Tyra Mitchell is a visual artist born and raised in Washington, DC. Tyra has spent the previous 5 years living and working in New York City. While there, she has had the opportunity to partner with many other creatives and brands. She gained her start by interning and freelancing enough to eventually make a name for herself in the creative community in New York. Her photography work has been featured in various places, most notably Opening Ceremony, Refinery29, and W Magazine. Tyra has now relocated back to her hometown to raise her family and create work that explores her upbringing in DC and the distinct culture that hails from it. Tyra is a strong believer in creating spaces for marginalized communities. Her latest venture, Art Mom Project, is an online platform that serves as a safe space for creative mothers to share their artwork and stories.

Raising Our Youth was on view at Hillyer on June 7 – 30, 2019. 

What is something you learned about the indigenous population in DC while working on pieces for your exhibition, especially through the lens of young families?

Through this project I’ve learned that there are many natives here in Washington, DC that do care about what’s going on in our city despite the rapid changes. The families I’ve worked with on this project so far have all been affected by gentrification, but they are fighting through it and making sure their children grow up knowing the history of their hometown.

What does the polaroid that you give to families at the end of each shoot symbolize to you? 

I wanted each family to have a polaroid portrait of themselves because it is a tangible memory that can be kept as long as they have it. It always put a smile on their face at the end of each shoot, which sealed our moment together.

You were born and raised in Washington, DC, and talk about how stories of native Washingtonians are rarely told, especially those of younger generations. What has working on this exhibition shown you about the representation of the younger indigenous population? Has it impacted your own identity and views?

I chose to highlight young families because it is a narrative that I best identify with. Becoming a mother has both inspired my art and broaden my perspective onf the world around me. Being born and raised in Washington, DC, I know that the stories of native Washingtonians are seldom told, especially those of younger generations.

Gentrification has been slowly been happening in my hometown for many years, but the implications of it never captured me the way it has now that I have a family that I am raising here. Aside from the growing economic segregation, DC has always been known for it’s beautiful, rich black culture. The “chocolate city” I knew growing up is not what it is today and I made it my duty to utilize the power of my art to highlight natives and their stories. I wanted to give my peers a platform to be seen and heard in spaces that they may not have been otherwise.

You’ve worked with publications such as Refinery29 and W Magazine, as well as the fashion brand Opening Ceremony. Have these experiences impacted your artistic vision and your decision to come back to DC?

Working with these publications has aided in refining my eye as an artist. Each experience was a unique one and I’m grateful that I was able to have the opportunity to work with such respected companies. I moved back to DC to raise my family, but also to bring back what I’ve learned while in New York. The underground art scene in DC has always been great. Unfortunately, but the job market for creatives isn’t as accessible as it is in New York. I want to do all that I can to make sure the artists here have a platform to showcase their work and actually make a living off of it. This can only begin by leading by example and showing them that it is possible.

What are some of the future projects you are working on that center around the topic of families, in addition to your online platform Art Mom Project?

I am currently also working on a project centered around generations of women in families and the important role of mothers and caretakers.

Eric Uhlir is a painter and photographer who grew up in the sunny melting pot of 1980s Southern California. He earned his BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas in Austin in 2003. He currently lives and works in Washington, DC with his wife Phoebe and their dog, Violet. 

Recalled in Human Memory was on view at Hillyer on May 3 – 26, 2019.

Can you elaborate on the “cultural surface tensions that [allow] us to relate to each other” that inform and inspire your work?

When I talk about cultural surface tension I’m referring to the shared layer of understanding that permeates any given moment as a society. So topics like human migration and the environment are concepts that are pretty broadly understood. Whether people agree or disagree on the core of those issues is something different, the work’s intention is to make a connection between the viewer, the cultural moment and the history of humanity and art that we seem unable to fully process and learn from as a society. In layman’s terms, we keep making work about the same ideas but we don’t seem to learn our lessons. References are a battlefield right now as we’re hopefully in the middle of a time of dialogue and social change, but I think that’s a healthy thing and we shouldn’t shy away from it just because the conversations get heated sometimes.

I’m obviously bringing my own lenses and experience, and don’t claim to speak for everyone, but I do think there’s a lot everyone can do in our society to engage with our own history and with the stories that others have to share and look at those things in a critical way.

You mention how you draw much of your inspiration from biographical or historical influences. What are some of these specific influences that have informed your work and particularly this exhibition?

