Opening Reception: June 8, 2012, 6pm – 10pm

Closing Reception: July 13, 2012, 6pm – 10pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 4pm

Snapshots of an American Autumn

Snapshots of the American Autumn is a large-scale photo installation involving protester portraits that communicate both the collective and individual voices of the Occupy movement, featuring protests taking place in our own state as well as happening around the world. Utilizing a photojournalism approach with a fine-art objective, I have travelled to Occupy protest encampments throughout the heartland, collecting the images and stories of protesters in order to understand what their individual motivations are as well as the collective force that binds them together as a group.

For the project, I have travelled to Dallas, Texas where I was embedded with the movement for their first week of occupation, as well as a second trip in the days before Dallas shut down the encampment. I have also been present for the beginning stages of occupations in Norman, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, including the death of an occupier in Oklahoma City and recent nights of arrest in Tulsa. I continue to shoot in the Oklahoma and Texas areas, and will be attending both the northern and southern regional conferences for the Occupy movement to continue to shoot. I have been immersed in the protest, standing with the occupiers and camping alongside them in order to most fully document their, and my own, experiences.

Rather than document the protests in typical photojournalistic style, showing the protesters in their environment, I have been inspired by the work of Avedon, choosing to intentionally remove the protesters from their surroundings to allow the viewer to see the protester for who they are as a human first. The resulting images are more fine art than photojournalism. The images will be printed large-scale on reverse film and hung in light boxes, so the protesters seem to almost glow.

Opening Reception: June 8, 2012, 6pm – 10pm

Closing Reception: July 13, 2012, 6pm – 10pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 4pm

Celebración: An Exhibition of Oklahoma Latino Artists

As the title suggests, CELEBRACIÓN is rejoicing of the contributions of Latino artists living in Oklahoma. The Latino community is well-known for its culture, customs and festivals, but has not been widely recognized in the state for their visual artists. The Hispanic movement of artists is quiet but substantial in Oklahoma. The range of work coming from these artists is just as diverse and multilayered as the people of the Latino community. Many of these artists have not been able to show their dynamic work because of a lack of connection to the larger mainstream art community in Oklahoma. It is our hope this exhibition will open a door to the creative vision of these artists and gives them a platform to show their immense talents.

The art of CELEBRACIÓN includes work from established and emerging artists in Oklahoma. Among them are artists of Latino descent such as noted mixed media artists Paul Medina and Narciso Aguilla. Many however are undiscovered talents that are seeking show their work. These artists represent a segment of under represented creative professionals that could help to enrich Oklahoma’s creative growth with their presence.

This exhibition marks an opportunity to contribute to a more racially diverse Oklahoma and a more racially diverse art community.

The Current Artists of Celebración

Paul Medina- Mixed Media Artist

Narciso Argüelles- Mixed Media Artist

Franz Mutis- Painter

Laura Berthila Magalon- Painting

Carlos Tello- Painting

Ernesto Sanchez- Painting

Jamie Macias- Painting

Roberto Mendoza- Filmmaker

Melissa Sue Lopez- Filmmaker

Alejandro Bagajewicz- Mixed Media

Opening Reception & Preview of Artists’ Work: May 11, 2012, 6-10pm

Norman Open Studios Day: May 12, 2012, 11a-4p

After Party @ MAINSITE: 5-7pm (Free for participating Norman Open Studios Artists, $5 for public)

For more information on the Norman Open Studios and to see an interactive online map, visit www.tinyurl.com/normanopenstudios.

The Norman Public Arts Board’s Park Sculpture Project will come to life as part of the Norman Open Studios presented by the Norman Arts Council.

Christian Pitt and Joshua Pitt’s design for the project was chosen along with Chris McDaniel. The duck sculptures will be painted and unveiled at the Luncheon on the Grass, May 20th. Visitors to MAINSITE Contemporary Art and Norman Open Studios, however, will be able to see the work in the making and meet the artists.

Come See Where Art is Being Made in Norman!

Opening Reception & Preview of Artists’ Work: May 11, 2012, 6-10pm

Norman Open Studios Day: May 12, 2012, 11a-4p

After Party @ MAINSITE: 5-7pm (Free for participating Norman Open Studios Artists, $5 for public)

For more information on the Norman Open Studios and to see an interactive online map, visit www.tinyurl.com/normanopenstudios.

