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2010-2012

Selin Balci

Selin Balci

my players are hostile microorganisms

In my artwork, I employ living organisms.  I incorporate biological materials such as mold, bacteria, and fungi as my medium to explore process of life. The micro-world, largely hidden from sight, is alluring, frightening and beautiful. The dynamic arc of life in this turbulent imperceptible world is quick and furious. Simple living organisms demonstrate all of the hallmarks of a complex and coordinated social life.  They communicate and cooperate to perform a wide range of behaviors that show and metaphor human actions. The diminutive life forms harmonize to create a colorful array of actions, counter-actions and conflicts where they mimic the human conditions of social, political, economic, and environmental concerns that have affect on us. These competitive interactions and constant aesthetic themes are the basis of my studies. In this artificially constructed living platform, I am the impresario and my players are hostile microorganisms.

Jessica van Brakle

Jessica van Brakle

passion for construction cranes

This current body of work is inspired by my passion for construction cranes and an ongoing interest in nature, home, and the decorative. The work draws on my immediate landscape, making connections between these internal and external environments. Absent of human presence, there is an emphasis on the structures interaction with the domestic patterns and botanicals. I see it as a balancing of familiar opposites feminine with masculine, strong with fragile, industrial with organic. I am creating a space within my aesthetic, where these elements can combine to create an entirely new landscape of pattern, shape, and color.

Ryan Hoover

Ryan Hoover

art is a laboratory.

Art is a laboratory. It gives the freedom to explore concepts and to test ideas that may not have a home in any one discipline. It is a place that allows me to employ a diverse set of tools and techniques from a variety of fields and crafts. I am not interested in simply thinking about the world; I think via the world. It is through substance, process, technology, and social interaction that meaning is discovered and made. My artistic practice is conceptually driven, but grounded in making, whether that making be sculptural, digital, craft- based, electronic, or social. I often combine many of these in the process: in a single piece, I might conduct historical research, use commercial software, write custom computer scripts, operate a digital laser cutter, paint, and employ carpentry and fine furniture making techniques.

My recent work explores a diverse range of networks, examining their structures and effects in a broad philosophical sense and in a focused technical sense. I search for structural similarities in objects or situations that may not be expected. These kinds of connections might stitch together a table, a toggle switch, and a moral argument. This work is not some attempt to provide a singular mystical key to the universe, nor is it a simple continuation of Modernist classification systems. This project involves thinking across pre- existing taxonomical categories in an attempt to provide an alterative understanding of our evermore- complex world.

 

Elena Volkova

the state of neither nor or either or

Several concepts come to mind when thinking about liminality : uncertainty, as well as openness, potential, and the state of becoming, between-ness, transition, neutrality. The state of Neither Nor or Either Or, quantitatively holding the same value and relevance in opposition. The Liminal surrounds us ; it is the periphery of every moment of our existence, the behind the scenes of our reality ; it makes no judgments and no assertions ; it constitutes our everyday mundane poetry. In is simply there. In the liminal state, the boundaries and factors dissolve, bringing to the attention the low-key overlooked moments.In my recent body of work, I explore the idea of liminal space. By juxtaposing life-size photographs against the real environment where these photos were taken, I would like to question viewers perception of real and imaginary space, as well as invite the viewer to contemplate the surrounding and become aware of mundane and often overlooked details of the environment.

Joyce Yu-Jean Lee

Joyce Yu-Jean Lee

projection paintings

I ask how artists and societies have historically depicted illumination and how my own search intersects this. My studio inquiry comprises an interdisciplinary approach to create “projection paintings.” These projection paintings examine pictorial space in a three-dimensional environment through green-screen video, drawing, performance and architectural video installation. I actively draw upon the history of painting, film and video in order to reframe it in alternative contexts. I am curious about how the act of seeing today is transformed by technology. My work challenges viewers to slow down observation by blurring the ways through which we consume visual information. Through this slowing down, viewers can revisit iconic works of art and take away new meaning, reflect on their own visual consumption, and enjoy new found space in their seeing.