A lot of this work is directly inspired by the big history painters like Delacroix, Géricault and all the way back to Michelangelo and Leonardo’s dueling commissions for the “Battle of Cascina” and the “Battle of Anghiari”. The palette is very much rooted in a west coast sensibility gained from my childhood in Los Angeles. I hope what comes across is an energy and a vibrancy that you also see in the shift Diebenkorn made in his Ocean Park series, when he moved to Santa Monica.

My biggest source of truth had to be Cecily Brown and Joan Mitchell, though. When I saw Brown’s “Girl on a Swing” at the re-opened East Wing a few years ago, it was like I was struck by a bolt of lightning and suddenly understood a strategy for making a big shift from figurative to something more abstract. I’ve always looked at the work of Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler as my ideal of painting, but it was Brown who provided the key. I also took a lot of inspiration and energy from the recent Kerry James Marshall exhibitions. There’s a palette and a grasp of mythology and symbolism of which I think has a unique command.

What are some things you want viewers to take away from your work?

First and foremost, I want the viewer to take pleasure in the act of just looking. The work is intended to reward your investment of time and attention and to be digestible up close and from across a room.

Second, I want the viewer to develop their own narrative, since the references aren’t any secret, I hope people invest in the ideas and mythologies I’m creating; Southern California as a problematic garden of Eden in “Indio”, the tiger of “Trophic Cascade” an emblem of humanity threatening our own well being by our inability to understand and curtail the destruction of our own environment, the shipwreck of “The Crossing” a story of the risks people take to escape their circumstances because of social conflict, and “Tartarus” about our history of creating mythological places of punishment that are both a part of our existence but set apart to an extent.

We tell ourselves stories about the lessons we’re supposed to learn from our own misdeeds but are endlessly destined to repeat them. It’s not to say the work is all doom and gloom, the colors and energy are meant to convey that these are all ideas we can, and still are, engaging with in a real dialogue. I want the viewer to put down their phone and think about that conversation, spend some time with the marks and the energy of the paint and meditate with those ideas and then go out into the world with some new thought or idea or inspiration.

You talk about how you have had a recent shift in your work where there is “increasing abstraction is deeply influenced by artists across history.” What influenced this kind of shift and how has your work changed?

Like I said, this was largely influenced by Cecily Brown, who I had never had the opportunity to experience in person and see how she builds layers through additive and reductive mark making. My lifelong love of artists like Frankenthaler and Mitchell has been important, but also painters like Wayne Thiebaud, Richard Diebenkorn, and obvious the classics of the Italian Renaissance. J.M.W. Turner was a huge influence for me, as well as more esoteric artists like Louise Bourgeois and Jenny Saville. The new Tintoretto show at the National Gallery was also a revelation and I’m already spinning on ideas from how he constructed narratives in his compositions.

Now that I’m pushing 40, I also look at Amy Sherald and Barnet Newman as personal heroes for persevering and making their mark in their 40’s. Plus I also just love their work but I think it’s important for artists to understand that this is a profession that rewards hard work and perseverance. I learned that in spades from my mentor Dan Sutherland in art school at the University of Texas. The paintings don’t make themselves, you have to put in the work, and do it with intention and self-awareness. So artists like Sherald and Newman are examples of the sheer discipline and courage it takes to keep making the work. It helps I have an endlessly supportive partner and group of friends who give me the love and support to keep it going.

You discuss how much of your work is influenced by artists across history. Who are some of these artists and how have they shaped the work in your career?

Growing up in LA my mom used to organize trips to  for my twin brother Raymond, also an artist, and our gaggle of friends. I think the main takeaway for me of a lifetime of looking at art and growing up with an art major mom, was that art is something full of both virtuosity and unfinished ideas. This can be hard for people to grasp when you first start painting. You have ideas, influences and motivation but aren’t quite sure how all that fits together. In some ways the forced break in my practice from struggling to find studio space in DC actually helped me mature and understand my relationship with both my practice and art history. It gave me distance and perspective to make a shift in my process and strategy as a painter.
 

Marcel Artes Deolazo studied illustration at Syracuse University before moving to New York City to work in the fashion industry. He later relocated to Milan to work for Maison Valentino and other Italian fashion houses. Since then, he has freelanced as an illustrator for Italian Vogue and other Condé Nast publications. Deolazo currently maintains a studio located at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, an artist community on the waterfront of Old Town Alexandria. He was juried into the Torpedo Factory Artists’ Association in 2015, and the majority of his work and art processes can be seen by the visiting public at his shared studio.

300.3A Creative-Compulsive Disorder was on view at Hillyer on May 3 – June 2, 2019.

You consider yourself an “urban globetrotter.” How has that label informed the art that you have made and continue to make?

