Video Room – Kelley O’Brien: American At Work at Real Art Ways

On view in our Video Room is American At Work by Ohio-based artist Kelley O’Brien.

In her multidisciplinary practice, O’Brien explores how social systems are created and maintained through architecture, both physical and constructed. In American At Work, we watch Angel, a naturalized American citizen from Mexico City and General Services Administration employee at the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building in Cleveland as he performs one of the duties of his position. While he removes and replaces the outgoing portraits of Barack Obama and Joe Biden with that of Donald Trump and Mike Pence, the viewer is reminded of the continued effort of the current administration to wall off his homeland.

From her artist statement, “I produce interruptions that act to reveal the affective dimensions of architectural and social systems. My practice takes the form of site-specific works, to provide alternative contexts by which to understand lived environments. Through the creation of aesthetic interventions such as: radio broadcasts, historical landmarkers, personal interviews, and literal maps I aim to locate myself, individuals, and communities within the intangible context of their social relations.”

For more information on Kelley O’Brien and her work, visit her website.

Featured image: American At Work still

Artist Talk: Saturday, March 9 | 2:30 PM 

2018 Real Art Award recipient Niki Kriese presents new works in her solo exhibition Chewing the Scenery. In her paintings, Kriese utilizes vernacular locations like gardens or skateparks to craft complex figure ground studies. The resulting images contain a strong sense of nuance while delving into issues surrounding duality, specificity, and sense of place. Her compositions contain a playful weirdness while simultaneously referencing abandonment.

Says Visual Arts Coordinator Neil Daigle Orians, “Niki’s work allows, and in fact encourages, the viewer to imagine a space that is familiar, but not too familiar. During a studio visit, I fell in love with her process of collaging images that ultimately become the disjointed, technicolor spaces of color and texture.”

On view January 17 – March 31, 2019
Opening reception: Thursday, January 17, 6-8 PM during Creative Cocktail Hour
Artist talk: Saturday, March 9, 3 PM

About the Artist
After barely graduating with her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2007, Niki Kriese moved to New York in search of fame, fortune, and falafel. She doesn’t remember anything before that. She makes art and lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and freaking adorable kids.

About the Real Art Awards
The 2018 Real Art Awards competition was open at no charge to artists living in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Niki was one of six artists chosen from a field of 286 applicants. The three jurors were multimedia artist Saya Woolfalk; New Britain Museum of American Art Director Min Jung Kim; and Real Art Ways Executive Director Will K. Wilkins.

The 2018 Real Art Awards is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and The Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation.

Featured image: Between Us (detail), 2018, 20” x 24”, acrylic on canvas

Downstream is an exhibition of sculptural paper works by artist Barbara Hocker. Her work explores nature, creating experiential installations and pieces that engage the viewer in a serene manner.

From her artist statement:
Viewers have often told me that my work is very peaceful, quiet, and serene. I think this comes from my love of being alone in the woods or at the shore and trying to bring that feeling to my art making. My ongoing practices of Tai Chi/meditation and study of East Asian metaphysics and aesthetics also inform my art practice. Yin and yang, being and nonbeing, stillness and movement, light and dark, sea and sky, surface and depth, artist and viewer, self and nature – I am interested in exploring how one can see beyond polarities to sense the invisible and mysterious unity underlying them.

Says Visual Arts Coordinator Neil Daigle Orians, “Part of what makes Barbara’s work so fascinating is the forms and structures she utilizes to convey her imagery. By utilizing books as an artform, she’s tapping into the history of language and the culture of story. Her flatworks exploit the flexibility of the medium, taking digitally printed images and crafting painterly compositions that mimic the fibrous nature of her kozo papers.”

About the Artist
Barbara Hocker is a Connecticut native with extensive experience creating and exhibiting work including solo shows and projects in Hartford, New Haven, Newport, and Boston. She has work in several corporate and private collections, including the permanent collection of The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan and several related hospitals in New York and New Jersey. Awards received include an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Greater Hartford Arts Council, a Creation of New Work Initiative Grant from the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation, and an Artist Resource Trust Fellowship from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation. She holds a degree in Fibers from Syracuse University’s College of Visual & Performing Arts and attended Cranbrook Academy of Arts. Barbara lives in Bolton, Connecticut and maintains a studio in the Arbor Arts Center in Hartford. Her art process has been informed by her practice of Yoga, Tai Chi and Qi Gong for more than 25 years.

Learn more at her website.

Featured image: Woven Water XXII (detail) – 2018, 23″ x 90″, pigment print, monotype, rice paper, encaustic medium

Utilizing the camera as a mark making tool, Keri Halloran creates images that exploit the painterly possibilities of photography. In this body of work, I bet burning alive would be beautiful., Halloran captures ambiguous images that exist in a liminal space between reality and fiction, literally blurring the lines between what is and is not recognizable. Combining this with a sensitivity to materials and installation methods, the result allows the viewer to engage in her photographs as objects, images, and an expansive collage on the wall.

