2019

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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Clay Dunklin is an interdisciplinary artist whose experimental practice includes performative, video, and installation works. Dunklin has exhibited his work nationally including shows at the Orlando Science Center, The American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, and the Delaware Contemporary. He received his BFA in drawing from the University of Central Florida and his MFA from the University of Maryland College Park. Dunklin is currently an NTT Assistant Professor of Art at Western Oregon University.

Song of the Wild was on view at Hillyer on October 4 – 27, 2019.

Your exhibition at Hillyer, Song of the Wild, was a video installation about notions of the body, consciousness, and performance. Tell us a little bit about that work.

My work, in general, grows out of this trajectory of trying to make sense of the body, so fittingly, my own body has been the primary point of this exploration. Our bodies really are our greatest tools to mediate this weird space that exists between our minds and the larger world. In Song of the Wild, I’m reflecting on questions like “What does the body actually do in this in-between space?” and “How do we intentionally activate the body to experience this space?”

The soundtrack that accompanies the video uses low-frequency tones that literally vibrate in the body – you can feel the sound, it activates your body immediately. Combined with this is a track of me singing an old lullaby called “Song of the Wild.” There are dreamy harmonies here that help you to relax on the cushions and settle into the experience.

As you watch the video, you notice that my appearance becomes more abstracted by applying yellow goo to my face. It also becomes increasingly fragmented, like when you go cross-eyed from staring into space and little floaters appear to dance around like when you look at the sun for too long. I’ve taken all these phenomena that seem to happen to our body, usually without us thinking twice about them, and slowed them down, stretching them to fill a space where you have to sit with them for a while.

Your work has a performative element, and in the work at Hillyer, featured yourself in the video. Do you consider yourself a performance based artist? Do you ever do live performances, or is your intent always to create video content as the final piece?

I really don’t think of myself as a performance-artist and I also have never performed live with my work. Typically, for these kinds of pieces, I’ll get an idea of some way I can alter the experience of my body and then I enact that in a very private and personal way. It’s not until I feel like I have discovered something from that experience that I begin to craft it into something that others can experience too. And I guess that’s a kind of performance also. I mean, we do this all the time on social media, right? We craft an identity or an image that brings a personal experience into a digital public space. But I want to come away from this in my practice. I’m becoming increasingly interested in loosening my grip and relinquishing control in my own work. I can’t stop thinking about what would happen if instead of asking “What do I have to make?” I asked, “What do others need me to make?”

Where does this inspiration come from in your pieces? What message do you hope comes across in your work?

The inspiration for Song of the Wild really came from my mindfulness meditation practice. This has fundamentally changed the way I think about myself and the world, the way I behave, and the way I interact with others. I guess I’m ultimately trying to provide small glimpses of other experiences of consciousness within this current experience we’re all having.

You recently relocated from Baltimore to Oregon. Can you tell us if this change has impacted your work? Have you noticed any differences between the two arts communities?

I moved to Oregon to teach art and design at Western Oregon University and I really love it. The dynamics between East coast and West coast is a very real thing. There’s generally a kind of a quieter slowness to the pacing here and I sense this do-anything-try-everything attitude. It’s always a little tricky to move to a new place and to try to find ways to insert your work into their spaces. Undoubtedly, the best way to do this though is by developing relationships and building community. I love the community that is developing around me here, it is very nurturing and supportive and when opportunities come from those relationships it makes me want to use the work to pour back into those people.

What are you working on now? Do you have any exhibitions or projects you are working on?

I have a show coming up in 2021 at the Littman + White galleries in Portland called Do You Know Where You Are? that will use my own personal medical experiences and contemporary image theory to create a full sensory experience. I’m also working on a new project called Banana Colored Funk that turns the gallery into an ad hoc treatment facility full of color, sound, and movement that provides viewers with resources for emotional healing.

Born in Poland and raised in Germany, Zofie King immigrated to the United States in 1998. After graduating with a psychology degree in 2002, she studied interdisciplinary craft at Towson University. For six years she worked in interior design while taking classes at MICA and the Corcoran, and devoted herself to her studio art practice in 2012. Currently, King is a sculptor working primarily with found objects, both conceptually and visually. She has had solo shows at the NVCC Margaret W. Fisher Art Gallery, DC Arts Center, Mount St. Mary’s University Gallery, and her work has been included in numerous group shows. King was part of the Sparkplug Collective from 2017-2019 and is currently a member of the Washington Sculptor’s Group.

