[framed] opens 12-2-2011

[framed]
Selected Work from UNL Photography Students

December 2, 7-10 pm
December 3, 1-4 pm

This juried show includes work by: Beth Blevins, Taylor Colt, Ryan Ferguson, Kate Florian, Sarah Johnson, Bryan Klopping, Sarah Lieswald, Andrea Maack, Alisha Parpart, Bethany Rachow, Nathan Sanks, Benjamin Sattler, Ashley Sears, Megan Stokes, and Alisa Stuckert. 89 works were submitted by UNL undergraduate photography students; 30 of these works were accepted for the exhibition.

Alisa Stuckert’s photograph Billy’s Letters (2011) was selected as best in show.

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Emma Nishimura at Parallax

Emma Nishimura’s installation Vestige: Navigating the Layers was up at Parallax from October 7-31, 2011. Here is Emma’s artist’s statment from the exhibit:

Three years after finding a box full of my grandmother’s sewing patterns in my mother’s basement, I am still trying to work through all of the memories and emotions connected with it.  Passed down through the generations, I have inherited these patterns, just as I have inherited my grandmother’s stories.  Growing up, I was very much haunted by the experiences of my Japanese Canadian grandparents, their time spent in Japan, their internment during the Second World War and the years following that time.  I heard these tales around the dinner table at my grandparent’s house, my sister and I sitting quietly, listening attentively, learning of our family’s legacy.  Yet many stories were left untold, questions unasked due to the silence and bitterness that seemed to cloak the events of the internment.  Only now, in my attempt to gather and record all that is remembered of my grandparent’s lives, do I realize the impossibility of ever knowing the entire story.  All that is left are fragments of memories and different versions of events.  Stories mediated over time through different tellings and retellings have left distinctions between fact and fiction blurred.
After sorting through these narratives, my grandmother’s patterns and their many layers of history, I have taken on their burden and have acquired baggage that I cannot seem to let go of.  Thus, it is through this body of work that I seek to explore the ideas of melancholy, of being trapped in history and returning to the same stories again and again.  In re-making the garments that my grandmother once created, I have re-traced her movements and made visible something that was long ago lost.  Yet, throughout this process I have been acutely aware of the futility of my actions, as these garments can only ever be an echo of what once was.  However, despite the fragmented versions of events that I have collected, and the elusive and fragile nature of memory, I seek to create though my work an environment in which to share these stories.

October First Friday

Our October show, Vestige: Navigating the Layers, will feature an installation by Emma Nishmura, a second-year MFA student in printmaking at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Emma was featured in a Lincoln Journal Star article this past March, which you can read by clicking here.

Emma’s show will be up at Parallax from October 7-31, 2011, with an opening reception on October 7th from 7-11 pm.

August and September Shows

It was a busy summer of traveling, and as is always the case, the months flew by too quickly. We’re almost halfway through the fall semester at UNL, and getting ready for yet another opening this Friday.

In August, Parallax featured Takeaway, an exhibition of the work of Danny Sullivan, a senior BFA major in painting at UNL. Danny performed live at the opening, staging a 90-minute demonstration of his working process, which involves the use of power tools to strip away layers of paint, revealing a nuanced play of color and form.

September’s show was Women’s Work, organized by Lora Rocke. The exhibition featured work by Maranda Allbritten, Gerit Grimm, Julie McCullough, Erika Navarette, and Lora Rocke.

What does women’s work look like? Is it possible to assign a definition, subject matter, or formal appearance to artwork made by women? What are the problems that arise when one starts to apply parameters to “women’s work?” These are among the questions posed by the exhibit Women’s Work, which brings together an array of mediums and techniques in order to display the wide array of visual production by women artists. The artwork on exhibit showcases painting, printmaking, drawing, ceramics, cloth & thread, and found object sculptures in a wide variety of subjects, ranging from abstract and geometric to figural and representational. Showing such a range of work in the same space demonstrates the futility in attempting to define a singular notion of work created by women. Women’s work is instead presented as diverse and multi-faceted: Grimm subversively reimagines the Leda and the Swan myth; Navarette lushly renders open-ended narratives; Rocke defies medium specificity in translating photographs to sewn fabric; McCullough reconfigures discarded and archaic objects to give them new life; and Allbritten pulls viewers to the surface of the works through attenuated and nuanced forms.

