Artist Interviews

Q & A with Judith Klausner

What is your favorite thing people usually don’t notice?

One of my favorite details is the worm on the underside of the soil in “Putting Down Roots.” I enjoy how often children discover it before adults. It’s important to me to engage visitors of all ages, and it’s great to have children showing adults things about the work they might have missed!

What’s one of the most surprising materials used in the work?

I sometimes invite folks to smell the rusty keys – one of the key materials in the “rust” is cinnamon! I’ve worked with food as a primary medium before, but it’s snuck its way into this work in unexpected ways.

What is a question you like to ask visitors viewing your work?

I always like to know what each visitor’s favorite piece is. It could be something they connected with emotionally, a use of materials they found interesting, or just something that made them smile. It makes me happy when people have all different favorites!
The other one I like to ask people is: what flavor is the popsicle?
There’s no “right” answer – I have my own opinion, just like everyone else. I’ve found the question has led to a number of interesting conversations about nostalgia, flavor, and color.

How do you want people to approach your art?

With curiosity! I want my art to be explored. So much if my time is spent focusing on small details, I love when people take the time to look closely.
Judith Klausner
(de) composed/nocturne
April 6-April 28, 2024
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Newly Selected Artists, July 2022

Gabrielle Lajoie-Bergeron

Mascha-Le Gros Party

 

Mascha – Le gros Party questions the notion of celebration in the intimate, public, and political space. Highlighting evocative traces of a past event, this vivid new corpus allows us to imagine a universe in itself. Inspired by the figure of the “mascha” — the etymological root of the word “mask,” also meaning witch in Low Latin — the exhibition marshals a vast diversity of works, including a number of faux-visages (false faces) made of various materials. “Le gros party” is a French expression meaning, in common parlance, “the big party.” Inspired by festivities and their rituals, the project questions notions of overflow and excess, and the flashpoint at which fiction and reality overlap. It is about identity, power, and relationships. If the party makes it possible to become someone else — to live a rite of passage — what happens when the event overflows beyond the dancing, the singing, the feast, and the simple drinking? The big party invoked by Lajoie-Bergeron refers to the capricious masquerade that we offer in our time, when the celebration begins to lose its glamor and to lurch into incipient violence and other abuses.

Kate Fitzpatrick

There is no anagram for the word anagram 

An anagram is a word formed by rearranging the letters of a different word, using all the letters. Any word that exactly uses those letters in another order is called an anagram. Whether as a literary game, cipher, mysterious verse, or poetry, anagrams provide a channel for making new meaning out of fixed ideas. Anagrams are anchored to their assigned positions and are limited due to their language rules, which are based on a collectively agreed-upon system.

There is no anagram for the word anagram playfully explores the idea of language and meaning by using an imaginary sign system to take the form of text, images, and objects, to break down the construction of our own arbitrary reality. The graphic potential of a sign invites the viewer to consider the possibilities that exist in arrangements that fill in the gap between image and text to explore meaning. In this exhibition, paintings, games, video, and objects offer a dynamic by which to wonder and to create personal meaning through indecipherable signs, which become a vessel for schema and a pathway to search and interpret.

Kristin Adair

Unconditional

Unconditional is a multimedia exploration of the legacy of love that we carry within us as human beings. We are the accumulation of the relationships that came before us, that brought us into the world. Through the pandemic, I have investigated my love map through the lens of a box of letters my grandfather wrote to my grandmother while he was stationed in the South Pacific for three years during World War II. I weave a tapestry of images in both paper and video form, including archival images that my grandfather made during his deployment and other found materials, with visual explorations of my own body, examining the experience during the two years of the pandemic of isolation and my own search for connection and true love. The series Unconditional uses both physical and digital manipulation to combine old and new photographs with archival and new audio, weaving stories of the past — those that live inside of me, the present, and the future of my own latent lineage.

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Reality Check: Interview with featured artist Anna U Davis and Tim Brown, Hillyer Director

Anna U Davis, Our Weight, 2021, acrylic, ink pen, pumice and cut paper collage on canvas, 50 x 60 inches

 

Anna U Davis is a native of Lund, Sweden. Davis began expanding her artistic practice and developing her signature “Frocasian” characters after moving to Washington, D.C., in the 1990s. She is known for her bold, colorful mixed-media work, where she explores social inequalities.  Davis is a two-time recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and has recieved multiple fellowships from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Reality Check is on view at the Hillyer from January 8 – February 27, 2022.

 

Tim:

Diffusion of Responsibility is a large-scale work that will inevitably capture the attention of our visitors. What is the meaning of this concept and what were you hoping to convey in this work?

