modes of existence. The backbone of his methodology is a relentless commitment to drawing, with this two-dimensional aspect of his work functioning as a blueprint for more elaborate projects as well as compositional playgrounds where thoughts overlap and intertwine. These pieces can stand alone, or more often reemerge into sub-components of three-dimensional constructions. Taylor was born in New Jersey and earned his BFA from Alfred University and an MFA from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Taylor is currently in the middle of a stretch of residencies: he has been to Jentel, Wyoming, the Vermont Studio Center and The Berwick Research Institute. Following his time at the Bemis Center, he will be a resident at Sculpture Space in Utica, NY. This fall, Taylor's work will be exhibited at the New Bedford Art Museum.Listen to a podcast interview with Jon Taylor.Beej Nierengarten-Smith, Santa Fe, NM
October 1, - November 1, 2007
Printmaking
Contemporary printmaker and multimedia artist Beej Nierengarten-Smith specializes in photolithography, Japanese woodcuts, digital images and etching. Her subject matter includes geographic icons, political and social commentary as well as fantasy and humor. She does not print editions; rather, each print is hand-altered, and the result is unique with boxed artist books accompanying prints. Nierengarten-Smith has received wide recognition for her crafted handmade books and book boxes, including Best of Show for Professional Artist Books at the 2005 New Mexico State Fair. The artist holds a BA from the University of Minnesota in art history and design, an MA from the University of Minnesota in art history and museum sciences and an Ed. D. from Southern Illinois University in instructional theory and curriculum design with a minor in aesthetics. She has also received an honorary Doctor of Humanities from Maryville College in St. Louis in recognition of her contributions to the arts.Aaron Karp, Albuquerque, NM
September 1, - October 25, 2007
Painting
Aaron Karp is known for the unique patterns within his paintings, which he achieves by using masking tape to create borders that often change direction, crisscross and overlap. He focuses on abstracted, organic shapes, which he achieves through wildly expressive, yet deeply meticulous brushwork. Says Karp: "Layering itself makes up the central metaphor in my work. The work is about concealing and revealing. It is about the fracturing of color and space, about looking at and into something to extract information and find meaning." The artist received a BA from State University of New York at Buffalo and his MFA from Indiana University. A veteran of numerous group and solo shows, his work is included in numerous corporate, private and public collections. Karp lives and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico.Listen to a podcast interview with Aaron Karp.Jane Abrams, Albuquerque, NM
September 1, - October 25, 2007
Painting
Jane Abrams uses her travels to Mexico, Central America and Thailand as departure points for introducing exotic subjects into her work. She earned her MFA from Indiana University and has received many awards and honors including two Senior National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship Grants. She has also been a guest artist and resident at numerous programs, with recent residencies at the Julia and David White Artists' Colony in Cuidad Colon, Costa Rica, the Robert M. MacNamara Foundation, Westport Island, the Fundacion Valparaiso in Mojacar, Spain. Abrams has exhibited widely, and her work is included in public and private collections in several countries. The artist is a Regents' Professor Emeritus from the University of New Mexico, where she taught painting and drawing from 1971 until 1993. She continues to exhibit and paint in her studio in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, NM.