From her artist statement:
“As each perspective gets layered onto one’s self, it has an affect on one’s perceived reality. The viewer receives from the disparate images emotions that are communicating with each other in a positive and negative way. The vagueness and ambiguity within the visuals lends itself to the vagueness that the self can embrace as well.”

About the Artist
Keri Halloran is an artist from Hartford, Connecticut who focuses on visual sensations within images. She received a Bachelors of Fine Arts in photography at Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford. Keri is actively showing throughout Connecticut while working full time in commercial photography.

http://www.kerihalloran.com
Instagram: @keri.halloran

Real Wall is a series of wall mounted exhibitions taking place in between formal gallery spaces. Artists are invited to engage with the space in experimental ways meaningful to their practice in short-run exhibitions.

Real Art Ways is partnering with Visual AIDS and AIDSCT (ACT) on the 29th annual Day With(out) Art, for a one-night film screening of Alternate Endings, Activist Rising and a round table community discussion to follow.

Taking place in our video gallery, this is a special opportunity to compare and contrast the various methods and programs presented in the film with local organizers and activists here in Hartford. 

Deputy Director of ACT, Shawn Lang and Real Art Ways Visual Arts Coordinator, Neil Daigle Orians will help lead the roundtable talk asking critical questions such as: How is the AIDS crisis still affecting us in Hartford and Connecticut, and what are people doing about it? 

Visual AIDS is the only arts organization fully committed to raising AIDS awareness and creating dialogue around HIV issues today.  They produce and present work, assist artists living with HIV/AIDS, and have a commitment to preserving and honoring the work of artists with HIV/AIDS and the artistic contributions of the AIDS movement.

ACT, with its partners, increases Connecticut’s capacity to ensure that all people impacted by HIV/AIDS and related health issues have access to health, housing and support services.

Free Admission.
All are invited to attend and add to the conversation.

About the film
Alternate Endings, Activist Rising highlights the impact of art in AIDS activism and advocacy today by commissioning compelling short videos from six inspiring community organizations and collectives—ACT UP NY, Positive Women’s Network, Sero Project, The SPOT, Tacoma Action Collective, and VOCAL NY. The program represents a wide range of organizational strategies, from direct action to grassroots service providers to nation-wide movement building, while considering the role of creative practices in activist responses to the ongoing AIDS crisis.

The film seeks to reflect the persisting urgencies of today’s HIV/AIDS epidemic by pointing to pressing and intersecting political concerns, including:
– HIV criminalization
– Big Pharma
– homelessness
– and the disproportionate effects of HIV on marginalized communities.

At a moment of growing interest in the histories of AIDS activism, Alternate Endings, Activist Rising foregrounds contemporary engagements between activists, artists, and cultural workers on the front lines.

Group is a single-channel video installation; a monologue on repeat.

Artist Statement
The word “monologue” comes from the Greek monologos, which translates to “speaking alone”.
Obvious but also; what an oxymoron.
Each of the performers in Group are people I met in a group – “group therapy”, or group analysis, to be more precise.
We rehearse every week.

About the Artist
Lauren Bakst is an artist and writer living in New York. She works in, with, and through dance to approach performances as an object of inquiry. She has recently held residencies at NARS and Chez Bushwick and has performed her work twice at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery. Her work has also been presented at Danspace Project, SculptureCenter, Pioneer Works, Movement Research at Judson Church, Abrons Arts Center and The Drawing Center, among other spaces. Lauren is the Managing Editor of the Movement Research Performance Journal and her writing was recently published in Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory. She teaches in the School of Dance at University of the Arts.

Image: Still from digital video, 41 min 59 sec.

Using a technicolor palette, Noé Jimenez’ work creates layered connections ranging from pop culture references to pure abstraction. Organic compositions within his small paintings are then mimicked through his clustered installation on the wall. Alongside collage, the physicality of his painting fully exploits the fluid and viscous nature of his materials.

Connecticut Art Review
Nov 28 Studio Visit | Noé Jimenez

About Noé
Noe Jimenez lives and works in West River Arts Studios in Westville, CT. He graduated with a BFA in Painting from Paier College of Art in 2012, and has studied painting at Colegio de España, Salamanca, Spain, University of Urbino, Italy and Altos De Chavon, Dominican Republic. In 2014 he was a resident at Norðanbál on Hrisey Island in Iceland. His work has been included in solo and group shows in Connecticut, California, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, and private collections. You can see more of his work by visiting his website or his Instagram.

Real Wall is a series of wall mounted exhibitions taking place in between formal gallery spaces. Artists are invited to engage with the space in experimental ways meaningful to their practice in short-run exhibitions.

An Artist Talk & Reception will be held on Saturday, Nov. 10, 3 – 5 PM. Visual Arts Coordinator, Neil Daigle Orians will engage with Plater in a dialogue surrounding her work and process.

