Kathryn Jill Johnson: Dissonance

Exhibition Information

Location: Artspace Gallery on the CSN North Las Vegas Campus

Dates: Friday, February 8, 2019 – Saturday, March 23, 2019
Hours: 8am-10:30pm M-F, 8am-5pm Sat, Closed Sunday and All National Holidays
Artist Talk & Reception: Monday, February 11, 6pm

Artist Statement
I am the worst sort of detective. I just like to pile up clues and rearrange them into melancholic jokes, farcical calamities and occasional moments of grace.

When I am drawing, I am teasing out a knot or banging on a drum. My drawings have paint, of course, but they are not really paintings—the drawn line is what tells the tale. The pops and veils of color and the stained surfaces just hang around it like groupies. They provide a ragged sort of embellishment. The line is what makes the edges and directs the characters and each marks provides a kind of unstable punctuation.

My drawings have a cast of characters, images and elements, which live in flattened landscapes or ambiguous spaces that are flooded with intimations.

I think about thrownness, the ridiculous set of circumstances that make each person’s own horizon line. In these drawings, horizons are not there to separate earth and sky. They are a thing for standing on, ducking under or tripping over. They provide for points of appearance rather than vanishing.

We are perpetually in a state of medias res, the middle of the action. It feels like our lives are a story, but the past is soft and indistinct, the climax can’t be recognized and the denouement is necessarily unknowable. So the little world of my drawings is peculiar. The figures, the marks, even the little shiny spots are talking to themselves and each other. The viewer gets to listen in, and take a peek—even put in their two cents.

The way we travel, who shows up, the near misses and the head on collisions, are what make and unmake us. These little stories are the moment before a divination— the tea leaves have settled, the alomancer has flung the salt; the bones have clattered to the ground. But the signs don’t point to the future, they are this moment right here: a sort of prophecy of the present.

Biography
Kathryn Jill Johnson received her MFA from the University of Georgia and Her BA from the University of South Florida.  She is Currently a Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Jill has exhibited nationally and throughout the southeast, including group exhibitions at the Tennessee Valley Museum of Art, University of Montevallo the, the Huntsville Museum of Art, the Alabama State Council on the Arts’ Georgine Clarke Gallery and most recently, the Wiregrass Museum of Art. She has mounted a number of solo exhibitions, among them shows at Lowe Mill Arts Center, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Berea Collage, and Rogue Community College.

Jill’s mixed media drawings are influenced by psychoanalytical theory, symbolist poetry, and absurdist humor.

Links
Kathryn Jill Johnson Website
CSN Art Galleries Instagram

 

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2018-2019 CSN Art & Art History Faculty Exhibition

FEBRUARY 7, 2019 / LEAVE A COMMENT

Exhibition Information

Location: Fine Arts & Artspace Galleries on the CSN North Las Vegas Campus

Dates: Friday, November 30, 2018 – Saturday,January 26, 2019
Hours: 9am-6pm M-F, 10am-4pm Sat, Closed Sunday and all National Holidays
Artist Reception: Friday, November 30, 6-8pm

Exhibition Statement

The College of Southern Nevada Department of Fine Arts will host an exhibition featuring work of 35 faculty/artists from its Art & Art History Program. Works featured in this exhibition will highlight the vast range of offerings within the CSN Art & Art History Program including: ceramics, digital media, drawing, metal work, mixed media, painting, photography, printmaking, and sculpture. The “2018-2019 CSN Art & Art History Faculty Exhibition” will begin Friday, November 30, 2018 and will run through Saturday, January 26, 2019. An Artist Reception with refreshments will take place at the gallery on Friday, November 30, 2018, from 6 – 8 p.m. and is open to the public.

“2018 – 2019 CSN Art & Art History Faculty Exhibition” features 35 full and part-time Art & Art History Program faculty/artists: Suzanne Acosta, Dennis Angel, Linda Angel, Myranda Bair, Christopher Bauder, Mark Brandvik, Keith Conley, Michael Crowe, Brian Daw, Nancy Deaner, Daryl Depry, Lolita Develay, Kathleen Dillion, Jeff Fulmer, Jack Hallberg, Anne Hoff, Ben Johnsen, Elizabeth Klimek, Alfonso Lirani, Wayne Littlejohn, Gary Marx, Orlando Montenegro, Robert Nicholson, Daniel Ogletree, Manfred O’Hare, Mary Lou Parker, Eric Pawloski, Miguel Rodriguez, Sean Russell, Floyd Shepherd, Fred Sigman, Robin Stark, Carol Treat, Christopher Tsouras, Anna Vishnevsky and Joanne Vuillemot.