 

Anna:

“Diffusion of responsibility” is a socio-psychological phenomenon where an individual, in a group setting, assumes that other people are responsible for taking necessary action. The concept was first brought to attention following the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. The data gathered suggested that 38 people witnessed the attack but none of them attempted to help her or contacted the police. This concept has been studied for decades in psychology and applies to so many different areas, including my chosen topics of gender inequality, racial discrimination, and climate change. The truth is that we can all be guilty of diffusion of responsibility; one example is the fire in Pincourt, Canada, where several people witnessed and recorded the fire on their phones, but no one called the fire department and the building burned down. Or during a party, we hear a friend’s inappropriate racist joke about immigrants and we don’t say anything, we just stand there hoping that someone else will take responsibility and speak up. This work is an attempt to provoke the viewer to reflect on how to recognize and take accountability for your own inaction and become an active participant rather than a passive bystander. I intentionally created a larger piece constructed from multiple individual free-standing portraits. Each portrait represents any one of us and our own individual set of biases and life experiences.

Anna U Davis. Shark-cuteri, 2016. acrylic, ink pen and cut paper collage on canvas. 72 x 96 inches.

Tim:

The gray tone in your figures appears to provide an alternative view of race and representation, a view that is different from predominant views of race and skin color, or what Frantz Fanon called the “epidermal schema.” Also, in color theory, gray is produced by mixing complementary colors together, colors that are opposite on the color wheel. What is the significance of the color gray? Does color theory play a role in your depictions?

 

Anna:

My signature gray Frocasian characters were born out of my interracial marriage. My husband, Peter, was born to a Swedish mother an an African American father in Lund, Sweden, and while we both grew up in the same town and went to the same school, our life experience has been different due to the color of our skin. My relationship with Peter and the birth of our son reinforced my desire to make a statement with my art. Up to that point, the figures in my art had been painted in various colors, ranging from primary to tertiary, but at that moment I decided they should be portrayed in grayscale. Gray is an achromatic color and the definition of gray is literally “a color without a color.” To me, that was the perfect color to represent my belief that we are all humans and we should all have equal rights, period. Unfortunately, society has a long way to go to become inclusive, equal, and to appreciate our diversity and recognize our joint humanity. And this is why I have spent decades creating work investigating social justice issues, focusing on gender relations, racial discrimination, health care, gun violence, and more recently, climate change.

Anna U Davis, Biosphere, 2021, acrylic, ink pen, pumice and cut paper collage on canvas, 72 x 72 inches

Tim:

Your work represents three intersecting areas of social justice: gender inequality, racial discrimination, and climate change. What works in the exhibition would you say best represent these concepts?

 

Anna:

I would say Shark-cuteri, Our Weight, and Biosphere. Shark-cuteri explores the objectification of women and animals, comparing how we cut up animals into unrecognizable body parts with a woman who is equally cut up into sexualized body parts and put on display, ready for consumption. In advertising, you can see animals marketed with sexual innuendos referencing women’s body parts. When you objectify bodies, you view these bodies as things that serve you for a specific purpose. In this painting, both the animals and the woman have been reduced to objects for consumption. In Our Weight, I explore racial discrimination and the consequences of a discriminatory system. The weight symbolizes the inequality that persists, whether it is in regards to access to education, to jobs, to healthcare, or so many other areas. The cinderblock is a reminder of the effort it takes to create change, particularly in a world where most people are reluctant to take an active role in social justice issues. The piece Biosphere reflects on the possible consequences and outcome of our continued mistreatment of our planet. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, I have not been able to see my family in Sweden. For the first year we isolated, due to being immunocompromised, and did not really go out until we were all fully vaccinated. These circumstances made me much more aware and immersed in my immediate surroundings. As a family we started to order most of our supplies online, and it was overwhelming to see the amount of trash, mainly packaging materials, we had to try to recycle every week. I started to think back to the time I visited my sister in Sweden and the time I was helping her to take out the trash to the recycling station in her apartment building. Note that in Sweden you recycle almost everything. The plastic, the metal, the paper, the newspapers, the magazines, the batteries, and so on go into separate boxes, and the glass has to be sorted into colored or clear glass. In Washington, DC, I have one smaller bin where everything that should be recycled goes into, and I often wonder how effective this single-stream recycling system really is.

Tim:

Art lovers and students of art will be drawn to your expressive figures, lush colors, and bold use of line. What role did your formative development play in defining your pictorial language? Have other artists influenced your work?