Secular Relics and Apocryphal Fossils was on view at Hillyer on September 6 – 29, 2019.

How and why did you first become interested in cabinets of curiosity as a format for your work?

I started doing box assemblages in 2012, but the interest in cabinets of curiosity has been there throughout my life. Seeing reliquaries at the Dom in Cologne is one of my first memories, and I’ve spent endless hours at the Walters Art Museum’s Chamber of Wonders in Baltimore. I’ve always been most attracted to the work of artists such as Joseph Cornell, Louise Nevelson, and Ed & Nancy Kienholz, who use found objects, collage, and assemblage as their main methods of creating work. There is something appealing to a vignette of objects that evoke memories and emotions.

Why did you choose to create “fossils” out of holiday molds and why do you mix them with objects that reference religion and contemporary issues?

I like to think about how traditions originated, and how they morphed into their present state. Holidays like Easter and Christmas have evolved over centuries and are based on a mashup of sometimes conflicting customs (e.g. pagan vs. Christian), as well as cultural phenomena that are pretty recent. Yet there is a perception that they have always existed in the same way. So the fossils are tongue in cheek, a fossil being a preserved organism of a past geological time, a piece of evidence from another era. There is another definition of a fossil, which is a person that is resistant to change.

Has immigrating from Poland to Germany and then to the United States influenced your work?

Yes, in the sense that the work examines objects as evidence. There is definitely a nostalgic element to this, hanging on to certain things just because they evoke the strongest emotions. I was a toddler when my family left Poland, and I have no actual memory of it, but some of the belongings we left behind during the cold war found their way back to me via visiting relatives, and those helped establish some sort of a connection to the past. When I left Germany as a 19-year-old, I had to think of what I really wanted to bring along, since I could only take two suitcases on the plane. I’d always been a collector of curiosities (shells, fossils, little trinkets), and I brought those, along with random mementos that had a story behind them. The things you tend to be attached to are the often the ones connected to stories or events you want to be reminded of.

You primarily used found objects to create the work in your exhibition at Hillyer. Where do you find these materials and what is the process of choosing material for your sculptures?

Aside from finding things in nature, perusing antique stores, estate sales, thrift stores, and flea markets, very kind people will give me things they think I’m likely to use. Sometimes I already have a concept and know what sorts of things I might need, other times an object will appear before me and inspire a piece. I do quite a bit of research in addition to finding these materials (e.g. The Reliquary Effect by Cynthia Hahn was hugely helpful with the Hillyer exhibition), and when I use an object, or mold of an object. It’s there for a purpose and has a specific meaning.

What’s next for you? Will you continue using the cabinets of curiosity format and antique holiday molds, or are you heading in a different direction?

Cabinets of curiosity will very likely always play some part, but even in this current show I started moving away from holiday themed molds. I will definitely continue exploring the idea of molds more generally; I’ve been using resin, paper, fabric, and sculpting compound to create positives and negatives of objects. This is partly inspired by the plaster casts of the Vesuvius victims in Pompeii, which have always intrigued me, so I’m currently exploring that further.

Emily Fussner (b. 1991, Indonesia) is an artist based in Northern Virginia. She holds a BS in Printmaking from Indiana Wesleyan University (2013) and an MFA in Visual Arts from George Mason University (2019). Studying abroad with Gordon College in Orvieto, Italy, and with American University’s MFA Studio Berlin residency program also influenced her greatly. Fussner has professional experience in graphic design, teaching printmaking and papermaking, and arts administration. In the past she worked for the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery in Washington, DC, and most recently curated exhibitions as the Graduate Professional Assistant for Fenwick Gallery at George Mason University.

In Light Of- was on view at Hillyer on August 2 – September 1, 2019.

What first intrigued and attracted you to the mundane spaces that most people over look?

That is a good question! It’s hard to say what was the first intrigue, or if I can remember. But I do know that my semester abroad in Italy with Gordon College, my second year of undergrad, is where I learned to take seeing more seriously. It was the first time I was living abroad without my family, and there was so much to take in. It was unlike any place I had ever been: the textures, the light, the architecture. Our drawing professor read to us from architect Juhani Pallasmaa’s Eyes of the Skin, and I held on to the quote, “Focused vision confronts us with the world, whereas peripheral vision envelops us in the flesh of the world.” I’ve always had an eye for detail, but this helped me begin to consider my environment differently. When I returned to the US, I wanted to continue paying attention and seeing with a sense of wonder. And a lot of life happens in mundane spaces and in transit between places.

