pacific northwest college of art

Inaugural Page Space alumni art showcase at PNCA

2017-09-12 by V2R2 Leave a Comment

I am happy to announce that I have a piece on view in Unlimited, an alumni art showcase at Pacific Northwest College of Art. PAGE Space (or the PNCA Alumni Gallery & Exhibition Space) is a dedicated place for the PNCA Alumni community to show their work on the PNCA campus. This salon style show includes work from 85 alumni and will be on view until Nov. 5th. The opening was on Sept. 7th, and I was pleased to see work from students who graduated decades ago, as well as most recent grads. I enjoyed a wonderful intermingling of old and new faces, and the entertainment of matching people up with their work.

PAGE Space is a curatorial project brought together by alumni Lauren Stumpf and Jessie Speiss Werner. Preceding their proposal for this project, there wasn’t a dedicated space for showing alumni work on campus. PNCA has a rich cast of characters among its alumni, along with rising stars who recently graduated. I’m looking forward to the future alumni shows as they will likely develop to be more complex and interesting.

Unlimited at PAGE Space

511 Building – Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design
BridgeLab
511 NW Broadway
Portland, Oregon, 97209

Free and open to the public.

Leland Iron Works Group Show

2015-10-27 by V2R2 Leave a Comment

I will be participating in an upcoming group show, Breaking Ground, including artists in residence for 2015 at Leland Iron Works! The opening will take place on First Thursday 6pm-8pm, Nov. 5th, 2015 at Pacific Northwest College of Art in the Innovation Lab. Please join us!

Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design
Innovation Studio
511 NW Broadway
Portland, OR, 97209 [map]

Free and open to the public Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 6pm

First Thursday 6pm-8pm

My work in the show…

I will be displaying the largest piece of art I have ever attempted, approximately 174″ x 74″.

I am interested in working on mural sized projects, however, this piece was something I wanted to create in a more intuitive and responsive way. Unlike past work, I let go of the sketching process and instead began by working from observation on location. My goal was to capture the sensations and sights that I experienced at Leland Iron Works, known for being a small forest in the middle of leftover farmland. Lee Kelly and his late wife Bonnie Bronson planted most of the trees that now age 50 years. Their intention, Lee says, was to undo some of the damage of over-farming. The result is a magical oasis tucked away amidst disintegrating rural properties destined to become suburban streets and neighborhoods, the rate at which things are going.

This place has an aura of healing in spite of loss and destruction.

While I was in residence, a tree was felled because it had shallow roots and was too near Lee’s studio. Last year, a tree crashed into his studio, wiping out the large deck, since replaced. The limbs and top of the 50+ foot tree were split and chipped. When asked what he would do with the remainder of the major body of the tree, Lee answered that he would let it be a nurse log. He had left a nurse log that had fallen in the middle of the residence a few years back, and now all that remained was a long mound with an abundance of ferns and other vegetation growing across it.

The sense of life and growth is tenacious at Leland Iron Works.

The question that I came to Leland Iron Works with was ‘what does it mean for art to be a part of an eco-system?’ I sat with the many sculptures that inhabit the place and as I drew them narratives came to me. I wrote down these ideas to present along with watercolor pieces and I think the verses start to speak to my question.

While creating at Leland Iron Works, I became enchanted by how the lacework of tree branches, the shadows and dappled light, and the brilliant spider strands slung across my every path, all interrupted my sense of self. The light passes through the canopy of leaves, with its new tinges of gold and maroon, and vibrates off of everything dancing, crawling and composting below. I was surrounded by living material and became conscious of decomposition as transformation into new life. I carried large pieces of unstretched, raw canvas around Leland Iron Works, painting while tuned in to feelings of verdant abandon, of the audacity to thrive, and to create despite, or maybe because of, a great potential for loss.

Veronica Reeves pouring paint on raw canvas supported by branches.

Installation Art Experiment 1: Release

2013-09-22 by V2R2 1 Comment

Release. V2R2 — Release. An installation art experiment by V2R2

Exploring Installation Art

Post Experiment in Installation Notes.

Part of this challenge was to occupy the space rather than fill the space. As you can see, I had a difficult time overcoming my impulse to fill and cover the space.

This was an experiment in redirecting my mental process from painting on a two dimensional surface to working in space. I’m doing this in baby steps, slowly coming off the wall. There is no hurry for me to leave the wall and if these experiments all end as failures, I will not have failed in learning through their creation.

I revised this particular piece 4 times and I’m starting to see the process of installation art a lot like the forming of objects out of clay only to ball it all up again and form it into new objects, repeating this over and over. The process is my discovery of what I can pull out of myself.

The images and elements that suggest a narrative are biographical, but apply to everyone. They reference the ephemeral nature of life and its moments. The delicate glassine paper lends itself to the delicate nature of the fleeting moments. Cutting the paper free hand with a loose razor blade was incredibly rewarding and held me in the moment, or maybe outside of time. It would have been interesting to have documented the act of cutting the paper, letting the loose ends fall limp and the circles float to the floor.

I combined old elements I have obsessed about before. The Oil Refineries from Commerce City, figures in a setting, motherhood and the modern world, children (alluding to raising children in an uncertain world), coping with lack of control, focusing on the moment. How do I, as artist and mother, cope with these things? How do I use the things I cherish and the skills I have to possibly affect any change for the better?

Perception. Reality is perception. Art has the power to alter perception.

I use my formal foundation to begin all my projects. Composition has always been my first concern and now it is built into my muscle memory. I also played with the conventions of perception of meaning in objects as real vs. not real in this installation experiment. Placing flat circles or dots irreverently on top of paintings, drawings, the wall, the paper, behind these objects as well, asks the viewer to shift back and forth between perceiving symbol and meaning.

I question whether or not my use of motherhood and children is too difficult to relate to for people who are not mothers or people who don’t have kids or who don’t care for kids. What bothers me is that rather than relate to the piece as remembering childhood to relate to the piece, some people might fixate on their non-parent status, and this way not relate to the work.

It was edifying to watch people poke around and investigate this installation. I was surprised at how close in people got and how some even lifted back the limp pieces of paper to see obscured images. I keep using the word limp to talk about the phallic shapes that are cut out of the paper. They are meant to mirror the very phallic shapes of the oil refinery smoke stacks, which are easily then suggesting exploitation and even rape of Earth. I’ve thought about creating a performance based on this idea, but think maybe it’s too cliche. Plus, I have a very strong interest in creating works that focus on uplifting and inspiring people, not in a Rococo sort of way, but in a…. sacred way? (words, words, words…. lack of words)

I just remembered, I had a dream last night that I met a little girl named Earth. We were playing in a swimming pool together. Which reminds me, I have some gorgeous photos that I took this summer of children swimming and have been meaning to use them in some future project, which brings me to thoughts considering my next project! October 14th is the date of my next critique (this is an extra critique that I just signed up for in addition to my others since there were some spots available. I’ve reserved the installation space in the studio to work with for this date and the week prior).

For the next experiment I want to:

-focus on efficiently activating/occupying the space rather than filling it

-evoke playfulness

-invite some interactivity, investigation, a mystery and reward experience

Artists I am looking at:
Kimsooja