12×12: 12 Artists from the 12th State at SECCA

This exhibit puts the spotlight on 12 contemporary artists from North Carolina: the 12th state. They were presented in spotlight exhibits one by one throughout 2016-2017 in SECCA’s preview gallery, and are reunited now in the main gallery from now until April 22nd. Alphabetically, the group consists of Elizabeth Alexander, Endia Beal, Martha Clippinger, Bill Fick, Mijoo Kim, Kirsten Stalle, Bob Trotman, Hong-an Truong, Beverly McIver, Katy Mixon, Lee Walton, and Pinar Yoldas.

 

Elizabeth Alexander’s piece, Crumbs Under My Pillow, is an installation consisting of wallpaper, Tyvek, glue, found dress, found chair, wood, and paint. It looks like a living room one might find in a haunted house, and is one of the biggest installations in the exhibit. By arranging found objects and status symbols in a new format, Alexander seeks to question domesticity through presenting them in an entirely new context. It is disquieting and takes some time to get used to.

 

 

Beverly McIver’s work consists of portraits that convey subjectivity through color. They are both intimate and painterly, and are worth contemplation.

Left: Daddy Sleeping, 2017, Oil on canvas    Right: Changes are Hard, 2017, Oil on canvas

Kirsten Stalle’s work delves into the political arena; it is a photograph and collage series entitled Disarm that addresses the Cold War-era sensibility and paranoia. She photographed the abandoned launch sites and covered over weapons and buildings with Russian and Sioux Indian patterns in order to insert the voice of those on the receiving end. Stalle tirelessly researched the period in order to be factually accurate.

Left: Front Entry Box, 2016, Collage and gouache on archival pigment print Right: Building #100, 2016, Collage and gouache on archival pigment print

Drone Landscape, 2016, Collage on paper

Pinar Yoldas’s 2016 work is a video entitled Kitty AI: Artificial Intelligence for Governance and is set in the future year of 2039. The kitten is the first non-human governor, and is Yoldas’s vehicle to warn viewers of the risks and impacts of various situations throughout the world, such as the refugee crisis, climate change, and our difficulties to manage our infrastructure. Headphones and chairs are provided for viewers.

Bob Trotman’s work addresses modern business through creating figures that recall traditional religious figures and thus comment on the culture of the modern world incisively. The installation on view at SECCA is entitled No Way from the larger Business as Usual Series from 2013. Its medium is terra cotta, oxide, plywood, paper, and paint. Below: No Way; medium: Terra cotta, oxide, plywood, paper, paint.

Martha Clippinger is a colorist, and her work expresses this sensibility beautifully in both wool and acrylic pieces. Some of the titles refer to her Native American background and are joyful to behold.

untitled, 2017, woven wool

Next up: Mijoo Kim’s eerie photographic series Re-figure from 2015 addresses identity and the cultural entrapments, specifically fabric, of the female throughout history. Their presentation in the present day United States speak to the immigrant experience.

Hong-an Truong’s 2018 piece Perilous Times in Four Texts is an installation that addresses the Asian-American experience. There is audio narration from the 1973 album A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America, recorded by three Asian American activists, as well as a silk screen with their reduced image and album booklets stacked on the floor.

Endia Beal’s contribuion to the exhibition is a photographic series entitled Am I What You’re Looking For? and consists of portraits of African-American college-aged females on the cusp of entering the professional world. Each female wears an outfit they would wear to a job interview and are photographed before a photographic backdrop of an office hallway that is actually placed in the family’s living room. It is in conversation with portraits of Harlem Renaissance photographer James Van Der Zee, Lee Friedlander’s photographic series At Work, and Rineke Dijkstra’s Beach Portraits. 

Left: Taylor, 2016, pigment print; Right: Deanna, 2016, pigment print

Katy Mixon’s The ran bows and the rainbows (One day we will switch sides) from 2017 is composed of used hand rags on muslin hand rags on muslin. Her artistic process reuses her art making materials and is also preoccupied with colors. The cloths in this work are those she uses to clean her brushes and reveal color gradation beautifully.

A Limp Truce, 2017, Used hand rags on muslin

Last not but least is Lee Walton and Laurent Estoppey’s Listening to the C from 2018 that was designed for the living room of the historic Hanes home part of SECCA. The artists videotaped the C note being played on the piano in 44 people’s homes. The unique aspect and differences between the middle C note addresses the metaphorical dimension of the note and the beauty of difference. The work references Terry Riley’s composition “In C,” microtonal music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, conceptual systems of Sol LeWitt, indeterminacy of John Cage, voyeuristic performances of Sophie Calle, and Fluxus movement. The photo below is of the installation, but the sound is really crucial to get the whole idea.

If you’re in the area, definitely check it out! My personal favorites are Katy Mixon and Beverly McIver.

#artfulliving

**Note: I used the text and labels throughout the exhibit in order to write this post.

 

Frank Campion’s Small Pieces: Paintings/Collages

SECCA’s latest exhibit, Frank Campion’s Small Pieces, opened last night, and I highly recommend it.

Campion is best known for his large-scale works, but I found these smaller paintings to be breath-taking nevertheless. They are also more intimate. The show is hung in SECCA’s preview gallery, and consists of two larger paintings, a few medium-sized ones, and several collages, which feature mixed media.

Campion is a colorist, and this quote describes his views on his art: “Paintings are all about the expressive potential of color to evoke powerful, unpredictable reactions.” He spoke about his approach to his works last night. He makes rectangles and squares of different sizes and paints them a solid color. He later superimposes them on a paper which he has filled with various colors (he mixes them all himself). He then adds more touches on top as he wishes until he feels the piece is done. I love the juxtapositions of the mostly vibrant colors, though occasionally he veers into a paler vein.

The standard format consists of two rectangles of different hues (though sometimes different variants of one color) side-by-side against these color-filled backgrounds. As a result of the rectangles, they remind me a bit of the work of Mark Rothko (my favorite artist) They are very painterly in the sense that you can see the trace of brushstrokes, and some also feature drips and splotches. Names derive from Campion’s chief inspiration: the colors themselves, and range from (yellow field) to (orange and red) to (two blues).

The collages represent a new direction for the artist. While they include Campion’s rectangles, they also include newspaper and magazine cut-outs, and are in a much smaller format. They are all superimposed on a piece of graph paper. The titles here take a different direction, and depart from the abstract nature of the titles of the larger pieces. Curtain call, Kelly’s blues, and Zebra Alley are a few of my favorites.

While SECCA does not usually sell works, these are for sale. Campion is kindly giving all of the proceeds to SECCA. Many have already sold, and I’m sure will only continue to do so. The exhibit closes January 7th. I will be sad to see it go down. Below is my favorite: two reds.

#artfulliving