In your work scale seems to be a major component. How do you decide the size of a piece, whether it will be a large scale installation or an intimate book? How do you connect the two together?

Scale is important to my work, and I explore it in different ways, whether it is a large installation, the intimate size of a book, or the one-to-one scale produced by tracing or casting (as in my practice of casting cracks, not present in the current exhibition though referenced). With a background in printmaking, I often work in multiples, which allows scale to expand through quantity.

I’m drawn to architecture and spaces where I become very aware of human scale and movement. In my photographs of cast light, I try to include at least some small element of furniture or architecture that gives a sense of place and scale. Within the gallery, working in an installation format or larger scale creates another sense of space. We approach the work differently, and I like that physical interaction, the possible walking under or over or into the work. In both a similar and very different way, books gather, condense, and unfold space. There is a pace and sequence of information the viewer takes in, and a movement through the work. I’m a very tactile person and I love when it is possible to touch an artwork–so I also appreciate the connection books create, since they are meant to be touched and held.

I find that each piece tends to know what it wants to be, and sometimes the scale isn’t a very conscious decision. Other times, experimenting in the studio helps determine that outcome. For example, “Threshold” is a variation of an idea I’ve had for awhile. I first started working in cut-outs of various reflective and translucent materials on a much smaller scale in Berlin last summer, at GlogauAIR with American University’s MFA summer abroad program. Those cut shape and light compositions were small, on shelves, and though the size worked and drew viewers in, I knew I wanted to try that on a larger scale. I wanted to be able to walk into it—which is possible with “Threshold” although it requires care and for some may feel a bit close.

Why do you like working with paper as a medium?

Papermaking is a very haptic process. You measure a lot by touch: the consistency of the pulp fiber, how thick or thin the concentration of pulp feels in the vat. The general process of making paper requires breaking down a base fiber and literally beating it to a pulp. The breaking down, beating, pressing, transforms the fiber into a new material; the structure and strength is formed by the interlacing of the fibers. It is a very physical, methodical process that allows time to think or not think. At some point I thought about it on a metaphorical level, relating to my own experience with the brittle bone condition, Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI), of breaking and re-building, of strength formed through interdependence rather than independence. Perhaps for similar reasons, I like working with fibers like abaca, flax, or kozo–they can be formed to make very delicate, thin, translucent paper, and yet they are surprisingly strong and resilient. Whether I make the paper or not, I also like using thing sheets as they transmit light well.

How has the bone condition, Osteogenesis Imperfecta impacted your work?

OI has influenced so much of my development, my way of seeing and moving. I mean, I’m smaller, closer to the ground. I try to notice the ground as to watch my step and prevent falls, and I think that’s probably how I began noticing the patterns of cobblestones or cracks. My day-to-day life is fairly “normal,” but holds an underlying tension that I’m still fragile enough that a simple action gone wrong can have significant consequences. I’ve found that even when I’m not making the work specifically about this, that the materials I use (even aside from the paper mentioned before) tend to inhabit this tension between what is fragile and strong, what might seem to be strong but is actually brittle, and vice versa. Similarly, when I discovered Kinstugi (the Japanese art repairing broken ceramics with gold lacquer, highlighting the brokenness and repair), it resonated with me on an embodied level, and I became interested in exploring that concept through my own methods and approach to place and the body.

What do you hope the audience achieves by interacting with your installation at IA&A at Hillyer?

I hope In Light Of– creates a peaceful, still space for viewers, an encounter where one can slow down, look closely, and reflect. I hope it helps people ask new questions and see their usual surroundings in a new light.

You have been living overseas for large segments of your life. How have the places you’ve lived impacted your art?

I’m so thankful for the opportunity to grow up in several countries–it shaped my worldview in unique and I think helpful ways, taught me to consider different perspectives. I was five years old when my family moved back to the US from Indonesia, and then I was 13 when we moved to New Zealand and 18 when we left. Adjusting to different cultures and places required a lot of observing. And as each context was so different and far away from the other, I think it taught me to connect to place deeply. Responding directly to place is a key component of my artwork. When I lived in Italy, for the second time, after college, is when I first began casting crevices in the ground with paper pulp; and during my six weeks in Berlin was when I started more intentionally working with cut-shape light and shadow sculptures—so the time in those places has more directly influenced my current work.

