2018

Braxton Congrove lives and works in Richmond, VA. She received her BFA from James Madison University and attended the Virginia Commonwealth University Summer Studio Program. Congrove’s recent solo exhibitions took place at VALET and Arlington Arts Center. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at ADA, Disjecta, and Not Gallery, among others. She has attended residencies at Bread and Puppet Theater, OTTO’s Abode, and c3:Initiative and is currently preparing for an upcoming solo exhibition at Random Access Gallery (Syracuse, NY).

braxtoncongrove.com

What inspired you to represent your world in such a colorful and playful way?

I was inspired to make my ideal world; an imagined colorful home in a sense. The forms are recognizable but distorted, as if seeing a depiction through the lens of a glitter screen; familiar and strange at the same time. The space hopefully feels like an augmented reality.

Why is it important for the viewer to become immersed in this collection of works?

I wanted there to be an intimacy of moving through the objects. It’s interesting when people have to interact with others around them when engaging with the work. I wanted a space where these sculptures could turn into a kind of cozy room.

In your works, there are clear uses of domestic hobby craft techniques. What made you choose these materials?

Making a domestic space using hobby craft techniques seemed sort of funny and logical. Materials like flocking, cardboard, paper mache are things you’d find in a home, but I use them in an excessive and more wild way.

What does your process look like in creating these works? Where do you find your initial inspiration from?

I start with my life/experiences, the internet, friends, everyday objects, and domestic scenes. This all gets mixed in with imagination and fiction. Sometimes it’s just laying on piles of stuff in the studio and wanting that feeling of joy that I have clicking fuzzy carpet tiles together to translate into my work.

These representations point to a more playful view of the world. How important is it to have such an effect and impact on the audience?
Idea of play is very important, I like a less serious approach to viewing work. I want a casual feeling in a gallery setting, like you’re hanging out with friends. The title “Standing on Rugs With Goose” came from a situation like that. The viewer becomes a part of the world, like being let in on an inside joke.

The unusual appearance of my printed name was developed to assist in pronunciation and to distinguish myself from the American children’s book illustrator with whom I share my name. By contrast, I am a Canadian artist interested in the ways that power structures influence and shape our realities and behaviors. I currently reside in East York, Ontario but for many years I lived in Calgary, Alberta.

My work in the areas of drawing, painting, installation, bookarts and performance has been exhibited, presented and performed at public and university galleries, artist-run centres, alternate venues and festivals across Canada, the USA and the UK. I have also received major project grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. I earned the first PhD in Art granted by the University of Calgary’s Department of Art for my combined creative and scholarly research project, Practices of Fluid Authority: Participatory Art and Creative Audience Engagement. A fellowship from the Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council supported my doctoral research. In addition to my work as an artist, I am also an educator and have taught at the University of Calgary, Brock University and The Alberta College of Art & Design; currently I am an instructor at the Ontario College of Art Design.

richardsmolinski.com

How does being an educator inform your artistic practice?

I think I learn a lot from students, sometimes it is just finding out about a new artist that I am not aware of, and getting the chance to see a new way of thinking with art, but it can also be a reminder of how important “art” is. Often, though, I benefit from the passion of students; the way they care about things and ant to make a positive impact, reminds me of why I think art is worthwhile and important, and confirms my own desires to make a positive impact.

Your work often engages in wordplay and pairing terms together—does your process begin with writing and then move to visual?

Language and wordplay weaves throughout my process. Often I do start (or think) through devising coinages and puns, and these suggest possible images and relationships that are then more consciously developed. Other times, my working process begins with figurative gestures and poses that suggest different types of power dynamics and interpersonal relationships—as such image start to solidify, they might then suggest “textual” possibilities—like coinages and puns—that are subsequently incorporated into the work.

How does your work embody a sense of humor while also remaining keenly critical?

I think the humor is a defense mechanism, a way of not being crushed by how awful some situations are. It is a way of switching my perspective from being overwhelmed by the effects of power, to responding to source of the problem—those in power and the ways that they behave. Humor is my position on the power continuum; rather than using my creative energies to create mayhem and harm and exploit others, I try to use my creative energies as a positive force that points out the foolishness, greed and cruelty of those in power. I think that humor is a form of power and I take humor seriously, while it can be malicious and hurtful, I aim my efforts at making critical “fun” of those actions and individuals that are hurting others.

Can you describe the process of installing your work? Do you have a set way of showing these pieces or do you find that it changes and evolves over time or is dependent upon where they are shown?

Installing the work is like putting together a puzzle when you do not know what the final outcome looks like. I do not have a set way of showing the pieces, and for this installation I had prepared a number of new components that were predominately irregularly shaped, so the work was going to be quite different from its past installation.