The CSN Fine Arts & Artspace Galleries are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The Fine Arts Gallery is located adjacent to the Nicholas J. Horn Theatre Lobby and the Artspace Gallery is located upstairs above the main entrance lobby, both on the North Las Vegas Campus of the College of Southern Nevada, one-mile East of I-15 North, 3200 E. Cheyenne Avenue, North Las Vegas, NV 89030.

 

 

Links

CSN Art Galleries: Link
Instagram: “2018-2019 CSN Art & Art History Faculty Exhibition” CSN Art Galleries
CSN Department of Fine Arts: Link
College of Southern Nevada Department of Fine Arts Facebook: Link

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Threads, Folds, & Rabbit Holes: Complex Webs of Making

Exhibition Information

Location: Fine Arts Gallery on the CSN North Las Vegas Campus

Dates: Friday, February 8, 2019 – Saturday, March 16, 2019
Hours: 9am-6pm M-F, 10am-4pm Sat, Closed Sunday and all National Holidays
Preview, Artist Talk & Reception: Thursday, February 7, 6pm

Artist Statement

The industrial jacquard weavings in this exhibition are based on paintings from my Through the Veil and Holidays Unfolding series. Through the process of this work, I became interested in ways that digital technology translates images and gives multiple options for output.

Each painting in my recent Through the Veil series begins with a rendering from a closely observed fabric with wrinkles and folds. They recapitulate the compositional structure of a painting/drawing by artists from the past and present or my Photoshop collage. The fabric in these paintings acts as a limen or threshold that places the viewer into multiple, often conflicting, layers of space and meaning. In the series the Rabbit or environment may be stretched or manipulated through Photoshop to create a sense of instability, heightened emotion, or a digital sifting. The paintings good-humoredly deconstruct imagery from pop, outsider, and high culture to create new “spaces” of meaning. The shape-shifting Rabbit is positioned in front of or behind; it looks into, out, around or between images and spaces. Rabbit frequently appears in the series with his sidekick, Kitty Boy, who is based on my buff tabby, Bingley. The paintings use dark humor, visual puns, symbols and metaphors, moments of silence, art historical allusions, cultural collisions, and spiritual conundrums to play with style and pictorial/formal construction.

Holidays Unfolding investigates the trope of drapery and the idea of Still Life, not as Nature Morte (or “dead nature”) but as Nature Morte Vivante (vivante implying “fast moving action and a certainly lively quality”). The work also examines contradictory feelings that accompany loss, nostalgia, or ubi sunt to become a meditation on mortality and life’s transience. I explore new possibilities between a complex interface of painting, textiles, and digital technology while producing an end product that maintains the nuance and richness of slow work wrought by hand.

The complex threads of the industrial jacquard weavings add another visual and conceptual layer to process and product. Translating images, slowly painted by hand, into a potentially mass-produced product that simulates slow work wrought by hand is amusing, mesmerizing, troubling, and a symptom of our times. As artists we engage in a reciprocal fabric of making. We tie and re-tie “strings” that simultaneously pull on the past, present, and future, on the artist and the viewer.

The array of vistas before us is continually inspiring as is the use of literal and figurative points of view. The view of vastness, and places of intersections between our landscape and our lives, the edges of the desert and the seeping lines of progress, the forms created by wind and water. Patterns that evolve in contrast to organic shapes that lead me into to my slight obsession of the endless possibilities of cutting snowflake and mandala patterns. These patterns become symbols within my compositions in response to the range of events, people, and places that impact our perceptions. Exploring contrasting textures, colors, and ideas to create works that may alter a viewpoint, and possibly to make us look twice, to see, feel, or understand something more deeply.

Looking at the contrast between beauty and what may be an unsettling subject. The world where women and children are caught in conflict, the shattering of families and communities, the silenced voices of women, and my hope is that those works become a small token of memory to honor the lives that in an instant were taken from us, all the nameless array we hear about in endless news reports from acts we can not make sense of.