Listen to a podcast interview with Jane Abrams.David Stein, Oakland, CA
July 3, - September 29, 2007
Mixed media
Conceptual and relational artist David Stein explores consumption and production, how knowledge is constructed and what people would say if they could communicate across cultural divides. By making products and services that no one wants, that are "useless," impractical, or unlikely, he explores the gap between what consumers desire and what the market produces. These actions or products also highlight ways in which art is seen as having no practical value and point to differences in the commercialism of art and mass culture. Stein earned his MFA from California College of the Arts in 2005. He has exhibited at the Rooseum in Malm�¶, Sweden and has been in group shows at Southern Exposure, the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, the Triton Museum of Art, the Richard L. Nelson Gallery, New Langton Arts and the Kunsthaus Dresden. He received a Murphy Fellowship from the San Francisco Foundation and a California College of the Arts Honors Award. His work has been reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle and Artforum.com.Listen to the podcast interview with David Stein. Gillian Welch, Nashville, TN
August 29 - September 29, 2007
Drawing/Music
Folk singer Gillian Welch has earned widespread critical praise for resurrecting the music genre usually identified with early twentieth-century rural Appalachia. She attended the Berklee School of Music in Boston, MA, where she began performing her own songs and also played traditional country and bluegrass with fellow student David Rawlings. The duo soon performed across the nation, and while opening for Peter Rowan in Nashville, legendary musician and producer spotted the pair and helped them get their first record deal, which resulted in 1996's Revival. Welch released her sophomore album Hell Among the Yearlings in 1998, and she recorded soundtracks, including O Brother Where Art Thou, which garnered her a Grammy award in 2002. This success placed Welch and Rawlings in the middle of an American folk revival, and they released their third CD Time (The Revelator) in 2001. She also has performed on tribute albums (Songs of Dwight Yoakam: Will Sing for Food) and has recorded guest spots with other artists (Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker, Mark Knopfler, Sailing to Philadelphia and Bright Eyes, Cassadaga). In 2003 Welch and Rawlings also 2003 recorded Soul Journey, the second release on their own Acony Records label.Listen to a podcast interview with Gillian Welch. Weronika Zaluska, North Adams, MA
July 3, - September 28, 2007
Sculpture/Mixed media
Weronika Zaluska chooses fabric as the material for her work, because the metaphor of cloth seems universal. The concept of woven fabric remains embedded in the very meaning of Western Civilization's most essential words: fabricare means "to make" in Latin and the Greek Histos means "history" and also signifies "canvas." The artist earned an an MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in NY and a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. She has had numerous solo and group shows, and her work is included in private collections such as the Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art. Zaluska has been a resident at the National Center for Sculpture in Oronsko, Poland and the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Edgecomb, ME. This year, she will also participate in the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program in Roswell, NM.Listen to the podcast interview with Weronika Zaluska.Liz Miller, Good Thunder, MN
July 3, 2007 - September 28, 2007
Mixed media/Installation
Liz Miller's large-scale, abstract, mixed media drawings and installations explore the ways in which disparate systems interact in contemporary life. Fodder for her work includes systems that are technological, biological, and geological in nature. Miller employs non-traditional materials such as felt, foam, and adhesive vinyl while attempting to choreograph and order the chaos that surrounds us in contemporary life. The artist received her MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN and a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI. She has exhibited in solo and group shows at venues such as the Soap Factory (Minneapolis), Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art (Fort Collins, CO), Bloomington Art Center (Bloomington, MN), Soo Visual Arts Center (Minneapolis, MN), and the FieldGate Gallery (London, UK). She is currently Assistant Professor, Drawing/Foundations at the Minnesota State University-Mankato.Listen to the podcast interview with Liz Miller.Lori Larusso, Baltimore, MD
June 1, 2007 - August 29, 2007
Painting
Lori Larusso provides visual commentary on the inner workings of contemporary American culture. She examines the inclusive reality of how society influences the individual and how the exclusive individual copes with events and everyday existence. A second theme throughout Larusso's work involves consideration and reciprocity. Systems must also respond to the immediate needs and desires of the individuals, and during disruptive periods, individuals entertain themselves with common indulgences from the consumer culture. Larusso received a BFA and a Certificate in Women's Studies from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art's (MICA's) Mt. Royal School of Art. She has had solo shows at Publico in Cincinnati, OH, and School 33 in Baltimore, MD and has taken part in national and international group shows, including the Arts' 2005 MFA Biennial at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Hot Tamales at ArtLA and Sharjah Art Museum, United Arab Emirates.Listen to a podcast interview with Lori Larusso.Cody VanderKaay, New Orleans, LA