Viva Dan up until July 16th

Happy summer!

Ying Zhu’s stunningly beautiful show, Viva Dan, will be up until July 16th at Parallax Space. Visits are by appointment; send a message to parallaxspace@gmail.com.

I also encourage everyone to visit Beili Liu‘s exhibit, Drawn, at the Hillestad Gallery on the East Campus of the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Beili created several site-specific works for the show, which is on view at Hillestad until September 9th.

Ying Zhu @ Parallax

My apologies to everyone for being so far behind in my posts. I was swept up in end of the semester paper reading and grading, not to mention working on the installation of Ying’s show! But summer is finally here, and I intend to update everyone on what’s been going on at Parallax for the past month and a half.

The current show is Viva Dan by Ying Zhu, which will be up through August. Ying’s husband, Miao Liu, took absolutely stunning photos of the show, which he has graciously made available for viewing. You can also check out L. Kent Wolgamott’s article in The Journal Star on Ying’s show.

Approximately 6500 4 x4” hand-sewn paper towel pillows, made specifically for this exhibition, cover the gallery walls, transforming the space into a room both comfortingly domestic and eerily institutional. In the center of the room is an eggshell rug, comprised of hundreds of shards of broken eggshells in varying tones of brown, ecru, and white. The title Viva Dan demonstrates the multi-faceted nature of language, as well as the often surprising moments of shared phonetics between different languages. Viva refers to the brand of paper towels used to make the pillows, while also serving as a point of exclamation in Spanish: Long live! Dan is the phonetic sound of ‘egg’ in Chinese, as well as a masculine name in English, creating a play between gender identifications.

Ying Zhu was born and raised in China. She received a MFA from University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2010. She will be an Artist-in-Residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, in September 2011. She is currently studying building codes extensively in order to finish the renovation of her studio space in Omaha.

SIGHT//NON-SIGHT

SIGHT/NON-SIGHT runs from April 1 – 24, 2011

Opening Reception: April 1, 2011, 7-11 pm

Alexandra Borovsky and Benjamin Rek, Early Bird, 2011

SIGHT/NON-SIGHT is the first annual juried exhibition of artwork submitted by members of the Art League at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.  The theme of SIGHT/NON-SIGHT plays off the concept of vision, oft regarded as the most integral aspect of the artist’s practice or the realized work of art.  Yet to privilege and parallel the concept of vision with that of sight is to neglect the powerful and generative force of blindness, or non-sight.  The title of the exhibition also resonates with Robert Smithson’s site/non-site dialectic.  Following Smithson’s writings on his artistic practice, the site operates as open, while the non-site is closed, just as sight suggests the open eye, while non-sight suggests the closed or blinded eye.  Artists were encouraged to interpret the theme in any way they desire: literally, abstractly, theoretically, formally, etc.  Special attention may was also given to the fact that the opening falls on April Fool’s Day, which aligns with the concept of trompe l’œil, or “to fool the eye.”  Do we really see what we think we see, or does sight ultimately, and pleasurably, deceive us?

List of Works:

Keegan Baker, Three Faces Self-Portrait, 2010, Charcoal on paper; NFS

Sophomore, Art Major

Alexandra Borovski, The Pineapple Field, 2010; acrylic on mylar stitched with thread; $400

Senior, Art Major

Alexandra Borovski, Untitled (I Once Was), 2011; Photocopy on mylar stitched with horse hair; NFS

Senior, Art Major

Alexandra Borovski & Benjamin Rek, Early Bird, 2011, Oil on canvas; $250

Senior, Art Major

Dan Buhrdorf, The Wall, Ongoing since 2010; Panel painted the color of the wall; NFS

Senior, Art Major

Kelli Dornbos, Wrinkles, 2011, oil on canvas; $250

Junior, Art and Art Education Major

James Laville, Jacob Sleeping, 2011; Oil on canvas; NFS

Senior, Art Major

Drew Lueders, Mesonic CFL, 2011; NFS

Senior, Art Major

Benjamin Rek, Larder, 2011, Wood, plaster, and enamel; $250

Senior, Art Major

Chantel Rosno, The Value, 2011, Lithography, plastic lights, blankets, cardboard; Contact artist for pricing