Christopher Kojzar received a B.A. in International Affairs from George Washington University and an MFA in Intermedia and Digital Arts from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. A list of his residencies include the Creative Alliance in Baltimore, Crosstown Arts in Memphis, the Seventh Wave Residency in Rhinebeck, NY, and the Truth and Reconciliation Residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute. 

Plainclothes Agenda was on view at Hillyer on August 2 – September 1, 2019.

What have you gained as an artist from each of your residencies?

When I do a residency I am quite aware that I am taking a risk, in a very paradoxical sense, to give up financial opportunities in order to develop my career as a professional artist. Most residencies are unpaid and even less give the artist the financial freedom to take an extended leave of absence from their home base. I am eager to do residencies because it promotes my vision for the arts outside of the MD/DC area. I get the opportunity to associate with like-minded peers who share a similar intent to use the arts as an engine for societal change. It is a habit of mine to build up a network with other professionals in order to spark dialogue, collaborate on projects, and actively promote not only myself but others as thought partners who share values of social justice, inclusiveness, and dynamic community involvement. I’ve been fortunate to get residencies that do offer some financial support, but more importantly, I get to experience making art in a completely different setting and be exposed to people who have completely different perspectives than I am normally accustomed to.

Why are you interested in public spaces? What drew you to the themes of observation and interaction?

On my part, the interactions in public are unsolicited and I dig into the “passer-by curiosity.” I want to provoke viewers into considering my interpretation of observation and encourage them to incorporate an “art of seeing” into their daily lives. We must, I contend, metaphorically stop, smell, see, absorb, and take note of the world, even if it causes us trouble. I create art from engagements because I notice how my body is marked and that others scrutinize my actions as an artist. If I take on drawing in a public space, I am inviting an interaction based on the assumption that the act requires attention. What’s more is that it also requires a commitment on my part to appear idle and expect interaction based on another’s assumption that I am behaving outside “the norm.”

As recently as May of 2017, Mannie Garcia, a freelance photographer in Wheaton, Maryland settled a seven year case where he was arrested for taking photographs of officers arresting two Hispanic men. Mr. Garcia felt that he had to make a case for our First and Fourth Amendment Rights regardless of the damage the incident inflicted upon his professional career. I do not believe that my First or Fourth Amendment Rights have been violated, but I am seeking to expose the vulnerability of these rights under the work that I do. Also, what is particularly unnerving is that as much fun as it is to show the farce of concern drawing in public elicits from authority, there is a point where being a black man who looks like a threat can pose serious consequences. When I choose to engage others, my anxiety is particularly acute because it relates to my race and gender. There is a certain amount of anxiety when I wear a body camera that can be mistaken for a bomb. Even my looks can be misread as suspicious. I am squinting, taking notes, and I seem intent on examining the world around me.

In regards to drawing as a performance art, I didn’t consider the work to be performance, or even activism until months after I documented my experience at the Oculus Hub and started a dialogue with Clark Stoekley. Stoekley made a name for himself by confusing law enforcement into believing that he was associated with Wikileaks during the Occupy Wall Street Movement in New York City. From our conversation, it became quite clear that I was performing and occupying spaces in a political context. Clark addresses the idea of art activism to signal a blend of satirical art and activism. It’s a method of improvisation and chance encounters with authority that defines the type of performance that he does, and I tend to align myself in a similar vein.

Further research also led me to Adrian Piper’s “Mythic Being” series where she dresses and plays the part of a black man with an afro walking the streets of New York. As a bi-racial artist, Piper uses her own body to insist upon the entrenchment of racism in American society, yet intellectualizes the experience after the act of the performance is carried out. The photo-documentation of “Mythic Being” is coupled with her writings and became particularly important to me because she’s developing a narrative for the performance. I consider my performance as non-performance and I contemplate the interaction after I play out the act. Piper also expands on how she disembodies herself to perform the role as “it becomes an object for me to contemplate, and simultaneously loses its status as element in my own personality or subject hood…‘The experience Mythic Being’ thus becomes part of public history, and is no longer a part of my own.” When I take on the act of drawing, it is to signal how certain types of behavior provoke an authoritative response. The performance lends to a much larger dialogue about the observational gaze and how surveillance can be traced to stereotypes or unconventional forms of expression in public space.