Opening Reception: Friday, April 20, 2012, 6-9pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday from 11:00am – 4:00pm

MFA Thesis Defense Schedule

April 20

9:00 AM – 9:50 AM: Saaniya Shaikh

10:00 AM – 10:50 PM: Virginia Dowling

11:00 PM – 11:50: Mike Hill

12:00 – 12:50: Lunch break

1:00 PM – 1:50 PM: Katy Seals

APRIL 27

9:00 AM – 9:50 AM: Sherwin Tibayan

10:00 AM – 10:50 AM: Alex Knox

11:00 AM – 11:50: Tara Nadj Ahmadi

For questions, call the Norman Arts Council at 405-360-1162.

Opening Reception & Japanese Festival: Friday, April 20, 2012, 6-9pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11:00am – 4:00pm

For more information, contact the Norman Arts Council at 405-360-1162.

Installation View #1 (Left: LES Gallery, Jessica Eaton, 2009; Center: “Art Institute of Chicago II,” Thomas Struth, 1990; Right: Various Installations, Ryan McGinley), 2012

Installation View #2 (LES Gallery, Jessica Eaton, 2009)

Installation View #3 (Left: Fraenkel Gallery, Bernd & Hilla Becher, 2009; Center: 303 Gallery, Hans-Peter Feldman, 2009; Right: Various Installations, Ryan McGinley), 2012

Installation View #4 (Galerie naechst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwaelder, James Welling, 2008), 2012

Installation View #5 (Left: 303 Gallery, Hans-Peter Feldman, 2009; Center & Right: L&M Arts, Barbara Kruger, 2011), 2012

Installation View #6 (George Eastman House, “New Topographics,” 1975), 2012

Installation View #7 (Back Left: Galerie naechst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwaelder, James Welling, 2008; Center: The Kitchen, Leslie Hewitt, 2010; Back Right: L&M Arts, Barbara Kruger, 2011; Right: David Zwirner, Christopher Williams, 2011), 2012

Installation View #8 (Left: David Zwirner, Christopher Williams, 2011; Right: Almine Rech Gallery, Tayrn Simon, 2008), 2012

Installation View #9 (David Zwirner, Christopher Williams, 2011), 2012

Installation Views (Mainsite Contemporary Art), 2012
Series of 9 JPEGs, Dimensions Variable, NFS
Sherwin Rivera Tibayan

Artist Statement

MAINSITE Contemporary Art: Home of the Norman Arts Council is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition H2OK: Native Responses to Water Issues in Oklahoma along with the NAC Featured Artist, Heather Clark Hilliard.

Exhibition Dates: February 10 – March 10, 2012

Opening Reception: Friday, February 10th, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. Closing Reception: Friday, March 9th, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Gallery Hours of Operation: 11:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Tuesday – Saturday and by appointment

H2OK: Native Responses to Water Issues in Oklahoma

Artists from across Oklahoma’s diverse tribal landscape are participating in H2OK: Native Response to Water Issues in Oklahoma, a group art show opening in Norman, Oklahoma and traveling to Muskogee, Oklahoma. The show will open at MAINSITE Contemporary Art: Home of the Norman Arts Council, 122 E. Main Street, Norman, from February 10 – March 10, 2012. The exhibition will then travel to Bacone College’s Art Gallery in the McCombs Hall Art Building, 2299 Old Bacone Road, Muskogee, and be on view from April 6 – May 13, 2012.

The artists will express cultural attitudes to water in all of its forms, such as rivers, oceans, rain, and drinking water, environmental aspects of water; confront political realities of our dwindling water supplies; or the aesthetics of water within their culture practices.  Organized around this broad theme, artists are working in media ranging from underwater photography, to digital art, sculpture, printmaking, painting, and installation. All the artists are either living in Oklahoma or are affiliated with at least one of Oklahoma’s 39 tribes.

America Meredith, heather ahtone, and Tony Tiger are curating this exhibit as a way to address the state’s recent floods, drought, and the role that water plays within cultural traditions for many of the local tribes.  Their curatorial statement says: “In the last few years, while gas prices have skyrocketed and the discussion about renewable energy, especially wind, have been thrown around as political ballyhoo, critical water issues have been rising like the slow moving floods of the Mississippi River… We conceive of this exhibition as an opportunity to serve as a conduit through which dialogue and creativity might flow through our community.”  In addition to the exhibition, community members have been invited to engage in a dialogue held at the MAINSITE exhibit location that will address issues of water from a diverse spectrum of perspectives.