Real Art Ways is pleased to present Sofia Plater, one of six recipients of the 2018 Real Art Awards, a project supported in part by an award from the National Endowment of the Arts. To learn more about this project, click here.

Plater’s work utilizes found objects and textures to create sculptural installations, forming dialogues between the original objects and newly cast pieces. Construction materials, cardboard, and other miscellania form a cohesive aesthetic that is simultaneously organic and synthetic.

To learn more about Sofia Plater’s work, visit her website here.

Connecticut Art Review
Nov 27 Essay on Sofia Plater: The Resurrection of Salvaged Goods

About Sofia
Sofia Plater is a mixed-media artist from Boston, Massachusetts. She received her MFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in 2018 and her BFA in Fine Arts from Boston College in 2011. While enrolled in the Master’s degree program, Sofia received the Montague Travel grant, allowing her to travel and research in Scotland in early 2018. The same month, she curated her first solo show featuring nineteen sculptural works at Factory Mark Gallery in Framingham, MA.

In the past year, Sofia has participated in numerous group exhibitions, and was featured in a twenty-two-page article for Peripheral ARTeries Art Review Magazine. Sofia was the first artist in residence at the 77Art program, in Rutland, Vermont for the month of August 2018. Before pursuing her Master’s of Fine Arts degree, she was the art program director and art instructor at The New Britain Youth Museum, in central Connecticut.

Utilizing high and low-brow technologies, Balam Soto creates interactive sculptures and installations. Soto creates custom software for his pieces, bridging physical objects with coded data, resulting in experiential works that are never the same twice. Intuitive, tactile surfaces allow the viewer to interact and create their own experience in the gallery.

Curated by David Borawski, Intangible Proximity opens Thursday, October 18 6-8 PM during Creative Cocktail Hour.

To learn more about Soto’s work, click here to visit his website.

About the Artist
An award-winning, new media artist, Balam Soto has exhibited in fine art venues worldwide. Venues include the New Zealand Art Festival; Brooklyn Academy of Music; Creative Tech Week in NY; the AluCine Latin Media Festival in Toronto, Canada;  World Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science Museum in Queens, NY; El Museo del Barrio in Manhattan, NY; Gallery of Oi Futuro in Brazil; Queens Museum of Art in Queens, NY; Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science & Art in Scranton, PA; the Centre Cultural in Brussels, Belgium; the National Library of Cameroon in West Africa; and the Art and Technology Corridor at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, PA  among numerous others.

Balam has received six Editor’s Choice awards and one Best in Class award from the World Maker Faire held at the New York Hall of Science Museum in 2010 – 2016.  In 2016, Balam was Officially Recognized by the Hartford City Council (CT) for the positive impact his work has had on the region. In 2009, he was awarded the Latino de Oro [Golden Latino] Award for Arts & Culture in Connecticut; he has also received Official Citations from the Mayor of the City of Hartford, CT and the Governors of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.  In April 2008, Balam was honored with a Diploma of Recognition as a “Maestro,” a Master of Visual Arts, by the National Congress of Guatemala for “being a valuable and outstanding artist with international success.”

Balam is the owner of Balam Soto Studio and co-owner of Open Wire Lab, both located in Hartford, Connecticut.

Mixing biology, ecology, and fantasy, Maggie Nowinski’s DRAWN wHOLE presents a series of drawn works that explore systems, both social and biological. Her linework mimics both historic woodcut illustrations and scientific illustrations, creating new specimens out of recognizable shapes and parts.

Nowinski says, “I imagine they are specimens in a kind of empirical study and simultaneously examine them as I construct them. As they emerge I am aware that the lived experience in my body is vast and enigmatic and I think about the interplay of resilience and ache in these specimens – triumphant adaptations and self-sufficient, sometimes toxic, systems.”

Curated by David Borawski, DRAWN wHOLE opens Thursday, October 18 from 6-8 PM during Creative Cocktail Hour.

For more information about Nowinski and her work, click here to visit her website.

Connecticut Art Review
Oct 24 Review | Maggie Nowinski: Drawn wHole

About the Artist
Maggie Nowinski is an interdisciplinary visual artist, arts educator and curator who lives and works in Western Massachusetts and has an active exhibition record, showing work regionally, nationally and abroad. She is the recipient of numerous LCC grants through the Massachusetts Cultural Council. In 2017, she was the recipient of the Berkshire Taconic Foundation Artist Resource Trust Fellowship which partially supports her work in this current exhibition. She received her BFA in 1997 and her MFA in 2007.

While her process is rooted in drawing, her artworks frequently take the format of installation and combine traditional and unusual media, audio, video and performative processes. Her work often responds specifically to site or material, and her process is embodied by an awareness of the conceptual and political inevitability of art making. She is also fond of collaborations.

Nowinski is adjunct faculty at Westfield State University in Massachusetts and Manchester Community College in Connecticut and is Artist-Mentor with Vermont College of Fine Arts in the MFA/Visual Arts Program.