Although there are a number of pieces that seem to go “well” together and have particularly strong relationships (and that I did plan to install adjacently), there were times in the installation that other possibilities and necessities were more important, and that my initial plans/assumptions changed. The Hillyer space was challenging because of the short wall with the pair of corners, the electrical conduit in one other corner and the variance in ceiling height. The narrative tableaux had to respond to these physical attributes and the final installation was much different than I planned. Especially different was the verticality of this installation. I anticipated a more horizontal flow, but the works’ spikes and troughs ended up being quite drastic—something that seems appropriate for the works’ chaotic sense of action and consequence—like being on a sociopolitical rollercoaster.

Rex (Alexandra) Delafkaran is a San Francisco, California transplant living and engaging as an interdisciplinary artist and dancer, curator and administrator in Washington, DC, working out of Red Dirt Studios. A San Francisco Art Institute alum, Rex has worked and exhibited in many galleries including the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. She is currently a participating guest writer at local online art writing publication DIRT, and curating projects of her own.

rexdelafkaran.com

How does your involvement in performance art affect your creation of visual arts, and vice versa?

My practice has come to teach me that they both must coexist. I have danced and moved creatively my whole life, and that I think directly affects all the art I make and the way my ideas manifest. What does the piece feel like to make, hold, move; how do these ideas and this research manifest physically in the world, in my body? The two practices flow in and through each other dynamically. It’s actually a really sweet experience to realize “oh ohh this isn’t supposed to be a sculpture, its a performance!”

How did you come to focus on language and identity as a theme throughout your works and across mediums?

After having moved across the country from California to DC, I began studying Farsi. I started attempting to write in partial English and Farsi as a practice, which was unexpectedly thrilling, and those began transforming into movement scores, which then became performances. Those elements of text then made their way into the ceramic sculptures I was working on, taking the notions of physical utility and intimacy and relating them directly to language. It kinda blew my mind, how much it all was coming together. Then in 2016 when the first iteration of the Muslim ban came to surface, the anger and disappointment and confusion I felt in response was completely overwhelming. Ultimately, I think it was a noticeable catalyst in this direction of my work. I began researching the history of Iran and the areas where my family is from, and began looking for more information about the relationship between the US and Iran, ancient Iranian art and cultural practices that appear in both places. Language is the intermediary in this process of questioning the relationship between my sexuality, cultural background, familial history, and hyphen American identity, and the relationship those have to my immediate and extended community. I’m in an excavation of sorts, a dig, and I am standing on the edge of a large pit with a pile of dirt next to me and clay under my nails.

You mention seeking out means of starting conversations and provoking thought with your works. What kind of conversations do you wish to initiate with this installation?

I think the extremely engaging and powerful aspect of working in conceptual art is that while I have been circling in my own little world about the work and its connections to art and culture and reality, there is room for so much dialogue. I want people to tell me how they feel about it—what do all these symbols do together? Do the chains feel violent to you? What is your relationship to flags? How do you feel about ceramic phalluses strapped to cinder blocks?

You recently participated in a cultural exchange trip supported by the Sister Cities program. What were your goals for the trip? Did you accomplish your goals? Of these, was there anything in particular you would have liked more time to continue pursuing?

The Sister Cities program was an incredible experience for me as person and as an artist. Going into the trip I was the most excited to film performances in historic areas in response to their architecture, and I really feel like I was able to get some exciting documentation from those moments. What I was surprised by was how moving the historically charged architecture and public spaces were. At the end I found myself wanting to make more site-specific, longer movement explorations. We also saw so many artists’ studios, I was surprised as to how inspired I was to make more sculpture when I got back to the US. The incredible attention to history and craft was impactful and certainly affected my perspective on what it can mean to be an “artist” in other parts of the world.

What aspects of your own cultural experiences and their impact on your work were you most excited to share with your counterparts in Rome?

It was so exciting and fruitful to share my experience as a queer Iranian American person with some of the artists we met. They expressed a lot of curiosity about why my identity felt like such a site for investigation for me, and that made me pay particular attention to who each artist is, what their relationship is to Rome culturally and socioeconomically. I wish I had more time to get an understanding of their relationship to the middle east and Islam actually, especially based on their government’s stance on refugee asylum and immigration. Seeing how other people work was so eye opening, the experience makes me want to talk more and collaborate with international artists absolutely.

What, if anything, surprised you most about the contemporary arts and artists of Rome?

I think the focus on craft and tradition. Hearing about the effects of living in an art historical site like Rome for young contemporary artists was fascinating and unfamiliar. That experience seems to clearly influence the forms and conceptual nature of the work there. It was surprising that the concept matter that seems so omnipresent in the contemporary arts that I see in the DC art scene had such a different aesthetic and priority in Rome.