Why have you chosen to work with both digital mediums and traditional fine art mediums, such as drawing?

Whether I work with digital or traditional fine arts mediums, I am utilizing different toolsets to create conceptual art. Our minds should constantly be learning new tasks; when I started my graduate studies in Intermedia and Digital Art, I had to put my love of drawing and painting on hold in order to gain skills in videography, virtual reality, and first-hand research. My intention for drawing changed after I acquired new tool sets. Even though I draw for fun, I’m thinking about what it looks like to the outside observer. Digital mediums help me convey this idea. All artists nowadays incorporate several different mediums to get their point across or develop final iterations of their work. The digital mediums streamline the process. When I go out in public with the intent to create art for ‘Plainclothes Agenda’, I photograph, record audio, and write poetry so that I can document my surroundings. Even though the smartphone has drastically changed the way pedestrians navigate and observe their surroundings, I try not to belittle the importance of carrying what I consider to be a digital sketchbook. The drawing is artifact, its expression, the digital processes are refinement tools, challenging the mind to better understand the freedom I have to produce a clear message.

You use interactions with strangers and public spaces in your art. How do you decide where to work and who to talk to? Do you ever return to the same public spaces or seek out any specific individuals?

I first went to the Capitol Building to draw a quick sketch of the South Entrance and then into the Rayburn Offices to document interns working for House Representatives in Washington DC; I also sketched at places like casinos, airports, car repair shops, DMVs, shopping centers, and subway stations, visually discerning the balance between work and leisure. I made Baltimore, Manhattan, Mississippi, Santa Fe, Honolulu, Memphis, Washington DC, Karlovy Vary, Amsterdam, and Paris my testing grounds. In Paris, I chose Republic Square as documenting grounds because it holds as much significance as DC’s mall for both leisure activity and expression of free speech. It was the first location that I went to multiple times to draw. I also coordinated a drawing workshop with other artists from The Agency of Artists in Exile and asked them to willingly participate in conversation if anyone approached them. Nine times out of ten, someone approaches the artist rather than the other way around, and in my experience, I rarely talk to the same person twice.

The relationship of work to leisure and to the perception of idleness seeps into my identity as an artist. To me, even though there is a great deal of pleasure in making art, I consider a lot of my undertakings outside of the studio as work, mainly because I am employing the act of drawing to bring an awareness to the subject of observing in public. The drawings are an artifact or evidence to the interactions I seek out while I perform as a man who draws at leisure.

What was your inspiration behind “Plainclothes Agenda”? How do you see the article interacting and blending with the artwork in your exhibit?

“Plainclothes Agenda” was my graduate thesis at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Seventh Wave Magazine published a truncated version of it in 2018. This project is coming up on its third year, and is rooted in a privilege of engaging with a diverse group of people. I am a visual artist, yet more succinctly, I am a documentarian. The writing shows process, a bit of my mental state, and what I don’t take for granted. Research-based methodology also lets me contextualize what I make and adds substance to it. But, quite honestly, I fell into the subject matter. At first, travel and urbanity inspired my art practice, but then I just became fixated on the extraordinarily mundane. Something always sparked happiness in me when I documented day-to-day stuff. When I began to intellectualize the experience, it was Keith Tester’s “The Flâneur” and Simone Browne’s “Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness” that added form to my thought process.

My research on nineteenth-century flâneurism and its connections to today’s society provided a structured code of conduct, one that rang true in my art practice. Because I lived in France at many different periods of my life and speak the language, it was almost like flâneurism validated my artistic and academic motivations. And the flâneur’s habits, like strolling at a deliberately leisurely pace and recording urban images was basically me in a nutshell. In today’s French lexicon, the flâneur is just someone who walks around a city, and the direct literal translation of the verb into English is ‘to loiter’. Because there’s a discriminative historicity in loitering laws, I wanted to take advantage of it. Combining flânuerism, loitering, drawing, and writing gave me a baseline to investigates urbanity, and what’s more, gave me a power to satirize my colorful interactions with strangers and security officers. So this insertion of language, writing, and flâneurism into the exhibition is almost like reminders to a way of life that I strive to embody.