Participating artists include: Norman Akers, Marwin Begaye, Roy Boney Jr., Joseph Erb, Anita Fields, Tom Fields, Yatika Fields, Sue Fish, Brent Greenwood, Sam Atakra Haozous, Troy Jackson, Matt Jarvis, Linda Lomahaftewa, Bob Martin, America Meredith, Molly Murphy, Juanita Pahdopony, Tom Poolaw, and Tony Tiger.

MAINSITE Contemporary Art, a non-profit gallery operated by the Norman Arts Council, is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, from 11:30 am to 5:00 pm. Their phone number is (405) 360-1162. The Bacone Arts Gallery is located on the second floor of the McCombs Hall Art Building and is open during school hours. Bacone College has the oldest continuing Native American arts program in the country and can be reached at (918) 822-1402.

For more information about the project, please visit the art show’s website at www.ahalenia.com/h2ok. For more information on MAINSITE Contemporary Art, visit www.mainsite-art.com. For more information on the Norman Arts Council, visit www.normanarts.org.

NAC Featured Artist: Heather Clark Hilliard By Sarah Jesse

The exhibition Lines of Language/Language of Lines features the recent fiber works of Heather Clark Hilliard.  As the title hints, the objects explore a connection between visual and linguistic communication. To Hilliard, stitches represent words, just as rows of them signify sentences.  She also refers to the format of each work as a scroll.  In Hilliard’s alphabet though, hatch marks of wire and knots of wool replace letters as tools to send messages. The exhibition documents Hilliard’s investigation of this metaphor and invites the viewer to consider how the artist communicates meaning beyond language.

Through complex processes of spinning, knitting, stitching, felting and weaving, Hilliard creates deceivingly uncomplicated works that reward a viewer’s careful examination.  Up close, reclaimed telephone wire and industrial iron coils contrast with the delicacy of the yarn in which they are entwined.  The handmade quality of the work is palpable, as no two openings in the loose knit patterns look exactly alike.  Rich textures and subtle gradations of color also come into focus. In turn, the viewer becomes aware of the artist as an alchemist who exploits the properties of natural and botanical dyes for aesthetic gain.

Beyond a rich formal appreciation of the work is Hilliard’s more conceptual aim—communication through the manipulation of materials. In Drop It, she connotes the idea of miscommunication or lack thereof by literally dropping stitches. As a result, large swathes of the nylon ribbon seem precariously on the verge of completely unraveling with one touch.  Through her treatment of the material, Hilliard offers a visual symbol for the consequences of obstructing information.

The work is not totally absent of text in the more traditional sense though. The site-specific project What You Get When I Am Gone consists of Hilliard’s will, which she wrote onto white satin ribbon that was then cut into pieces, folded over yarn and stitched into long strips. In Archives Scroll #7 Hilliard rips pages of old diaries and hand weaves them into long tassels.  While the viewer may discern bits and pieces of the text, the overall meaning is obscured and without context.  By abstracting and concealing the original sources, Hilliard infuses universality in objects of obvious personal significance.

There is an undeniable intimacy to the work—both in terms of the personal content, and the sheer time-consuming processes of creating each object by hand.  But the work transcends the specificity of Hilliard’s biography and instead examines more general ideas related to communication.

Heather Clark Hilliard is a Norman-based artist.  She studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and Northern New Mexico College.  Her work has been exhibited at Living Arts of Tulsa, Wichita Center or the Arts, and the Individual Artists of Oklahoma Gallery.  She has won many awards including prizes from the Textile Society of America and the Handweavers Guild of America ]]> http://mainsite-art.com/2012/01/h2ok-native-responses-to-water-issues-in-oklahoma-with-nac-individual-artist-heather-clark-hilliard-%e2%80%93-feb-10-%e2%80%93-mar-10-2012/feed/ 0 http://mainsite-art.com/2011/12/the-2011-emerging-artists-show-with-nac-individual-artist-tunde-darvay-%e2%80%93-dec-9-2011-jan-21-2012-6/ http://mainsite-art.com/2011/12/the-2011-emerging-artists-show-with-nac-individual-artist-tunde-darvay-%e2%80%93-dec-9-2011-jan-21-2012-6/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:18:16 +0000 mainsite-admin http://mainsite-art.com/?p=479

MAINSITE Contemporary Art: Home of the Norman Arts Council is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition of the 2011 Emerging Artists Show along with the winning images from the Downtown Norman Photo Month Contest and the second NAC Featured Artist, Tünde Darvay.