I use my travel experiences of the past as a catalyst for ideas and subject matter to my work. Traveling thru Europe and Asia I have see many things from street style art to world famous museums and I want to bring a more relatable interpretation between the two. An interpretation of the historic as urban styles that give a fresh outlook to classic themes in art.

How does your ceramics background influence your illustrations and vice versa? Is there always an interplay between ceramics and illustration, such as in your illustrated ceramics? What do you hope to address in your work?

Technically there are many limitations in ceramics that have taken me a long time to resolve. My major influence has come from Yuan Dynasty ceramics and symbolism behind the subject matter and attention to details of the painting.The brush strokes, and minute details and symbology behind the images and design motifs.

What are some other mediums that you have used that reflect your artistic vision and your global experiences and background?

I constantly get bored with one medium and am always looking for other mediums to combine and enrich my work. Illustration/ceramics, ceramics/fiber arts and other ways to draw or collaborating with other Artisans. This I learned while living in Italy which is a frequent way of bringing one’s art to another level of creativity .This has been done since the Renaissance and continues even today.

How do you see your art evolving? What are some upcoming projects you are working on or concepts you are interested in exploring for the future?

I have been very disciplined since taking on the preparation for this solo show and see whee it will take me. I am looking into different residencies or grant possibilities where I can concentrate on how my work can evolve.The problem is having enough time to dedicate to it while trying to run my business and teaching schedule. I am looking towards more installation art as a possible future where I can combine different mediums together on a bigger scale of combined work.

Bryanna Millis is a conceptual environmental mixed-media artist focusing on the linkages between heart and mind, feeling and intellect. Her work is situated within broader themes of place and time in the Middle East, and she uses cut paper, paint, thread, objects, and found materials to root esoteric concepts in concrete experiences of specific histories, present moments, and imagined futures. Bryanna has a Master’s degree in Development Economics from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2019 she will attend the Athena Standards Residency in Athens, Greece. Bryanna lives and works in Washington, DC and Amman, Jordan.

Imagination of Salvation: Actions on the Land was on view at Hillyer on April 5 – 28, 2019.

When you first started working with local partners from Al Azraq, did you anticipate wanting to create art from your experiences there? If so, what was the original inspiration behind the conception of this exhibition?

The very first concept for the project was for a sculpture park to commemorate the past and present of Al Azraq, as a former Oasis that has been drained, and as the current host to a refugee camp housing 35,000 Syrian refugees. The idea was that this park could be a catalyst for a range of environmental, economic, and social rehabilitation activities. Then the environmental and economic aspect took off first, and the team has been focused on that. Around that time I turned my personal art practice into an investigation of the place and my experiences.

As an environmental mixed-media artist whose focus on “the linkages between heart and mind, feeling and intellect,” how did your background and passion inform the way you approached this work?

My idea to examine work from these vantage points emerged through the work I was making, but it ultimately brings together everything I have done and been in my life. It’s like a homecoming to my whole self. As an international economist working with data and evidence, I can easily bring the “mind” to my work. But the body and heart have been more challenging to incorporate for me, although as an artist and spiritualist they are becoming more front and center in my life. So that is the real challenge of this project—to communicate from these different places. It’s a process I’m still exploring.

What were some of the audience responses to Imagination of Salvation: Actions on the Land? Did you find that engaging with viewers during the opening reception or your artist talks brought up new connections or perspectives?

I loved hearing about which works made people feel something deeply, at both the opening and artist talk. The highest praise I can receive is to know my work made people feel something. There was also a lot of curiosity about my actions on the land pieces…I’d love the opportunity to show excerpts from the videos and the process of making that work sometime—the very hot and muddy back story in essence. I was focused on the end pieces to some extent, but it always seems that the human exploration, the process, really engages people and is something I want to share more of. Also, I loved how drawn people were to the blue I used in a few pieces. I had a real emotional resonance with that color and it was shared by almost everyone who spoke to me.

During your artist talk, you discussed past plans for sculptural installations or different forms of community engagement– what do you envision for the future of this project in Al Azraq, and for your personal practice?

The very next thing that I’m doing with my personal practice is to spend the month of June doing an artist residency in Athens. I want to use that time to really dig deeply into the heart-centered aspect of the work, to figure out how to communicate from that place. I also have another show of these pieces and a few newly finished ones in the Adirondacks in August.

Over the next year my vision is to expand into the next phase of this story, to bring the works and the process home to Azraq. In the context of beginning the aquifer recharge and salt harvesting projects we want to do community engagement initiatives that have imagination of salvation at their center. We want to spark a movement of imagining the future, of caring differently about the land and its resources, and of creating space for people to follow their hearts and dreams.