June 1, 2007 - August 29, 2007
Mixed media
Cody Vanderkaay has worked a wide-range of manual labor positions, ranging from washing dishes and cars, to building and painting houses. The attention given to each task became a meaningful pursuit of understanding for the artist, allowing him to understand how important every aspect (visual, physical, social and sensory) is to genuine interaction in life. The artist received his MFA from the University of Georgia and a B.A. from Northern Michigan University. His work has been included in three issues of New American Paintings, and he was the featured artist at "Artists Space," Artists Online, in March 2006. VanderKaay has shown his work at venues such as MOCA, (Atlanta, GA), ATHICA: Athens Institute for Contemporary Art (Athens, GA), and the Barrett Art Center (Poughkeepsie, NY). Currently, he is an assistant professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Loyola University in New Orleans.Listen to a podcast interview with Cody VanderKaay.Orenda Fink, Birmingham AL
March 3, 2007 - May 30, 2007
Music
Orenda Fink is a recording artist from Birmingham, Alabama, best known as one half of the ethereal dream pop duo Azure Ray. After Azure Ray disbanded in 2004, Orenda crafted her debut as a solo artist: Invisible Ones, (Saddle Creek) inspired by the mythologies of the South and her experiences with Vodou in Haiti. She has collaborated with and appeared on the records of Moby, Now It's Overhead, Crooked Fingers, Bright Eyes, The Faint, Art In Manila and many more. Her music can be heard in many television shows and films including Six Feet Under, Short Bus, and The Devil Wears Prada.Listen to a podcast interview with Orenda Fink.Koo Kyung Sook and Ian Harvey, Sacramento, CA
July 3, 2007 - August 28, 2007
Mixed media
Koo Kyung Sook and Ian Harvey initiated their first collaborative project at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in July and August 2006. The project is comprised of three monumental figures ranging from 8 feet to 11 feet. Coming from cultural traditions that in many respects are diametrically opposed, they are seeking to discover a synthetic beauty that exceeds the scope of their individual artistic visions while embracing the strengths of both traditions.Listen to a podcast interview with Ian Harvey and Koo Kyung Sook.Gerd Stern, Cresskill, NJ
June 14, 2007 - July 26, 2007
Poet/Multi-media
Poet and multi-media artist Gerd Stern has been a carpenter, taught at Harvard, sold encyclopedias, served as a galley boy on a Norwegian ship, imported cheese and worked in a gold and silver mine in Nevada. He co-founded the arts/technology cooperative USCO (an influential artists' collective in Garnerville, N.Y., twice featured on the cover of Life magazine) and was an early member of The Reality Club as well as the president of the public company Intermedia Systems Corporation. He has also served as a consultant for the Rockefeller Foundation arts program, the NEA and NYSCA and remains as president of Intermedia Foundation.Listen to a podcast interview with Gerd Stern.James Johnson, Philadelphia, PA
May 15, 2007 - July 26, 2007
Installation/Photography
James Johnson's installation work consists of miniature interior spaces built from elements of photography, sculpture, and architecture. These rooms are viewed through an aperture in the wall hidden behind a transparent surface - large two-way mirrors, old sheets of glass with blurry imperfections, etc. The works are sometimes compared to dioramas, and they all contain evidence of their inhabitants. Each space, a seamless montage of photographs built in Photoshop, is printed on backlight film and then sliced and refolded into a three-dimensional architectural sculpture. The reflective surface of the glass implicates the viewer as a player or character in these scenarios. Johnson earned his BFA from Marywood University (Scranton, PA) and and an MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY). He has exhibited in numerous venues, including the Samuel S. Fleischer Art Memorial, Arcadia University Art Gallery, the University of Buffalo Art Gallery and the George Eastman House. His work has also been reviewed in publications such as The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Weekly and The Philadelphia City Weekly. Johnson is currently assistant professor and chair of the Photography and Digital Arts Program at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia.Listen to a podcast interview with James Johnson.Lynn Richardson, Winninpeg, Canada
April 2, 2007 - June 28, 2007
Sculpture/Installation
Lynn Richardson creates her latest work through an exploration of contemporary imagery and architectural representation. Whereas subject matter in her earlier pieces was straight-forward and bold, her more recent sculptures are elliptical, and the expression of the subject is quieter. The artist received her BFA from the University of Manitoba, Canada and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. She has received several prestigious awards, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant, the Lila Acheson Wallace Reader's Digest Scholarship and a Canada Council for the Arts Grant. Richardson's sculptures have been exhibited internationally in venues such as the Michael Gibson Gallery (London), CSAW Gallery (Houston), the Art Chicago Project Space (Chicago) and the Cue Art Foundation (New York). Additionally, her work has been reviewed in numerous publications, including Artinfo, Fuse, Vue Weekly, The Austin Chronicle, Artnet News, The Globe & Mail and Border Crossings.Carin Mincemoyer, Pittsburgh, PA