Biography

Kristy Deetz is a Professor in the Art Discipline at the University of Wisconsin—Green Bay. Her extensive exhibition record includes national and international venues. With Reni Gower, she co-curated FABRICation that traveled to art museums, university art galleries, and art centers. She frequently serves as a visiting artist and has led numerous painting/drawing workshops at venues including Haystack, Oxbow, Penland, Anderson Ranch, and Arrowmont. UWGB awarded her the 2011 Founders Award for Excellence in Scholarship and she received SECAC’s 2016 Award for Excellence in Teaching and a 2015 Silver Award from Graphis Design Annual, NY. Her paintings have been featured in Encaustic Art in the Twenty-First Century, Encaustic Art—The Complete Guide to Creating Fine Art with Wax, and Full-Range Color Painting for the Beginner. Recently she was selected for an Erasmus Visiting Lectureship at the University of Kassel, Germany, and a residency at The Burren College of Art in Ireland.

Links

Kristy Deetz Website
CSN Art Galleries Instagram
Review Journal: Art Exhibitions on Display in Las Vegas this Week

2018-2019 CSN Art & Art History Faculty Exhibition

Exhibition Information

Location: Fine Arts & Artspace Galleries on the CSN North Las Vegas Campus

Dates: Friday, November 30, 2018 – Saturday,January 26, 2019
Hours: 9am-6pm M-F, 10am-4pm Sat, Closed Sunday and all National Holidays
Artist Reception: Friday, November 30, 6-8pm

Exhibition Statement

The College of Southern Nevada Department of Fine Arts will host an exhibition featuring work of 35 faculty/artists from its Art & Art History Program. Works featured in this exhibition will highlight the vast range of offerings within the CSN Art & Art History Program including: ceramics, digital media, drawing, metal work, mixed media, painting, photography, printmaking, and sculpture. The “2018-2019 CSN Art & Art History Faculty Exhibition” will begin Friday, November 30, 2018 and will run through Saturday, January 26, 2019. An Artist Reception with refreshments will take place at the gallery on Friday, November 30, 2018, from 6 – 8 p.m. and is open to the public.

“2018 – 2019 CSN Art & Art History Faculty Exhibition” features 35 full and part-time Art & Art History Program faculty/artists: Suzanne Acosta, Dennis Angel, Linda Angel, Myranda Bair, Christopher Bauder, Mark Brandvik, Keith Conley, Michael Crowe, Brian Daw, Nancy Deaner, Daryl Depry, Lolita Develay, Kathleen Dillion, Jeff Fulmer, Jack Hallberg, Anne Hoff, Ben Johnsen, Elizabeth Klimek, Alfonso Lirani, Wayne Littlejohn, Gary Marx, Orlando Montenegro, Robert Nicholson, Daniel Ogletree, Manfred O’Hare, Mary Lou Parker, Eric Pawloski, Miguel Rodriguez, Sean Russell, Floyd Shepherd, Fred Sigman, Robin Stark, Carol Treat, Christopher Tsouras, Anna Vishnevsky and Joanne Vuillemot.

The CSN Fine Arts & Artspace Galleries are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The Fine Arts Gallery is located adjacent to the Nicholas J. Horn Theatre Lobby and the Artspace Gallery is located upstairs above the main entrance lobby, both on the North Las Vegas Campus of the College of Southern Nevada, one-mile East of I-15 North, 3200 E. Cheyenne Avenue, North Las Vegas, NV 89030.

 

 

Links

CSN Art Galleries: Link
Instagram: “2018-2019 CSN Art & Art History Faculty Exhibition” CSN Art Galleries
CSN Department of Fine Arts: Link
College of Southern Nevada Department of Fine Arts Facebook: Link

Theresa Sanders: In My Loves Vision

Exhibition Information

Location: Nicholas J. Horn Theatre Lobby Gallery on the CSN North Las Vegas Campus

Dates: Friday, November 30, 2018 – Saturday, January 26, 2019
Reception: Friday, November 30, 2018 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Hours: 9am-6pm M-F, 10am-4pm Sat, Closed Sunday and all National Holidays

 

ZAP 10 Pop-Up Art Show

Exhibition Information

Location: Fine Arts Gallery (H101) on the CSN North Las Vegas Campus

Dates: Thursday, November 15, 2018 – Monday, November 19, 2018
Reception: Monday, November 19, 2018 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Hours: 9am-6pm M-F, 10am-4pm Sat, Closed Sunday and all National Holidays

Clark County’s Zap 10 public art education outreach component will come to a close with an exclusive Pop-Up Gallery Exhibition, in partnership with the College of Southern Nevada Galleries, from November 15 – 19, 2018. This special exhibit will feature artwork created by students at the Walnut Afterschool Program, under the guidance of Zap 10 art instructors Brent Holmes and Sonia Limon.

