Tag: Exhibitions

Crosstown Arts presents an Opening Reception for “Ana Log”, “Size Matters,” and “Still” in the Galleries at Crosstown Arts.

The Galleries at Crosstown Arts
Friday, September 27, 2024
Time: 6-8 pm
Tickets: Free and open to the public

ANA • LOG:

FOURTEEN PICS

 

 

ANA•LOG: Fourteen Pics is a cumulative project referencing elements from several continuing bodies of work by Lester Julian Merriweather including #JETBlack, WHITE(S) ONLY, Vanilla Extract, #WGW, COLOR(ED) THEORY and Merriweather’s most recent collage series, #BetterGardensAndJungles.

 

 

The works presented draw upon several sources: They take direct visual inspiration from the compositions of the 1982-88 Basquiat-Warhol Collaborations. ANA•LOG’s methodology invokes the long-rumored Dr. Dre concept album The Planets in which the famed producer executed each individual track of the album in a completely different genre, thus creating an intensely lush atmospheric soundscape that still would exist as parts of a whole. The gestural treatment of the layered and excavated surfaces pay homage to the experimental processes of the mid-60s Developer tool works by the late Jack Whitten as well as the innovative organic Tesserae paintings that Whitten continued creating until his death in 2018.

 

 

Language is key to the works included in ANA•LOG. In breaking down its linguistic aspects, Merriweather examined varied forms of the word Analog. The word is defined as “not computerized”; Analog is a counter-cultural delineation that separates itself from the “Digital”. The individually collaged-by-hand “units” in ANA•LOG function in a fashion similar to the amalgamation of pixels in the Digital space. One could recognize Analogous, “a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect” within the approach of Merriweather’s collage practice. In terms of Memphis slang, “Ana” is a shortened form of “Animosity”. “Log” in this instance serves as a “Recorded History”. ANA•LOG essentially serves as a “Record of Angers Remembered ” obtained through repeated racial disparities which are then immortalized within generalized/homogeneous American visual media. Merriweather examines the concept of agency over Black Visualization within American Popular Culture.

 

Size Matters

I’ve been thinking about scale and proportion a lot lately. The size of an object can make it seem important or unimportant. And we all measure things according to the size of ourselves. Things that are smaller than us can seem trivial, while larger objects can feel overwhelming. Yet, when considering the vastness of the universe, our planet seems tiny and inconsequential.

 

My current series focuses on the juxtaposition of small figures within expansive landscapes, alongside large scale portraits depicting figures of profound personal meaning from my childhood. The pieces involving small figures in massive spaces, create a sense of insignificance. The large portraits give off a sense of immense importance. But this is all relative to the size of the viewer and how it makes them feel.

 

I often think about how humans fit into this world and how small we actually are compared to the rest of the universe. I am very interested in the purpose of human existence, but it seems like we do a lot of weird things for no reason. And I’d like to learn as much as I can with my time here on Earth.

 

Still

 

My current work is more about the process of the painting than anything else. Of
course, there are themes and subjects I gravitate towards—figures and landscapes,
ideas of solitude and loneliness, etc.—but there is something so explorative and
meditative about painting that I’ve noticed becoming more and more the driving factor
for me. I find when I try to come up with ideas that are motivated by the final product I
get stuck. Lately I have decided to forego the control of the final product and just go
where a piece takes me. In doing so, I am looking at colors, shapes, and textures
differently than I was before, and I make decisions I probably wouldn’t have made if I
had planned everything out. I think focusing on the process has allowed me to lose a
little rigidity and to explore more, and that is what these pieces have been

New Faculty: Connections

Opening Friday, Nov. 19 from 6-8 pm

In the last five years, the Department of Art at the University of Memphis has experienced a generational sea change with new faculty and an expanded curriculum. These new voices and fresh viewpoints complement the decades of rich experiences provided by veteran faculty to create a full learning environment for our diverse community of students.

New Faculty:  Connections presents the work of the most recent additions to the department, including seven artists and two art historians. In conjunction with the exhibition, programming will highlight collaborative curriculums, insight into reading materials that inform their research as an educator, artist, or historian, and opportunities to create bridges outside of the academic sphere.

Participating educators include: Dr. Lucienne Auz, Hamlett Dobbins, Kelsey Harrison, Dr. Rebecca Howard, Coe Lapossy, Kate Roberts, Ramona Sonin, Ash Thayer, and Lisa Williamson

Exhibition Artist Talks

Artists with work on view at Crosstown Arts will deliver talks in their respective galleries.

Artists Susan Lichtman and Dennis Congdon will discuss their work in Here Is Where We Meet in the West Gallery at 1 pm. Curator Laurel Suscy will deliver their introduction.

Artist Keiko Gonzalez will discuss his work in STUDIOS in the East Gallery at 2 pm. Crosstown Arts residency manager/artist Mary Jo Karimnia will deliver his introduction.

Free and open to the public

Opening Reception — Wang Chen: The Sin Park

Join us for an opening reception of new work by artist Wang Chen. Chen’s work will be on view in the Screening Room at Crosstown Arts and projected onto walls in the East Atrium. On view through October 20.