Anna:

Art serves a dual purpose for me. It is a vehicle to express my socio-political views and a coping mechanism. As a young child, I would create pictures to deal with my emotions, and as an adult, in particular after my 2013 breast cancer diagnosis, my art practice has helped me to handle a traumatic experience, and continues to help me on a daily basis to deal with chronic pain due to radiation myelopathy. As a child I was drawn to visual experiences, like the old black and white movies. I loved watching the characters’ body language and facial expressions while exploring the narrative. I remember the time I was riding the subway in London and I noticed a woman reading a book. She was so immersed in her activity and exuded such a powerful energy that it inspired me to get off the train and go out and buy the book she was reading. I believe some of the best work I have created was inspired by visual experiences. Maybe that is also why I, early in my artistic practice, decided to break down the human form into basic geometric shapes and lean on expressing my characters’ emotions through abstracted exaggerated placements of their facial features and body parts. I am drawn to the intense colors found in nature- the gray blue sky just before a thunderstorm, the yellow field of flowering rapeseeds, or the intense red of a poppy flower in the midst of a bright green summer field. I use color as a way to enhance and evoke emotion as well as to balance composition. My first artist love was the fearless Frida Kahlo and her unapologetic storytelling and how she challenged social norms. I fell in love with the bold black outlines of Keith Haring’s work, the striking collages of Romare Bearden, and the organic structures Antoni Gaudí. These are some of the artists who have played a part in my artistic development and who all continue to inspire me to this day.

 

To learn more about Anna U Davis, visit her website.

 

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She Says, Her Story: Q&A with Curator Yu-Chuan TSENG

Artist, curator, and academic, Yu-Chuan TSENG is a pioneer digital artist who has been pondering the status of human existence in the digital age since 1998. She is currently the Professor of the Department of Public Relations and Advertising, Shih Hsin University and Chairperson of the Taiwan Information Design, Art, Technology, Education Association. Many significant media art exhibitions have featured her works, including the Taipei Fine Art Museum, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, ACM MM 2006 – Art Gallery of LASALLE-SIA, Singapore, DOX, Center for Contemporary Art in Prague in the Czech Republic, TAAC Tribeca/ E.Tay/R Gallery in NYC, ICA Gallery 1 in Singapore, as well as important net art exhibitions such as Digital Vision 2005 in the Java Museum and Mobile Image Capture in the New Century. 

She Says, Her Story is on view at Hillyer from November 5 – December 19, 2021.

Your professional career encompasses digital culture, gender studies, and curation. What led you to pursue a career as a digital artist and how does that work inform your role as curator?

 

In 1992, I went to NYU and took the course “computer art.” It was my first time to learn about art and technology. At that time, there were 3D images and interactive films shown in the Guggenheim Museum and Galleries.

 

I am very surprised by the vision and concept. After I came back to Taiwan in 1996, I worked in the Internet Company as an UX designer for website and CD titles. I learned that digital and internet technology will affect our lives. Around 1998, I began my career as a digital artist. And in 2002, I enrolled in the Ph.D. program to learn more about digital art. After I got my Ph.D. degree, professor Pey Chwen LIN asked me to be one of the curators in the exhibition Taiwan Digital Art Center. (Professor Pey Chwen LIN is a well-known digital artist who won the 2019 Florence Biennale “New Media Art Category” First Prize.) At that time, there were few curators who focused on the digital art. In 2013, as the chairperson of Taiwan Women’s Art Association, I began to do women’s subjects in curation.

 

Prior to Her Story, you curated an exhibition titled Being Here as Me which also featured women artists from Taiwan. How is Her Story similar and/or different from Being Here?

 

Being Here as Me was more focused on how the female artists built up their identity through artistic creation. How do female artists establish their own subjectivity through creation in various life matters and daily house works? They observe the relationship between themselves and their living environment, as well as gender identity issues. Her Story is about female gaze. Also, there are many male artists who discuss their relationship with father, mother, and gay companion, and they got invited to show in Museum. But, there are many female artists who discuss their relationship with mother, grandmother, father, and lesbian companion, however few of them got invited to show in Museum.

 

The partnership between International Arts and Artists was integral to making the exhibition possible. What is your relationship with TECRO and how did you get involved?

 

In 2018 David Furchgott, IA&A’s President, came to Taipei at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of China (Taiwan).  He brought Dr. Jack Rasmussen, the director and curator of the American University Museum at the Katzan Arts Center, with him.  Their official tour  was arranged to visit many museums, art centers, and galleries. The exhibition was organized by Taipei Art District (TAD). Its members are mainly Dazhi and Neihu area galleries. We had a great talk. After they came back to DC, Jack provided me with the opportunity to curate the exhibition Being Here as Me in the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. And then David also provided me with the opportunity to curate the exhibition She Says, Her Story. Taiwan Academy plays a great role as a bridge to contact, coordinate, and communicate to make the exhibition happen successfully.