Heidi Zenisek is a sculptor from Iowa City, IA where she received her BFA in Sculpture from the University of Iowa and spent her younger years on a farm surrounded by dirt, cows, corn and rust. Since then, she has lived and exhibited throughout Iceland, participated in numerous residencies, worked at sculpture parks and galleries, and was most recently awarded the Dean’s Fellowship to begin graduate school at the University of Maryland.

Gestate was on view at Hillyer on April 5 – 28, 2019.

 
Much of your work centers around the parallels between society’s abuse of ecology with man’s mistreatment of women—how did you first draw these kinds of parallels and how has that impacted the art you create?

It was a thing my subconscious brain knew before my conscious brain. I’ve always used farming practices and materials as a language and lens to look at facets of society and our interaction with nature. Last year, I began making some smaller objects and working more intuitively with reproductive imagery from plants and animals when suddenly my own body was beginning to surface in the forms. I was quite curious about this new thing happening and was finally able to unpack it after months of reflection and continued work under the umbrella of feminism & environmentalism. I fully connected the dots when I began writing these texts about an allegorical war between a personified Mother Nature and society with natural disasters sent in to fight battles against her aggressors. I was using the term “man” in relation to human kind and while writing about “man” battling this woman Mother Earth I just realized I was creating feminist epics.

You utilize a wide variety of materials and processes in your work, from agricultural refuse to 3D printing techniques. Can you share your thought process behind the types of materials you gravitate to with different projects?

I love experimenting with materials! Sometimes it’s an instinctual attraction, other times I use what’s available to me where I’m making. I like contrasting. Refined vs. raw. Organic vs. inorganic. Rudimentary vs. technologic. I think about the aesthetic and conceptual qualities and how that relates to the ideas of the piece I’m working on, but also how it could be redefined. For example, in Gestate I used 3D printing process for the cobs and used PLA filament, which is a corn product. I used this technologic process to create a standardized product, much like that manipulation happening in agriculture. It’s about optimizing yields.

Can you describe the audience response to Gestate? Does engagement with viewers impact your creative process, and how?

Women were most impacted by it: the tired stalks became battered bodies subtly rotating, mirrored by their own ghostly reflections. This sparked some great conversations surrounding feminism and ecofeminism. There was also a lot of intrigue about the materials: the black reflection pool, the spectrum of the lights, and especially the stalks/cobs. We joke at University of Maryland and call it “farm to pedestal” and people without a rural background are quite curious about it. It’s very fun to chat about. I’m constantly thinking about “the viewer” so engagement with them is vital to my process.

You’ve lived in a lot of different places—Iowa, Iceland, and now in the DMV. Have the places you’ve resided in inspired your pieces? If so, how and which ones?

Definitely. With every new place comes a shift in my making. The people around me, materials available, landscapes. It goes through the blender of my brain and comes out in my work. Once I’m immersed in the day-to-day flow of a place it allows me to unravel the reality of the locale a bit. The process is not about investigation, but about observation and allowing facets of the place to creep into my psyche. My perspective as a foreigner, but not a tourist, shines a light on unique, sometimes unflattering, qualities unnoticed or ignored by locals. The observations are used as a conceptual foundation for site-specific work. Artist as witness.

In Iowa I was dealing with materials and concepts from agriculture, which you can see in the installation Yield on my website, heidizenisek.com. In Iceland I made work about the fishing industry and its impact on the ecosystem of the fjord, but also the economics of the town (Main Vein, Fish Brain). After Iceland I became very enamored and amazed by the natural world, which lead to work about the human hand on the environment. I traded the mountains and sea of Iceland for endless fields of crop in Illinois, so at this point and was surrounded by huge farming operations. Agriculture on a scale I had never seen before. There was just this mass production of produce and I began to think a lot about the augmentation of reproductive cycles to increase commodity. I created Cornhub & Requiem for the Midwestern Moon when my Illinois observations mixed with DC ideas of these grand memorials, and monuments. Currently, concepts from each place are mixing and the work is perhaps getting a bit political. My materials are becoming more artificial and process more technologic, probably due to living in a city. Place is the most influential part of my practice. I’m just learning about the world and trying to make sense of it.

Recently you were awarded the Dean’s Fellowship for graduate school at University of Maryland. Do you have plans for future exhibitions or projects as you begin the fellowship?

I have a bunch of ambitious works on the roster, but I either need to get crafty with my materials or find funding because my brain seems to always be more ambitious than my bank account. Hopefully more collaboration is on the horizon as well. I’ve recently been working with water resources engineer on some site-specific pieces, so artists and non-artists: reach out if you’d like to play!