April 2, 2007 - June 28, 2007
Sculpture
Carin Mincemoyer is particularly interested in the contrasting set of desires that we often expect the "natural," or non-human, world to fulfill. For various reasons, many people look to nature to find a sense of meaning in their lives. But in technologically developed societies that have gained mastery over the environment, nature provides the fodder for two contrasting fantasies: further domination over the earth, and making contact with the pure, unspoiled origins of our existence. Hence, we have activities like nature tourism, in which mass numbers of people travel in their cars to what they believe to be a more pure or unspoiled environment than their daily surroundings. The artist is also interested in the intersection between organic and man-made forms, how these two intertwine and what that intersection may look like in the future. Mincemoyer received her BFA with a concentration in painting from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has received numerous awards and honors including a Pittsburgh Foundation Individual Artist Award, a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship and a Vermont Studio Center Artist Grant. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions at venues such as the Rochester Contemporary, d.u.m.b.o. arts center and the Andy Warhol Museum. Her work has been reviewed in numerous publications, including Sculpture Magazine, The Buffalo News, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Pulp. Janna Holmstedt, Stockholm, Sweden
April 2, 2007 - June 28, 2007
Video/Installation
Janna Holmstedt works with image, text, video and installation, usually in relation to a specific site and/or situation. She employs storytelling as a tool for critical engagement and as a way to deal with and make sense of the constant flow of information in everyday life. In her work, she seeks to situate a subject within a context that is not framed as an absolute truth or stable reality, but rather as a system that unfolds through a specific network where meanings are constructed. In her video- and sound installations involving voice-overs, Holmstedt focuses on the tension between an existentially defined "inner" space and that which we typically perceive as an "outer" space of politics and everyday life. She finds the borderland where these two fields meet, collide and interact - that is, where our sense of individuality and reality is represented - as the most interesting to investigate. The artist earned her MFA from the Umea Academy of Fine Arts, and her recent awards include the IASPIS International Exchange (2006), a Swedish Visual Arts Fund Project Grant (2005), NIFCA Nordic Air Residency in Tallinn, Estonia (2005) and a grant from the JC Kempes Foundation (2003/2004). Together with Po Hagstrom, Holmstedt is part of artist duo Trial and Error, working with projects related to national identity and the use of public space. Holmstedt also co-founded SQUID, which facilitates a space for the parallel knowledge that emerges from an investigative, creative process. Jennilie Brewster, Brooklyn, NY
April 2, 2007 - June 28, 2007
Painting
Jennilie Brewster paints deserts, volcanoes, oceans and more updated versions of the sublime, from oil refineries to urban dumps. She pulls images and ideas from art history, The New York Times, her National Park postcard collection and film. Hers is a "constructed" nature: she works on paper, cutting, pasting and pinning as she progresses. This real-time studio practice is set against depicted natural cycles of time - daylight, seasons and geological shifts. Says the artist: "Most of my landscapes are big and uninhabited. I feel that they are not completed until the viewer steps into the frame like a passerby at a scenic overlook. Like these vistas and the art forms they've inspired, from 19th-century panoramas to IMAX pictures, my paintings offer an up-close experience of nature's drama and awe." Brewster received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts (New York) and her MFA from Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY). She has exhibited internationally at venues such as the Ward Center for the Arts, (Baltimore, MD), the Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery (Reno, NV) the Unimedia Modern Gallery (Genova, Italy), Disjecta (Portland, OR). Brewster's work has been reviewed in numerous publications, including Il Giornale Dell'Arte (Torino, Italy), The Daily Vanguard (Portland, OR) and Zing Magazine (New York). The artist is also the 2006 recipient of the Elaine de Kooning Memorial Fellowship.John Garrett, Albuquerque, NM
May 1, 2007 - May 30, 2007
Fabric art
For the past quarter of a century, fiber artist John Garrett has worked with the application of textile technologies and imagery to create two-and three-dimensional pieces that are visually unpredictable and intellectually eloquent. Garret wraps, weaves, plaits, rivets, paints, rusts, twines, nails, stitches or ties his various media, which include nails, buttons, washers, corks, plastic flowers, painted aluminum, copper, corn husks, bed springs and even plastic curlers. If the materials are unexpected, so too are the results: works that provide viewers with a graceful and elegant rubric for viewing discarded objects. Garrett received his Masters degree in Design from the University of California-Los Angeles and has taught at Scripps College and UCLA. He was awarded National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in both1983 and 1995, and his work is included in numerous private and public collections, including the American Craft Museum (New York, NY), the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, PA), the Detroit Institute of Art (Detroit, MI), the