Wang Chen is a multimedia artist whose work incorporates installation, performance, drawing and animation to create digital videos that depict fantasy worlds with humanoid characters, whom she uses to examine gender, sexuality, and politics. By layering different mediums into one digital composition, Chen creates an overwhelming fantasy world of multiple, moveable layers and elements that together become unstoppable and continuously transforming as a way of considering the possibilities of imagined worlds.

In her videos, hand-sewn costumes fuse the human body into the virtual space where humanness blends in, dissolves, and potentially succumbs to the digital fantasy. As the costumed performer, Chen herself becomes a physical component of the worlds she creates, becoming multiple. These clones represent variously unstable identities:  undefined genders, cartoonish humanoids, ghostlike apparitions and thus can adopt multiple identities, abstracting her own role as the artist-architect to become many things at once.

Chen’s playground of electric city-space, neon landscapes, and nightmarish amusement parks becomes itself a representation, if not a fun-house mirror, of our own reality.  The juxtaposition and melting of these dark yet fantastical scenes act as a playful reflection of Chen’s complicated response and rejection of societal norms while constructing a new vision of gender and sexuality in our world.

This work may not be appropriate for younger audiences.

About Wang Chen:
Wang Chen was born in China and is a multimedia artist currently living and working in NYC. The installations that Chen creates begin with physical drawings. Chen makes costumes and props for her videos and builds unimaginable spaces using virtual reality. Chen received her BFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA in Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work has been exhibited/screened internationally in China, UK, US, Sweden, Venezuela, and Greece. Chen has participated in several residencies including The Studios at MASS MoCA and the NYFA Immigrant Mentoring Program. She is the fellowship recipient of Roswell Artist in Residency, Vermont Studio Center and Nars Foundation.

Wang Chen: The Sin Park

Join us in the Screening Room at Crosstown Arts for a new exhibition of work by Wang Chen. Chen’s work will also be exhibited on the pop-out walls in the East Atrium.

Wang Chen is a multimedia artist whose work incorporates installation, performance, drawing and animation to create digital videos that depict fantasy worlds with humanoid characters, whom she uses to examine gender, sexuality, and politics. By layering different mediums into one digital composition, Chen creates an overwhelming fantasy world of multiple, moveable layers and elements that together become unstoppable and continuously transforming as a way of considering the possibilities of imagined worlds.

In her videos, hand-sewn costumes fuse the human body into the virtual space where humanness blends in, dissolves, and potentially succumbs to the digital fantasy. As the costumed performer, Chen herself becomes a physical component of the worlds she creates, becoming multiple. These clones represent variously unstable identities:  undefined genders, cartoonish humanoids, ghostlike apparitions and thus can adopt multiple identities, abstracting her own role as the artist-architect to become many things at once.

Chen’s playground of electric city-space, neon landscapes, and nightmarish amusement parks becomes itself a representation, if not a fun-house mirror, of our own reality.  The juxtaposition and melting of these dark yet fantastical scenes act as a playful reflection of Chen’s complicated response and rejection of societal norms while constructing a new vision of gender and sexuality in our world.

This work may not be appropriate for younger audiences.

About Wang Chen:
Wang Chen was born in China and is a multimedia artist currently living and working in NYC. The installations that Chen creates begin with physical drawings. Chen makes costumes and props for her videos and builds unimaginable spaces using virtual reality. Chen received her BFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA in Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work has been exhibited/screened internationally in China, UK, US, Sweden, Venezuela, and Greece. Chen has participated in several residencies including The Studios at MASS MoCA, the NYFA Immigrant Mentoring Program, and the Crosstown Arts artist residency program. She is the fellowship recipient of Roswell Artist in Residency, Vermont Studio Center and Nars Foundation.

Opening Reception — Jia Wang: Residual Imprint

Join us for an opening reception of new work by Jia Wang. On view through Oct. 20.

Jia’s work explores the traumatic memories that are prevalent in a family. Examining and displaying how trauma is revealed through complex family relationships and how it alters an individual and a family’s identity when visualized. Her work addresses both a personal and cultural perspectives, through site-specific installation comprised of video, collage, and photographic images.

In Jia’s work, she exploring domestic violence and sharing her visual inquiry into trauma through personal storytelling. These stories are both past’s future and future’s past, physically and psychologically speaking. In traditional Chinese culture, the family is the most basic unit and many aspects of Chinese life can be tied to honoring one’s parents or ancestors. Family practices, such as interactions between family members and disciplinary actions, are passed down from one generation to another. Family is the most intimate relationship but also the most confusing as love and hostility can be difficult to separate.

About Jia Wang:
Jia Wang was born in Lanzhou, Gansu Provence, China. She holds a BFA in Photography from the Beijing Film Academy, Beijing, China and an MFA in Imaging Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY. Jia has exhibited internationally including in the Three Shadows Photography Art Center, Beijing, China, the Yeiser Art Center, Pauducah, KY, and the PH21 Gallery in Budapest, Hungary. Her art work has published in Art Maze Mag, UK, ArtAscent Magazine, USA, and the PhotoWorld magazine, China. Residences include the Chanorth Residency Program and the Crosstown Arts Residency Program. In Fall 2019, Jia will participate in the Bronx Museum’s AIM (Artist in the Marketplace) Program.