Exhibition Dates: December 9, 2011 – January 21, 2012

Opening Reception: Friday, December 9th, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. Closing Reception: Friday, January 21st, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Gallery Hours of Operation: 11:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Tuesday – Saturday and by appointment

Olen Cook: Olen Edward Cook III, 24, graduated from East Central University in 2010 with a B.S. in Mass Communications. He currently lives in Lone Grove, Oklahoma.

His body of work involves extracting a section of an object and taking it out of its environment. These objects have a significant connection with an occurrence that is mutually shared with him. Extracting these sections is taking a piece of every occurrence away from the original object. This originated from thoughts about how objects can influence situations.

Trisha Thompson-Adams: Trisha Thompson-Adams graduated from Oklahoma State University in 2011 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking and watercolor. Trisha has been selected for inclusion in several regional juried exhibitions, including Biting the Apple at IAO in OKC and Momentum at Living Arts in Tulsa. In 2009 she won the purchase award for Oklahoma State University’s Research Week. She was recently accepted into In Shades of Gray, a monochromatic juried exhibition in LaCrosse, WI.

Her show Dreams and Curious Things is described by the artist, “Dreams and Curious Things is based on dreams that I have dreamt within the past two years. I view this series as visual documentation of my dreams, which makes me view each piece almost in a scientific manner.  Since I’m documenting my dreams the science aspect became an important aesthetic decision.  Most of the work in this series documents vivid dreams that wake me in the middle of the night. Because of this, I often feel confused when I wake up and have to reevaluate my surroundings.  I use images of teeth as a motif in several pieces because when my dreams wake me, my teeth are tightly clenched.  My dreams have always been more on the strange and curious side, and to quote M.C. Escher, “I don’t use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough.”

May Yang: May Yang is a Tulsa based artist and designer. She works primarily with printmaking techniques to produce work that explores her cultural background as well as the environment around her. May graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2008 focusing on graphic design and printmaking. While there, she interned for Dolphin Press & Print, the school’s print workshop. Continuing her interest in collaborative printmaking, May attended the Tamarind Institute of Lithography in Albuquerque, New Mexico. May is currently (and constantly) working on new artwork.

Yang describes her art, “As a first generation Asian-American, cultural identity has played an important role in my life and work. Growing up in the Midwest, I often felt as if I was not a part of either culture – too American to be Asian and too Asian to be American. The process of printmaking has been significant in this realization of my ideas and experiences. The versatility of the different printmaking mediums lend themselves well to portraying the dichotomy of the two cultures within which I live. Family photographs are treated with a delicate touch whereas English text & letterforms receive a bold treatment, often using bright, eye-catching colors. It is with an experimental nature that I continue my inquiry of my family history.”

Joshua Peck: Born and raised in small towns across eastern Oklahoma, I returned to Tulsa in 2005. Before and after college at the University of Oklahoma, I lived in London, Budapest, Seattle, New York City and Seattle for a second stint.  Peck currently lives in Los Angeles.

Dead Cinema is a series of color photographs that attempt to link the bittersweet remembrance of what once was by exposing the harsh, unforgiving neglect of a beloved cultural institution: the movie theatre.

Theatres of yesterday had marquees lit in vibrant, glowing, buzzing neon. Dead Cinema attempts to shed new light on these slowly dying architectural gems as they have been invisible too long. By exposing the damage to the theatres by ravages of time, the misuse of the structures and the sad beauty these theaters still possess, I hope to suggest that we’ve turned our back on something better.

I work only with analogue film cameras. Film has an immediacy and warmth of tone that I still believe in. All images in Dead Cinema utilize Kodak Ektar 100 film and were taken by a Hasselblad 500 C/M medium format camera. There is no cropping or digital manipulation in any of the images.

Jesse Whittle: Jesse Whittle is from Tulsa. He received his BA from St. Gregory’s University in Studio Art. He has won several awards, including a purchase award at the Young New Collectable Artist show at the JRB art at the Elms gallery. Jesse previous work experience includes the ArtReach program at Philbrook Museum of Art. Currently, Jesse teaches 6^th 7^th and 8^th grade art at Mannford middle school.