This special pop-up show will also feature the background of Clark County’s Zap! Public Art Series, with information and on-line images to support and celebrate how Zap! was started, in 2005, and an online summary of the first ten Zap! projects, as well as images of the new education outreach workshops, which began with Zap 10.

The mission of the CSN Art Galleries is educational, and gallery patrons who attend the free Closing Night Reception will be able to see some of the online videos created for Zap 10 as well as the history of Zap!, projected in the gallery as part of the evening’s festivities. Light refreshments will be served and the students who want to take their project creations home, can do so at the end of the reception (after 7pm).

Links
Clark County Public Art
ZAP
Clark County Public Arts: Instagram
Clark County Public Arts: Facebook

Bobbie Ann Howell “Silenced Snowstorm”

Exhibition Information

Location: Artspace Gallery on the CSN North Las Vegas Campus

Dates: Friday, September 28, 2018 – Saturday, November 10, 2018
Hours: 8am-10:30pm M-F, 8am-5pm Sat, Closed Sunday and all National Holidays

Artist Statement

Many ideas and elements weave in and out of my work, some concepts repeatedly find their way into the compositions. The cut paper drawings employ a combination of methods and materials, the graphite and silverpoint drawings are cut away with a knife, revealing the negative spaces to create the shapes, revealing shadow forms and reflected color. Opening up the forms creates a sense of vulnerability, exploiting the strength and fragile nature of the paper.  In some instances to make the work feel as if it were disappearing or shattering. Ideas and forms are often derived from the vast array of elements found within the Nevada environment paired with the concepts involved in the struggle of our humanity within the world and events that surround us.

The array of vistas before us is continually inspiring as is the use of literal and figurative points of view. The view of vastness, and places of intersections between our landscape and our lives, the edges of the desert and the seeping lines of progress, the forms created by wind and water. Patterns that evolve in contrast to organic shapes that lead me into to my slight obsession of the endless possibilities of cutting snowflake and mandala patterns. These patterns become symbols within my compositions in response to the range of events, people, and places that impact our perceptions. Exploring contrasting textures, colors, and ideas to create works that may alter a viewpoint, and possibly to make us look twice, to see, feel, or understand something more deeply.

Looking at the contrast between beauty and what may be an unsettling subject. The world where women and children are caught in conflict, the shattering of families and communities, the silenced voices of women, and my hope is that those works become a small token of memory to honor the lives that in an instant were taken from us, all the nameless array we hear about in endless news reports from acts we can not make sense of.

Biography

Bobbie Ann Howell grew up in beautiful Lee Canyon, Nevada, a mountain community northwest of the Las Vegas valley. Born in a state that has dramatic contrasts from the desert valleys to high mountain vistas, from crowed urban centers to the open windswept spaces, each having long been a part of her life and in turn her art. Howell attended school in Indian Springs, and graduated from Western High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her Bachelor of Fine Arts is from Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture and Drawing from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, Ill. and she has been fine arts faculty at Steven F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas, University of Nevada Las Vegas, and College of Southern Nevada, teaching sculpture, foundry, drawing, two and three dimensional design, and painting.

She continues to teach workshops, and classes for a wide range of students from her studio, B.E.S.T. Arts 4 U, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her works are in public and private collections, across the United States, and she presents in solo and group exhibitions throughout the country.  Howell was part of the 2017 ArtPop Street Gallery in Las Vegas where one of her artworks was displayed on a billboard along Interstate 15 in Las Vegas, and she was awarded the 2018 Nevada Arts Council Visual Art Fellowship.