High Museum (Atlanta, GA) and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC). John Garrett is currently a full-time artist based in Albuquerque, NM, and he teaches workshops on creativity and experimental basketry at schools nationwide. Mark Gilbert, Glasgow, United Kingdom
March 1, 2007 - May 15, 2007
Painting
After six years of working on a series of paintings depicting facial disfigurement and facial operations, Mark Gilbert has achieved great insight into the human face and its entire makeup. He is acutely aware of the inherent textures and elements that lie behind it both in terms of expressions and emotions, and he keenly understands the profound emotional power a portrait can convey. Says Gilbert: "It is my hope that this discourse between the painting and the viewer opens the viewer up to a new depth of experience and understanding that is full and human." While the artist has worked predominantly in oil on canvas, he is currently exploring the use of other materials on a larger scale and slicker surfaces in order to achieve directness and a less labored response to my subjects. Gilbert attended the Glasgow School of Art, and he has shown his work internationally in both solo and group shows at venues such as the Royal Scottish Academy (Edinburgh), the National Portrait Gallery (London), the Museum of Modern Art (Wales) and the Medicinhistoriska Museet (Stockholm). His work has been reviewed in publications such as The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Il Messagerro Dominica, the South China Morning Post, Der Spiegel, The New York Times, the Sddeutsche Zeitung and The International Herald Tribune.Markus Baenziger, Zug, Switzerland
March 1, 2007 - May 6, 2007
Sculpture
For Markus Baenziger, nature constitutes the visual framework for his creative process. It is the means to reflect on a human condition, and to that end seemingly natural occurrences are reinvented as phenomena. Baenziger does not work from strict observation; rather his work is based on a collage of visual references composed under the auspices of nature. At once familiar and estranged, the artist's works adapt a visual vocabulary indigenous to nature, but without real counterparts, they draw on the imagination, freely associating sculptural forms with the emotional response that we tend to draw from nature. The artist studied Business and Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland before earning his BFA from the Parsons School of Design and an MFA from the Yale University School of Art. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions, and his work has been reviewed in publications such as Sculpture, Artforum, Art in America, Art & Antiques, The New York Times and The Village Voice. Baenziger currently lives and works in New York. Endi Poskovic, Los Angeles, CA
April 1, 2007 - April 30, 2007
Printmaking
A Bemis Center Artist-in-Residence in 2004, Endi Poskovic was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia in 1969, and he has earned degrees from the Sarajevo School of Applied Arts and Academy of Fine Arts as well as from Norway's Nordmore Folkehog Skole and the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has exhibited extensively in national and international print shows including at the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (Cairo, Egypt), the International Print Center (NY, NY), the Horst Jansen Stadtmuseum (Oldenburg, Germany) and the Rotermann Arts Center (Tallinn, Estonia). He has received over seventy grants and fellowships from organizations such as the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Camargo Foundation, the MacDowell Colony and the McColl Center for Visual Arts. Poskovic's works appear in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Berlin Kupferstich-Kabinet, the Royal Antwerp Museum of Fine Arts and the Fogg Art Museum-Harvard University. The artist is an associate professor at Whittier College in Los Angeles, where he has been directing the Printmaking Program since 1997. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Julie and son Elvin.Matt Wycoff, Brooklyn, NY
February 1, 2007 - April 27, 2007
Mixed Media
Matt Wycoff's current body of work is an on-going series of conceptual pieces that compress the distance between personal experience and universal human concepts. Through his art, he explores such intimate, yet all-encompassing - themes as death, knowledge, fame, memory, language and humor. Wycoff earned his BFA with an emphasis in Sculpture from the Kansas City Art Institute. He received the 2004-2005 Urban Culture Project Studio Residency, and he was one of six artists chosen to participate in the 2005 Avenue of the Arts public art program, a program that grants money to artists for the creation of temporary public art in downtown Kansas City. He has exhibited his work in both solo and group exhibitions in venues such as the Leedy-Volkous Art Center (Kansas City, MO), Fahrenheit Gallery (Chicago, IL), RARE Gallery (New York, NY). Wycoff's work has been reviewed in numerous publications, including The Kansas City Star, The Pitch, Art Papers and Review. Nadya Volicer, Westford MA
January 2, 2007 - March 29, 2007