Based on your recent experience in Italy, what roles, if any, do language and identity serve in the work of artists you met with in Rome? Has this affected your own strategies for sparking communication through art?

Absolutely. I think a lot of my work revolves around language already, and being in Rome surrounded by a literal different language, as well as different visual physical language was very affecting. I found that visual and physical language was the most engaging! The physicality of grand frescos, epic sculpture, fountains, piazzas, papal chapels—these felt like they were communicating so much. It sparked a reminder as to the power of curated and public spaces, and its relationship to the bodies and identities around and within them!

What are some new projects or directions in your work that you are excited to explore? Has your experience in Italy had a noticeable impact on your current practice or the work you have planned for the foreseeable future?

I am really excited about the flag series that is featured in my solo exhibition Tender Bits, “Flags for when you don’t know where you are.” It feels like I’m on the cusp of a new body of textile work based on that series, and I am really looking forward to working larger on these upcoming pieces as well. I also am hoping to explore some new ways of working with sculpture—I feel like I am still in awe of the reverence I experienced in public space in Rome, as well as the way the artists spoke about their craft and the aesthetics of beauty. I want to see what happens to the work I am making when I reframe or reteach. This applies to movement as well, in my dance work I think these ideas are already surfacing in new ways.

Overall, can you tell us 2 or 3 of the most significant takeaways from your experience in Rome?

It is possible to make room for awe and splendor in art alongside criticism.

Physical experiences of international spaces can be listened to as richly and intently as an artist talk, new friend, or unfamiliar languages.

I was reminded the power of collaboration and dialogue, and the importance on regularly stepping out of my artistic, political, and social comfort zones.

Veronica Szalus lives in the Washington, DC metropolitan area where she creates installation art. In 2011, Veronica received a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship and has shown her work at several galleries including The Mansion at Strathmore in North Bethesda, MD and the Cade Art Gallery in Anne Arundel, MD. She is also a member of Studio Gallery in Washington, DC. She is employed at the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Association as the Executive Director.

veronicaszalus.com

The use of cassette tapes shows an emphasis placed on the past. How did nostalgia play a role in creating this installation?

Nostalgia had very little to do with the concept of creating an installation using cassette tapes other than being an object from the past that could easily manipulated. My work focuses on transition and the cassette tape is an ideal object to capture that phenomenon. I find cassettes interesting because of their orderly shape and size and the ability to alter that appearance by pulling the encased tape from its protective shell rendering it useless as an audio medium in its original form.

There was unavoidable nostalgia slip during the process of collecting and assembling tapes for Audio Playback. For the tapes affixed to the floor, I wanted to highlight the broad range of content cassettes contained, including but not limited to volumes of music, books and magazines on tape, exercise tapes, interview recordings, classroom learning, and much more—basically anything audio. While going through the tapes I was reminded of how much this content captures the culture of the 80s and also note that much of this content is still in use today, compressed into mp3 files.

How do transitions and transformations inspire you in artistic creation?

I have a deep interest in creating environmental pieces that explore both the conceptual and physical phenomenon of transition. I am fascinated by the fact that everything, at all times, is in a state of evolution. From the macro to the micro, nothing is permanent and this defines our existence. I am continuously seeking to explore this through volume and scale, new forms, and observation of the intersection of natural and manufactured materials. Through the use of these materials, I embrace fragility, balance, and porosity while observing subtle and overt shifts caused by the impact of time.

How does the auditory aspect of the installation prove to increase the impact in your opinion?

The thing I like about the auditory aspect of the installation is the incorporation of another media that is wholly linked to the materials in the installation. The original plan for using audio was to provide an interactive component inviting the viewer to select and play a series of cassettes, finding that some tapes work and others have been physically impacted and no longer function. However as this particular installation developed, a quiet serenity emerged coupled with active lines of movement with light, so I took a step back, and utilizing the advice of Cory Oberndorfer, I switched to capturing the sound of the functioning technology itself rather than playing the content. I think this helps frame the impact of visual elements while leaving sound open to interpretation and takes the viewer back to the beginning and now mostly obsolete mechanics of cassette technology.

How would you describe the relationship we have with obsolete objects such as these in the modern day?

The cassette tape is obsolete, yet the content is not. I think you can make that comparison with many objects. We still hear sound with our ears, we still use our voice to produce sound and we still use devices to play audio. Today the amount of content that can be transported is significantly higher on handheld devices and audio technology is more versatile and reliable.

But don’t cast cassette tapes completely into the obsolete objects category yet, they are still used for recording interviews and books/magazines on tape and there is a cassette revival going on with startup garage bands and independent labels, and there has also been an uptick with major labels following the trend.

What about the cassette tape specifically drove you to create this work?