Links

Nevada Humanities: Link
Instagram: “Silenced Snowstorm” CSN Art Galleries

Leila Hernández: “La Visa Negra”

Exhibition Information

Location: Fine Arts Gallery (H101) on the CSN North Las Vegas Campus

Dates: Friday, September 21, 2018 – Saturday, November 3, 2018
Hours: 9am-6pm M-F, 10am-4pm Sat, Closed Sunday and all National Holidays

Artist Statement

La Visa Negra is a collection of narratives dealing with time, identity, and place via the cultural crossover between South Texas and Northern Mexico. The base of the conceptual discourse of this work derives from researching and referencing the daily lives and sociopolitical concerns of illegal immigrants living and working in the United States. The entire exhibition is sustainable recycled art created from re purposed clothing gathered from, thrift shops, flea markets (pulgas), and the ropas which are a sort of commercial thrift shop where clothing is sold by the pound. This visual observation has transformed the used clothing or ropas into a media of expression representing the humanized signifier of likely situations as might be experienced by the thousands of nameless and faceless workers. The term Visa Negra is the satirical code known among the people crossing the border illegally through the Rio Grande River and it is the black visa meaning the black inner tube the only required “paperwork” needed to cross the river.

La Visa Negra collection is composed of two areas. The first portion is a series of textile tapestries and the second is a collection of framed quilts referred to as Las Labores. This exhibition contains material gathered at the border wall that immigrants use to cross over such as wooden ladders. There is also an additional artwork titled “A Word on DACA” can be a stand alone piece, due to the direct political comment regarding the disappearance of an opportunity to the children (known as the Dreamers) brought to the United States by their migrating parents. This piece is inspired on North American quilting symbol of “safe house” designed to help runaway slaves escape in the south. “A Word on DACA” is largely created from graduation gowns and honor cords to demonstrate the type of exceptional students that are typically Dreamers. These students are a positive contribution to society, but have been let down by negative political influences that have no humanity, it is all just business: money, money, money — as shown on the edges of the artwork.

The Tapestries. There is a total of three 5ft. x 45in. tapestries. Each tapestry is created on a bed sheet symbolizing a personal view. The bed sheets are also a metaphor of airing laundry code for talking publicly about issues that many want to keep quiet or ignore completely. The tapestries were part of a larger exhibit collaboration titled “Nothing to Declare” which has been exhibited in South Texas and the Philippines. This exhibition was a collaboration with Phyllis Leverich who contributed with photographs from the South Texas Border Region, which are Xerox transfers. All the tapestries are mixed textile appliqué media.

“You Reap What You Sow / Cosecha lo que Siembras” and “Divided Roads Urban/Rural Tapestry” deal with issues of melancholy.

“El Sueño de la Migración / The Migration Dream Tapestry” talk about all kinds of migrations besides humans, such as animals and insects; many of which are becoming endangered by the very wall that obstructs their migration paths. This piece also has seven lucky wooden ladders —one for each day of the week, collected from the border wall, left behind by immigrants crossing illegally. It also has veladoras or candles remembering those who have lost their lives during their effort to reach the new land.

Las Labores is a Spanish term used to mean jobs or duties. This section is composed of a total of twelve 24in. x 24in. x 3in pieces. The number twelve symbolizes the concept that some citizens have of illegal immigrants arriving to the United States seeking refuge. They see faceless illegal immigrant that are worth a dime a dozen. The inner tube represented by the rubber circle in each composition, represent a type of magical portal that many illegal immigrant goes through when they swim across the Rio Grande River on an inner tube escaping the violent reality in their country of origin. This experience offers a new opportunity, a new life, a different level in their lives, hence the reason to include portions of graduation gowns in most of these pieces. The soft textured triangular shapes are inspired by North American quilting symbols designed to help runaway slaves escape in the south. The symbol of these triangular shapes make up a star which stands for, not only a guiding tool, but also as a symbol of dreams and hopes of the North. Search for your golden star. Reach your dream of freedom and equality. Vete al Norte! Go North! Get a new life in the Land of Freedom and Opportunity.