Jesse has exhibited at a number of group shows around the state, particularly in Tulsa and Oklahoma City Most recently Jesse has been a featured artist at Istvan Gallery in OKC. Whittles work is abstract in form, employs exuberant strokes and color, but some of the excitement of his work is in what lies beneath. According to the artist, “My work is about fragments, things left behind or discarded. During my painting process I emphasis color by adding and subtracting layers. I use an electric sander to expose previous layers. I experiment with composition by scratching; sanding and removing layers.”

The Downtown Norman Photo Contest

This past summer, the City of Norman Planning Department and the Norman Arts Council joined forces to bring recognition to the City’s efforts to expand the area of downtown Norman that is part of the National Historic Register. That led to the idea of a community-wide photo contest. The photo contest was simple: open to all and take photos of downtown Norman in the month of October 2011.

October Photo Month kicked off with Norman’s participation in the World Wide Photo Walk on October 2, 2011. This annual event saw 1,118 communities around the world participate, with 28,000 people all taking photos of their towns on the same day.

This exhibit features the twenty winning photographs from October Photo Month. These were selected out of the 67 entries received. The winners include: Gayle L. Barrett, Jennifer Burnes, Butch Enterline, Harolda Gibson, David Jeffries, Marvin Lee, Sam Scott, Bob Stovall, Dianna Wilson, and Jerry Worster.

October Photo Month was just one of many community arts activities that took place in that month. Due to the overwhelming participation by the artists, arts organizations, and community members in these events and programs, October was officially declared Arts and Humanities Month in Norman, thanks to a proclamation by Mayor Cindy Rosenthal earlier this year.

NAC Featured Artist: Tünde Darvay

Romanian-born artist Tünde Darvay’s exuberant paintings on wood explore the absence of human contact in contemporary daily life. Whether it is because of an increase in crime and terrorism or our reliance on vehicles and digital media, Darvay posits that people in the United States generally avoid physical contact with each other. Except for forced interaction within the confines of public transportation or an accidental elbow on a busy street, it seems true that for most Americans, avoiding human touch outside of friends and family is desirable.

As Darvay exposes, perhaps nowhere is the impersonal “don’t touch” environment more exaggerated than the context of a gallery where getting too close to an artwork could mean triggering an alarm. Darvay doesn’t just mourn the void of physical human interaction in everyday life and museum environments; she challenges it by asking visitors to actually touch her paintings.  By encouraging the use of touch to perceive and understand her artwork, Darvay aims to subvert the primacy of vision in Western art history. In turn, she calls attention to the sterility of an existence devoid of touch.

Sight has long been emphasized in Western art history as the primary means for both producing and appreciating art.  It is an idea with roots in Aristotle’s writings, in which he describes vision as the most intellectual of the senses and touch as the least.  Darvay’s background growing up in Transylvania, coupled with her experiences living in the United States, gives her a broader perspective that allows her to expand the traditional notion of perception as occurring solely through the act of seeing.

To reward the sense of touch, Darvay exploits the qualities of each irregular wood shape that form the surface of the paintings. She carefully selects, cuts, carves and prepares each wood piece, frequently leaving imperfections and exposing the pattern of the grain.  Often these attributes become part of the narrative, as in The Bike Ride, in which the grain, knots and holes evoke the rough surface of the bicycle’s path. For added texture, Darvay coats the wood with modeling paste and adds staples, cardboard, gold leaf and buttons.

Darvay’s background also gives her the freedom to eschew Western notions of proportion and perspective with an aesthetic that is reminiscent of folk art.  This deliberately “naïve” style imbues her work with a warm, handmade quality. Darvay makes no effort to depict figures in a naturalistic way.  Skin can be painted green, and hair can be purple.  Limbs are elongated in Modigliani-like proportions and depth is mostly communicated by stacking as opposed to linear perspective.  In Romeo and Juliet, a table is rendered with four legs jutting out from all sides, and a paintbrush holder meant to rest on top actually spans beyond the table surface.

Emotion, feeling, touch and sensation trump the laws of formalism in this work.  As a result, Darvay exposes the limits of perception as experienced only through the act of looking.

Tünde Darvay is a Romanian-born artist based in Norman, Oklahoma.  She received a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the University of Fine Arts in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.  After living in Transylvania, Darvay moved to Oklahoma in 2004 and became a permanent resident in 2007.