Senior Art Major

Kan Seidel, Pass/No Pass, 2011; Video collage; Contact artist for pricing

Senior, English Major

Danny Sullivan, Will-O-Wisp, 2011; Oil and acrylic on canvas; $700 OBO

Senior, Art Major

Michael Burton in Blink at the Denver Art Museum

A paintamation by Michael Burton, whose work with Anne Ruehrmund Burton was featured in our December 2010-January 2011 show TWEEN, is included in the current exhibition Blink! Light, Sound and the Moving Image at the Denver Art Museum. There is a stellar array of artists in the show, including Bruce Nauman, William Kentridge, Lorna Simpson, Bill Viola, and Jennifer Steinkamp.

Michael and Anne will exhibit TWEEN at the Fred Simon Gallery in Omaha, NE, from March 14-April 22, 2011.

TWEEN was selected for inclusion in the juried exhibition at the Bemis Underground in Omaha, NE, which runs from March 18-April 16, 2011.

Congratulations to Mike and Anne! We love these two and their work, and wish them continuous success in all their endeavors.

Vicarious Encounters: Work by Matt Belk

Vicarious Encounters: Work by Matt Belk

March 4-28, 2011

Matt is a senior BFA major at UNL, and will be graduating in May. He is currently working on a site-specific installation of his work at the gallery, the majority of which will be painted and drawn directly on the walls. Matt has set a series of environmental and temporal constraints upon himself to see what type of outcome emerges when the artist is put under pressure to create. The exhibition will be unveiled at the opening reception on Friday, March 4, 2011, from 7:00-11:00 pm.

Privacy and the Plains: New Work by Kimberly Thomas

Privacy and the Plains: New Work by Kimberly Thomas

February 4-26, 2011

Our February exhibition of work by Kimberly Thomas was held in conjunction with the second Lincoln PhotoFest.  We had great attendance at the opening reception, and thank everyone who braved the cold February night to support the artist and our space.

Artist Statement

For this exhibition I am merging two bodies of work, Settled/Settling and The Plains.  The Settled/Settling images arose from my decision to stay in Lincoln, NE, after finishing graduate school.  This decision felt like a commitment and I was experiencing conflicting feelings of contentment and disappointment.  Contentment from living a stable, happy life, and disappointment from fear that I was settling for something less that I had expected for my life.  These homes and neighborhoods are indicative of the place and community I now call home, but they are not meant as documents.  For me, these images stem from a sense of familiarity and my questions about the familiar.  I find contradiction and tension in these photographs; they are simultaneously ordinary and bizarre, familiar and beautiful, inviting and foreboding.  These descriptions mimic my sentiments of the title Settled / Settling.

Right away I started noticing some of the iconography from the Settled/Settling photographs making an appearance in The Plains series.  The power lines connect the images in an almost literal way.  Another similarity is the ambiguity of the places depicted.  Landscape camouflaging and nondescript buildings take the place of fences and foliage that separated and obscured the domestic spaces of Settled/Settling, changing the vista through the inclusion of blank, geometric shapes.

I had thought that both of these series were an investigation of my surroundings, but it is clear that these images are more about me rather than a description of Nebraska.  For the first time in my photographic career, my images seem to be engaged in a conversation with one another.  I find myself wanting to see certain images next to each other.  My hope in exhibiting this work together is to further examine this visual dialogue.

About the Artist

Originally from Missouri, Kimberly Thomas now resides in Lincoln, NE.  Kimberly received her MFA degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2008 and she now teaches photography at Metropolitan Community College and Creighton University.  Recent achievements include solo exhibitions at the Midwest Society for Photographic Education conference in Kalamazoo, MI and from the Nebraska Arts Council and the Kansas City Artists Coalition.  Concurrent with this exhibition, Kimberly also curated an exhibition that is on view during February at Tugboat Gallery in Lincoln, NE.