The twelve pieces in the Las Labores Collection present a variety of household employments jobs such as: gardener, maid, cook, nanny, lawn maintenance (yardero), and house cleaning services. Then it also has other commercial employments such as: street vendors, restaurant dishwashers, fruit and veggie pickers, construction workers, and more detailed construction jobs such as roofing and drywall hangers which Hispanic immigrants are famous for their speed and quality. All of these jobs have a high level of labor intensity, typically filled by people who do not have any legal documentation or sometimes have very little formal education. This exhibition is not making a statement about the type of jobs, but about these amazing people worthy of admiration and respect. They are willing to take these difficult labor intensive jobs — in many cases one person has multiple jobs, in order to support their family and provide their loved ones with an honest life. Every day children in schools all over the United States recite the Pledge of Allegiance: “…with liberty and justice for all.” Let these words be true and let everyone have freedom and liberty.

Biography

Leila Hernandez, MFA, University of Florida, studied Diseño Artesanal (Handcraft design) at the Universidad Dr. Jose Matias Delgado in the Escuela de Artes Aplicadas Carlos Alberto Imery in her country of origin El Salvador located in Central America, where she learned about ceramics, textiles and metals. Her undergrad thesis was a rescue project to recover and protect the dying knowledge of the backstrap loom practiced at that time only in the small Salvadorean village of Panchimalco. She is an artist, designer, a fervent admirer of popular culture and ancient folklore.

Ms. Hernandez has lived in Europe and visited many museums and cultural centers that have influenced her artistic background such as The Vatican Museum, the Uffizi, Museo Nacional Del Prado, The Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, and the Hermitage. She lived in Florence and Paris studying printmaking, drawing, painting and art history. Her thirst of culture and knowledge is unquenched and she looks forward to traveling to lands with rich historic backgrounds in color, texture, and pattern. She is a lover of the Arts and Crafts Movement and an admirer of William Morris and his world influence in Design and Craft.

Even though Ms. Hernandez now resides in the United States, she always finds a way to reconnect to her beloved handcrafts/Artesanias, culture and folklore not just from her country of origin but to other cultures that are immersed in color, texture and pattern.

Ms. Hernandez explores the mixtures of cultures, ideas and opinions in the border area between South Texas and Northern Mexico which she exhibited in Manila, Philippines at an international exhibition at the Jorge B. Vargas Museum titled Nothing to Declare. Ms. Hernandez latest work is titled “La Visa Negra” which is a continuation of Nothing to Declare. This latest exhibition is collection of narratives dealing with border issues and the effects of immigration in refugees living and working in the United States. The media applied in the work is composed mainly of used clothing or ropa usada. This collection is a salute to the contemporary hard working immigrants that are forging their happily ever after in the United States.

A global artist, Ms. Hernandez has lived and traveled abroad in countries such as: Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, England, Russia, Mexico, Colombia as well as Central America: Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Honduras. Ms. Hernandez enjoys and is receptive to the color, texture and compositions in local handcrafts of the countries that she has had the fortune of visiting and those that she has visited through their artwork.

Links

Desert Companion: 2018 Fall Culture Guide: Visual Arts
Instagram: “La Visa Negra” CSN Art Galleries

Elena Wherry: “Bleaching”

Exhibition Information

Location: Artspace Gallery on the CSN North Las Vegas Campus

Dates: Friday, July 20, 2018 – Saturday, September 15, 2018
Artist Talk: Thursday, September 13, 6 p.m.

Artist Statement

Coral die-off is caused by a process known as bleaching. Dying coral look bland and lifeless, in contrast to the vivid rainbow hues of thriving coral. Using collage techniques, various papers and watermedia I visualize the beauty found under the water. I fuse abstraction and representation, vibrant colors and monotonous hues, living creatures and dying cells. My intention is show the great beauty and complexity of the coral, but allude to catastrophic climate change and pollution of the ocean.

People have referred to coral bleaching as “the most beautiful death”. The viewer must question is this is alive or deceased?

Biography

Elena Wherry (Pisnaya) was born in Russia in 1967. Art and creativity have been a part of her life as long as she can remember, having grown up with a father and grandfather who were both great musicians and artists. After moving to the United States in 2000, she began to study art in college and work professionally as an artist. She took Art History and almost all of studio art classes at the College of Southern Nevada and UNLV. After rediscovering watercolor and loving to work on paper surface, she began to take workshops with the best national and international watermedia artists.

Elena is constantly learning and searching for ways to keep her work exciting. She has accumulated numerous awards at the local and national juried exhibitions. In 2016 Elena was an artist in residence at the Neon Museum in Las Vegas. Her works were exhibited at the Barrick Museum, and her paintings are in the permanent collection of UNLV Student Union.

