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2014-2016

Nancy Daly

Nancy Daly

interactive machines reminiscent of outdated technology

My current body of work examines how the development of the online social world is affecting identity and social behavior. By creating interactive machines reminiscent of outdated technology, I address the contradictions present in various social media that are at once ephemeral and entirely permanent. Interactivity and the vocabulary of minimalist sculpture are key elements of my installations that challenge the viewer to look beyond the user-friendliness of online technology and consider what their participation in social media means. 

Dan Perkins

Dan Perkins

romantic painting traditions 

Taking the romantic painting traditions of the late nineteenth century as my initial point of reference, I playfully interrupt and eschew their spatial logic and formal conventions. My paintings, in turn, offer the viewer the playful experience of both relishing in the promise of the sublime or utopian futures that are implied by these structures, while also humorously acknowledging the futility and absurdity of such gestures.

In the process of constructing these paintings, I use a variety of source material: hand-built models, photographs, and invented or imagined spaces. This mimics to a degree the multi- layered approach I employ during the process of painting; the paintings become odd assemblages of various painting histories that alternatively conflate and congeal around one another.

The paintings act as various non-linear points of connection between one another, telling fragments of journeys and stories without total resolve and leaving the viewer to construct their own understanding of the world alluded to and represented. In this way, the works collectively become a representation of various possibilities, a circuitous route of exploration, at once offering and subverting the process of making meaning. 

Adam Ryder

Adam Ryder

obvious fiction & observable fact

Technological advances in digital imaging have given artists and others the power to muddy the waters between obvious fiction and observable fact. Photography as a medium has too often been mistaken as a truly indexical and “truthful” image-making technology and art form. While the ease with which images can now be manipulated and disseminated has increased with advances in software and the advent of digital photography, the medium at its core is one which presents a kind of false truth, as all photographs are subjective images, even those made by machine.

The primary action in photography, framing the image, is one by which elements of a scene or subjects are excluded, conflated, monumentalized, sublimated, flattened, isolated or otherwise given emotional weight apart from what is experienced by the un- aided eye. Photography’s chief action is perhaps to recontextualize the objects, people and environments we observe. To some degree, all of my work stems from this basic premise and underscores the slippery nature of photographic “fact.” 

Allison Spence

Allison Spence

 

instances of collapse 

I investigate specific instances of collapse (or compression) that occur within forms, bodies, and ideas. The collapse that I examine lacks a fixed name, but is a kind of movement that collects and amasses, or condenses without limiting its form. I see this movement as positive—one that dissolves boundaries, favors the indefinite over the definite, and is as a result all-inclusive. My interest in characterizing this leads me to use many different forms of communication—painting, writing, drawing, and performance are all essential parts of my practice. To me, these methods are different approaches of describing something that by nature resides in indeterminacy, and therefore cannot be defined directly. I work serially and fragmentarily, methodically researching and revolving around loosely connected sources. 

Dane Winkler

Dane Winkler

contrasts in material and concept 

Contrasts in material and concept dictate the environments I create.  Familiar life-sized objects allow the audience to place themselves in the work physically or psychologically.  Accessible, sometimes mundane spaces or symbols beg for interaction. A door, a place to sit, a drain cap, or a lamp serve as materials or tools.  These ideas are presented in an extraordinary manner, creating an entirely new relationship between one another, leading to a new experience yielded from real things.  Upfront this mystery invites one in their curiosity and confusion.  A further element of surprise is found upon the discovery that certain obtainable manufactured parts are instead meticulously hand crafted. 

An engagement and interaction is achieved between the viewer and the space through sound, light, video/slide projections, a kinetic element, or another provocation of the human senses.  Clashing themes such as public and private, industry and homestead, or personal and shared space are contrasted in a seamlessly peculiar manner.  One is drawn to spend time with the works looking for an answer or a resolution.  The viewers interaction, internal or not, often completes the experience. The works often illuminate personal spaces or ideas of my own, yet an in-explainable mystery lends each individual experience to hold as much importance.  Perplexities of these contrasting ideas of mine drive me to keep working.  Solving both material and conceptual problems through process examines these things I contemplate. I strive to have a captivating conversation with the viewer by placing them in an environment or setting. 

Naoko Wowsugi

Naoko Wowsugi

engage in a dialogue with a community

My art practice and its results develop a reciprocal exchange with the world. As an artist or a neighbor, I look to engage in a dialogue with a community and to understand my role in it. I create human connections and communication, generating opportunities for myself, participants, and viewers to gain new awareness of our everyday surroundings and people. Approaching interaction from the perspective of an art practice lends me a critical gaze. My posture in the world is that of an artist looking at her works, but also as a person considering social constraints. My projects bind the chaos of my everyday interactions and allow me to value them both socially and ontologically.