 

You’ve had an impressive career as a curator and digital artist. What are your plans for the future?

 

I will continue my career as a curator and digital artist. We have many outstanding digital artists and female artists. Their works discuss the issues of Taiwanese society, geography, society, and life, as well as environmental issues, digital surveillance, and digital capitalism. I wish that I have more opportunities to present Taiwanese artists to the world. Also my work discusses the state of existence and consciousness of people in the digital environment. I will continue the subject to explore the themes of digital existence, especially in the so-called Metaverse era.

To learn more about Yu-Chuan TSENG, visit her website.

 

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Sea of Change: Q&A with Jana Brike

Jana Brike was born in 1980 in Riga, Latvia and received her MA in painting from Art Academy of Latvia in 2005. Her artwork was first exhibited internationally in 1996, when she was still in her teens, and since then she has had 13 solo exhibitions and nearly 100 other projects and group exhibitions throughout the world. The overarching theme of Brike’s work is the internal space and state of the human soul: its dreams, longing, love, pain—the vast range of emotions offered by the human condition—along with the transcendence of them all, the growing up and self-discovery. Her work is her poetic visual autobiography. Brike currently lives and works in Riga, Latvia.

Sea of Change was on view at Hillyer on November 1 – December 15, 2019.

 

Your exhibition at Hillyer, Sea of Change, is part of a series of paintings exploring “the physical, emotional, and psychological milestones that commemorate the journey from girlhood to womanhood.” Tell us about the story behind these paintings, how long did they take you to create? Why did you make them? What are they about?

For me, these milestones are not really linear, since that notion would require to look at life as a journey from point A to B where the destinations are of significance and not the journey itself. I wouldn’t like to look at it like that. At every point you are at the very center of your universe, and at every point you are complete. It’s like a dance or a song – the point of it is not to be done with it, or to arrive at a certain note – because every single note absolutely matters the most at the moment it sounds. However, at the same time, we need certain symbols for the processes in our psyche that would make sense of the inner and outer transformation, to have a context for our being, to acknowledge certain archetypes of the feminine psyche for the reason to know our own soul. In a sense, self-observation itself brings about certain inner changes, you cannot truly SEE yourself and stay the same, self-observation is a means to awakening. This project has been exactly that to me and in some ways it has been in the making always since my early youth, as small sketches and thought writings. I was glad to have an opportunity to realize it in big scale at this time, and actual painting process took between 2 to 3 years.

 

This series was a commission and it took you several years to complete. Was it a relief to finish them or was it hard to say goodbye? Now that the series is complete, what are you working on now?

It feels like a little bit of both, I am excited to work on new work, but I also miss the scale and subject matter of the Sea of Change. I would love to continue the series, create several more panels. In my heart it’s a bit like a never-ending story because the symbols throughout our lives change, transform into each another, and merge endlessly. I don’t feel like I have said everything on the subject. However, at this time I am working on a new set of paintings and drawings that are a bit more surreal in nature and deal with our concept of endings and new beginnings, death and birth. Now, when I am at the final stages of my work, it has become oddly more relevant, since it certainly feels like our earth and society is entering the final stages of labor contractions of birthing some new form of being for us all. I hope with all my heart that it is a more harmonious, sensitive, kind, and feminine/motherly way of thinking than what we have known previously.

 

You have been creating work and exhibiting internationally since 1996. Can you tell us a little about the contemporary art scene in Latvia and what it is like to work internationally, and how this has influenced your work?

Latvia is a tiny North European country, not too wealthy and with a population of under 2 million people, so one cannot really talk about its art scene as something sequestered from the rest of the world. In that way it wouldn’t be able to exist at all. Latvia is a part of the European Union, so the art processes are interwoven with what’s happening in the rest of Europe. My very first exhibitions have been in Latvia, as well as in Germany, Finland, Italy, and the UK, with other continents following soon after. It was so early in my career that I can’t imagine exhibiting just locally. I think it would take away a lot of important multi-cultural context for my work.

 

You have amassed a large following on your Instagram. How do you use social media to connect with your audience and to other artists?

Honestly, I have never thought of building a following – it just organically happened. I simply shared what I was doing quite freely. I am happy I live in a time when sharing what we create and what we think doesn’t depend exclusively on one middle man, like an official art institution, and doesn’t have to be mediated by someone. It is so much easier to reach and connect to an audience, and the response I receive and see is immediate. It doesn’t depend on one individual or critic’s personal preferences, likes, and dislikes. It has also been a consequential means of connecting me to art galleries, other artists, collectors, and new dear friends.

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