Links

Elena Wherry Artist Homepage: http://elenawherry.com/
Elean Wherry Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elenawherry/
Review Journal “Las Vegas Art Galleries”: https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/arts-culture/las-vegas-art-galleries-6/

Shona Macdonald: “Overcast”

Exhibition Information

Location: Fine Arts Gallery on the CSN North Las Vegas Campus

Dates: Friday, July 13, 2018 – Saturday, September 8, 2018
Artist Talk: Thursday, September 6, 4 p.m.

Artist Statement

These works form a series that investigates topsy-turvy, skewed, and disorienting views of the world as a metaphor for our enduring sense of displacement. Based on my encounters with the landscape as a mysterious and unpredictable place, the puddles depicted in the paintings, and their attendant reflected images, shrink and disappear, hinting at our transient and fragile hold on the earth. Literally, they reflect upon the environment by offering transparent water to gaze into and metaphorically, these pools of water are a mirrored surface that flattens and disconcerts us by casting back an image. The work acknowledges that reflections in water are a significant part of the history of painting yet rather than depict these as places that evoke elevated or sublime emotional states, I focus attention on the puddle’s intimacy and melancholia. At the heart of this work there is an uncanny ‘doubling’ embedded in the use of reflections that I purposefully employ to exaggerate our sense of dislocation and displacement as we move throughout the world.

Driving and walking around uncovers these arresting images by simply observing my surroundings.  Through repeated viewing, I become particularly interested in the shape of and reflected images created by the puddles. Images are initially recorded as photographs that are then developed over time using Photoshop and drawing. I also rely on memory to recall what I have seen. My process then entails an initial layer of acrylic paint, laid down as either a solid or very washy color which is then built upon by accumulated layers of oil paint.  The underpainting seeps through, creating a sense of depth.  ‘Ghosting’ occurs in the layering method I use, not only in the underpainting peeking through from underneath, but also, in how the materiality of the paint retains its ‘body’ and starts to produce seams, scars, and other dimensional marks. My physical treatment of the paint helps me wring out psychological content and further connects the viewer to the subject matter through the palpable presence of the human hand in constructing the images. Different scale choices allow me to experiment with space and not be constrained by habit or familiarity. For example, the physical size of the smaller works echoes small niches within the landscape they represent, while the larger canvases offer a more expansive and immersive experience for the viewer.

Biography

Shona Macdonald received her MFA in 1996 in studio arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago and her BFA in 1992 from Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. She has had selected solo shows at the Tarble Arts Center, Charleston, IL, (2015), Gridspace, Brooklyn, NY, (2014), Ebersmoore, Chicago, (2012), the Roswell Art Museum, Roswell, NM, (2011), Engine Room, Wellington, New Zealand, (2010), Proof Gallery, Boston, MA (2009), Reeves Contemporary, NY, NY (2008), Den Contemporary, LA, CA, (2007), Skestos-Gabriele, Chicago IL, (2005), Galerie Refugium, Berlin, Germany, (2002), and Fassbender Gallery, Chicago (1998 and 2000). Her work has been included in numerous group shows across the United States, UK, Australia, and Canada. Reviews of her work are included in Art in America, Art News, the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Sacramento Bee, Boston Globe, Artscope, and New American Paintings. She has been a Visiting Artist at over forty institutions, including Wimbledon College of Art, London, (1998), Georgia State University, Atlanta, (2007), Cornell University (2006), the University of Alberta, and the University of Calgary, Canada, (2002). Shona Macdonald was the recipient of a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, NY, (2009), a Fellow at Roswell Artist-in-Residence in Roswell, New Mexico, (2010-11), Can Serrat, Barcelona, Spain, (2012), the Cromarty Arts Trust in Scotland and will be resident at Ballinglen in Ireland, summer of 2017. She is currently Professor of Studio Art and Graduate Program Director at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and formerly Associate Professor at Illinois State University, where she taught from 1998 until 2006.