Sculpture/Installation
As a sculptor and installation artist from New England, Nadya Volicer's work is very much a reflection of that place, and themes of home, memory, movement and architecture run throughout her work. She uses primarily recycled wood from suburban trash piles, renovation dumpsters and basements of friends and neighbors. The fragments she assembles represent many past functions, which are often implied by rusty hinges, screw holes or the colors revealed beneath flaking paint layers. Most recently, Volicer's interest in recycling has also led her to incorporate other salvaged materials into her work, such as used paper and cardboard. Says the artist: "I am attracted to these rich patinas, and to the notion that the discarded can be reused. I am interested both visually and conceptually in piecing together many small parts to make up a whole. Whether through a multi-colored mosaic surface, or a cluster of lacey paper cutouts, I am working towards a visual vibrancy that imparts upon the viewer a feeling of energy; chaos and harmony."Homare Ikeda, Denver, CO
January 2, 2007 - March 29, 2007
Painting
Homare Ikeda's art explores the process of life cycles in a microscopic view. His sensitive lines and seeds like forms are his vehicles to journey into the mist of seas where all forgotten memories are fermented. His playful approach to drawing evokes innocent time and yet complex view of the universe. Says the artist of his primordial yet playful lines: "As I make marks on paper, I am aware and not aware of the forms emerging. The forms and marks inter-act with each other. I feel they are voices trying to signify something." Ikeda earned his BFA and MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum, Qwest Communications Inc (Denver), Sabichira-kan (Yoron, Japan) and Saks Fifth Avenue (New York), among others. Ikeda has shown his work in solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Germany, Japan and Denmark. The artist currently teaches drawing at the Front Range Community College and painting at the Metropolitan State College in Colorado.Peat Duggins, Austin, TX
January 2, 2007 - March 29, 2007
Installation
Peat Duggin's recent work focuses on the creation and development of Hickory Ridge, a fictitious community that explores the personal, social, spiritual and political identity of 21st-century America. The artist modeled Hickory Ridge after booming, sprawling cities of the west such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix and Tucson. He incorporates the culture, politics, economics and geography of these places into his town, working from the hypothesis that the West, built fast and furiously, remains relatively unburdened by history and tradition, which allows for a new modern mass culture to develop. Says the artist: "Because of the social and communal themes in my work, it is important to me to create art that speaks beyond the traditional boundaries of the art world. Recently, I have been searching for (what I refer to as) resonate images, or images that jive with a larger sub-set of the population." Duggins earned his BFA in Film and Video from the Rhode Island School of Design and also studied Science and Humanities at Brown University. He has shown his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and he received the Flicker Filmmaker Grant in 2001.Oscar Camilo de las Flores, Santa Ana, El Salvador
December 1, 2006 - February 26, 2007
Painting/Drawing
Born in Santa Ana, El Salvador, Oscar Camilo de las Flores graduated from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, where he studied in the Fresco workshop under Renato Giangualano and Daniel Boszhkov. He additionally completed Art Education at the Ontario College of Art and Design with a Major in Printmaking, and he has taken further specialization courses at C. W. Jeffery's Collegiate as well as at the Universidad de Guadalajara Art. De Las Flores has been a Guest Artist at the Kingait Innuit Co-op in Cape Dorset, Nunavut, Canada as well as an Artist-in-Residence at programs such as the McDowell Colony for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, the Altos de Chavon School of Art and Design Artist in Residency Program (Dominican Republic), Yaddo and New York's Blue Mountain Center, among several others. The artist has shown his work internationally at venues such as the 2006 Egyptian International Print Triennial (Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt), the Scope International Art Fair (London, UK), ROOM Gallery (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) and the International Taipei Print and Drawing Biennial (Taipei Museum, Taiwan), among many others.Dane Watkins, Somerset, United Kingdom
December 1, 2006 - February 26, 2007
Digital Media
Dane Watkins' work is a research-based studio practice that examines how conventional drawing and animation practices can be developed and shown in digital environments such as the web or a computer driven installation. During the past few years, he has developed a body of drawings and animations shaped by his response to a culture in which there is both an excess of imagery as well as a homogenization of visual language. Watkins trained in animation at Liverpool Polytechnic, where he concentrated on hand-drawn animation for film. Since then, he has developed his work through using vector-based digital tools and by distributing his work online. More recently, the artist has found that developing programming skills allows him to develop his practice and to work experimentally with timelines in both drawing and animation.