Cassette tapes provide excellent material to represent transition—they are colorful and have a distinct retro-cool look and feel. The shape of the cassette provides a uniform visual that works very well in multiples and can very easily be transformed when the magnetic coated tape is pulled from its plastic container. In addition, there is a feeling of freedom and randomness when one pulls something apart that is no longer used as originally intended, and I wanted to capture that in Audio Playback.

www.millsbrownart.com

One of the most exciting parts of creating work for this show was expanding the range of objects I collect. This was certainly inspired by my preschoolers. There is no hierarchy for the objects they find at school and want to take home. As I wrote in my artist statement: plastic litter, delicate petals, and tiny living creatures are all treasures in their eyes. Not to mention sequins, beads, cicada shells, lost name tags, acorns, abandoned hair clips. Watching them find beauty and fascination in every piece of the world that crosses their paths has made a huge impact on me.

In effect, I’ve seen my own collecting grow past the expectations I previously held for what goes into an artwork. When I started searching for more and more found objects to use in my work, I naturally began to notice organic materials, too. What if I put sticks, bark, or even moss in a piece? When I realized it’s not that difficult to keep moss alive in a dark little box, I wanted more nature! Pressed flowers, lichen, and fungi made an appearance. Then a friend gave me a beautiful Monarch butterfly she had found (with the thought that I might like to study it under my microscope), and it dawned on me that this, too, could hide in a collage. I decided to build and ornament a shrine-like home for the butterfly, which became the first piece in the series. When I began looking for more dead bugs, I not only found (or was given) WAY more than enough, but I also began to notice other details in nature that hinted at stories of unknowable animal lives.  A fallen nest, a broken robin’s egg, many seeds and shells, and the bones of a deer all made their way into my collection. I think that seeing these things as valuable and wanting to collect and protect them has a lot to do with embracing the child-like curiosity and wonder inspired by my students.

How do fairy tales and Southern gothic influence your work?

I’ve always been a reader and have found that my favorite books are very connected to my artistic interests. Lately, I’ve become interested in the uses of enchantment, and wondered what makes the fairy tales I love so absorbing. I think that the appeal of the fairy tale is not simply in the happy ending. Rather it is their danger and difficulty that inspires wonder. But they consistently maintain a promise of hope and offer examples of morality. Southern gothic and magical realism stories contain a similar darkness, and my favorites put me into a world that is at once unsettling, eccentric, and hauntingly beautiful. I look for a similar balance of darkness, hope, and mystery in my work.

What made it so significant to identify the feeling and act of protection?  

Being in a position of responsibility to protect small children, and then watching them want to protect the things they find, has been a large part of this series. But I think the work is really about the futility of this desire to protect. I haven’t actually protected the bugs in my pieces, because, of course, they were already dead. We can protect children to a certain extent by keeping them out of unsafe situations, but we can’t shield them from life’s difficulties. Despite the futility, I find so much beauty in this collective effort and desire to protect.

At the opening of my show, I saw this desire reflected back to me. Many people asked me what I did to preserve the bugs. I loved this! I didn’t do anything to preserve them except remove them from their setting (the floor, the windowsill, the sidewalk) and put them in mine. I’m not sure what the process of decay will be or what this will look like for the artwork. But when I was asked this question so many times, it seemed to be with the expectation that I had embalmed these insect bodies with chemicals to make them last. I laughed because I have no idea how I would even begin that process. But I also loved the confirmation that my viewers, too, want to see delicate things last, to have them kept safe and beautiful.

Your works have a sense of nostalgia that brings the audience back to childhood. How does this recall of memory shape the experience of your installation, in your opinion?

I hope the audience remembers what it’s like to have the active imagination of a child when they look at my art. Children do not already know what things mean and have the freedom to construct their own narrative. I remember, as a child, having the ability to easily travel into and between imaginary worlds, being fully present in whatever story I was pretending to be in. I create these pieces in hopes that they will be small but elaborate worlds, too, with hidden details that reward you for looking closer, asking the audience to immerse themselves in a story.One of your works requires audience participation. What made you want to include the viewers in this way? Why was this piece chosen to be interactive while the others were not?

I decided to ask the viewers to participate because this means asking them to look closer. If they have to open the box themselves, taking an active role in revealing the piece, I hoped they would be more curious to discover what’s hiding inside. They are no longer just the viewer, but now an explorer. If people are asked to touch a piece of artwork in a white wall gallery, they also feel like they have to be very careful, calling on closer attention and alertness. Ideally, I would want more (or all) of my bug boxes to be interactive. It became clear that this was the only practical interactive piece in this series because the others actually were too fragile. I think that going forward, finding different ways to allow for audience participation will be an exciting new part of my practice.