Links

Shona Macdonald Artist Homepage: https://www.shonamacdonald.com/
University of Massachusetts Amherst Faculty Page: https://www.umass.edu/art/people/shona
Garvey Simon Gallery, New York, NY: http://www.garveysimon.com/artists/shona-macdonald?view=slider

CSN 2018 Juried Student Exhibition & Salon de Refuses

Exhibition Information
Location: Fine Arts & Artspace Galleries on the CSN North Las Vegas Campus
Dates: Friday, May 11 – Saturday, June 23, 2018
Juror’s Talk, Awards Presentation & Artist Reception: Friday, May 11, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Press Release
The College of Southern Nevada Fine Arts Gallery will present its annual Juried Student Exhibition beginning Friday, May 11, 2018 and will run through Saturday, June 23, 2018. A reception with refreshments, awards ceremony, gallery talk, and Salon de Refusés will take place on Friday, May 11, from 6 – 8 p.m. This exhibition will feature student artwork made in connection with CSN Fine Arts Department, Art and Art History courses with media including drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, jewelry and design.

This year’s exhibition will feature guest judges, the Latinos Who Lunch: Mr. Justin Favela (Favy Fav), Artist, BFA, University of Nevada Las Vegas and Dr. Emmanuel Ortega (Babelito), Curator, PhD, Ibero-American Colonial Art History, University of New Mexico.

FavyFav is a Las Vegas native and an artist working in the mediums of painting, sculpture, and performance. He is also a curator, food writer, and avid podcast listener. He has participated in exhibitions in Nevada and across the United States. Las Vegas venues include the Contemporary Arts Center and the Clark County Government Center. His work draws from art history, popular culture and his Guatemalan/Mexican heritage. Favy has curated many shows throughout southern Nevada, from UNLV’s Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art to El Porvenir Mini-Market in North Las Vegas.

Babelito is a Curator and earned his PhD in Ibero-America colonial art history from the University of New Mexico. He is a music lover, a Café Tacvba fan and a music festival junky. Since 2007 he has explored themes of violence, identity, race and class difference in colonial Latin American art. He has presented his work in the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) in 2012 and the College of Art Association and American Studies Association in 2015. He has curated art exhibitions for Museo de Arte Religioso Ex-Convento de Santa Mónica in Puebla México, the Mexican Consulate in Las Vegas and for the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV). Currently, Babelito is finishing his Ph.D thesis work and is constantly contributing to the education programs of Arquetopia, Foundation for Development in Puebla and Oaxaca Mexico.

The CSN Art Galleries would like to thank its guest judges, FavyFav and Babelito and its outstanding community partner, Blick Art Materials for their generous support of this exhibition and our students.

 

And the Winners Are…

JUROR’S AWARD
Christine Debacker-Guziak
10 Color Silkscreen Print
Nevada’s Cold War Consequence
Professor Anne Hoff, Serigraphy

JUROR’S AWARD
Jozet Deras
Wood and Yarn Sculpture
Unfinished
Professor Christopher Bauder, Sculpture I

JUROR’S AWARD
Jose De’Andre Rivera lll
Watercolor
A Quite Morning in Edo
Professor Alfonso Lirani, Watercolor I

JUROR’S AWARD
Dan Hernandez
Oil Painting
Self Portrait: Outward Appearances
Professor Mark Brandvik, Painting I

JUROR’S AWARD
Katlin Quezada
Colored Pencil and Ink on Paper
Stripes and Lights
Professor James Ogletree, Drawing II

JUROR’S AWARD
Mason Rempfer
Charcoal on Paper
Saint Cardi
Professor Anne Hoff, Drawing II

JUROR’S AWARD
Yaffa Cary
Ceramic
Love Box
Professor Robin Starks, Ceramics I

JUROR’S AWARD
Maria Lozano Siciarz
Ink on Paper
Grid Pattern Portrait
Professor Kathleen Nathan’s 2D Design Fundamentals

JUROR’S AWARD
Barbara Gerhardt
Sterling Silver Jewelry
Ying & Yang Earrings
Professor Emerita Joanne Vuillemot, Jewelry I

JUROR’S AWARD
Nanci Clyde
Digital Painting
Fall
Professor Suzanne Acosta, Painting I

The CSN Fine Arts Gallery and all gallery events are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are from 9 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The Fine Arts Gallery are located at the half circle drive near CSN’s main entrance, on the North Las Vegas campus at 3200 E. Cheyenne Avenue, one mile East of I-15 North.

For more information please call (702) 651-4146, email: artgallery@csn.edu or visit:https://www.csn.edu/artgallery