Jasper Studios Artist in Residence (July through October 2018)

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Can you describe your work for us in 7 words or less

Now then, then again, now and again.

Being an artist can be a challenging profession, what advice would you give to your younger self?

I would tell myself that relationships are one of the most valuable assets to your career. Get out of the studio more and invest your time building strong relationships with other artists. They will sharpen you as an artist and most opportunities that come your way will come from them. Your paintings will still be there when you get back.

What are you listening to at the moment?

Let’s see, the last five albums I listened to are Bill Callahan - Apocalypse, Nick Cave – Skeleton Tree, Marnie Stern – Marnie Stern, Run the Jewels - 3, Boards of Canada – Music has the Right to Children

What do you look at for inspiration?

I have been watching my three year old son draw. He has no habits yet, so each mark is a revelation.

What artists inspire you most?

The artists that inspire me the most are the ones that are close to me, by proximity or by friendship. You get the most out of art works that you watch develop and invest thought into, over time. Michael Ciervo, Anna Neighbor, Anthony Bowers, Mariel Capanna and Aubrey Levinthal a few Philly artists that inspire me.

Who would be a dream artist to collaborate with?

I would have liked to go for a walk with Bas Jan Ader.

What’s something that you learned early in your career that you feel made you a better artist?

Art has always been my passion, but it took me a few years to pursuit it intentionally. Once I got to art school I resolved to work harder and put in more hours than anyone else. This was hard to do because a handful of my classmates had the same resolve. I would paint and draw all day in class, then I would stay and paint still lives and draw casts all night. Today, I have a full time day job, I teach part time, and I have two young sons (Hugo and Wills) at home. The work ethic developed then has carried me through the years since and drives me into the studio even when I am exhausted. Inspiration doesn’t just come to me. I create inspiration through the work.

Why did you apply to become a resident at Jasper Studios? And what did you hope to achieve during the residency program?

My family is my first commitment. Between raising my boys with my wife and the jobs I work to support them, I don’t have the time or flexibility to pursue a traditional residency. When I saw this opportunity come up, to have a residency right here at home, I jumped at it. It’s been almost ten years since I had a studio that wasn’t a second bedroom, so having dedicated time and space to work in this beautiful building has been amazing. It can be tough to focus when your studio shares a wall with a baby’s room. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect either, as I am working towards two solo shows scheduled for this winter at Gross McCleaf gallery and Abington Art Center.


 

Infinite Spaces

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Museum

July 01, 2018 - September 09, 2018

How do artists define space? Is it contained within a claustrophobic interior or unbounded by a panoramic vista? Is it three-dimensional or flattened and abstract? Tangible or elusive? Neutral or charged? And what of the space within our own minds?

The foundational challenge of space—how to define it, render it, and manage its infinite meanings—has occupied American artists in myriad ways. While some early Americans struggled to master European models of perspective via transatlantic correspondence, others worked outside the Academy, relying on communal knowledge to construct powerful and imaginative spaces. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, modern and contemporary artists pushed definitions of space into fantastic and experimental realms. Infinite Spaces: Rediscovering PAFA’s Permanent Collection, uses this artistic conundrum as its point of departure. Inspired by the spatial interventions of Philadelphia’s recent Monument Lab initiative, Infinite Spaces explores how artists have engaged space throughout the history of American art, from the eighteenth century to the present day.

Moving through five spaces—urban, environmental, interior, psychological, and fantastical—visitors will have the opportunity to explore space both as an artistic element and a powerful signifier of public and personal meaning. Placing historic works in conversation with modern and contemporary works, Infinite Spaces highlights new acquisitions and rarely seen objects from PAFA’s historic collection of American art in our Fisher Brooks Gallery, as well as throughout our Samuel M. V. Hamilton and Historic Landmark buildings.

 

READ INFINITE SPACES, THE COMPANION BLOG TO THIS EXHIBITION

Intimacy & Abnegation at NoBA Artspace

NoBA Artspace is pleased to present Intimacy and Abnegation a traveling group exhibition featuring work by Jan Baltzell, Michael Ciervo, Scott Dickson, Todd Keyser, Sam Metcalf, Anna Neighbor, Robert Scobey and Danny Snelson. Curated by Joseph Lozano. The exhibition runs from December 9th 2017 – January 6th, 2018. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, December 9th. 200 Bala Ave, Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004.

Image: Intimacy & Abnegation at New Boone Gallery, April 2017.

Image: Intimacy & Abnegation at New Boone Gallery, April 2017.

False intimacy is a common enough feeling to be intuitively understood. Who among us has not exchanged the breath from a human body for the hum of an electronic screen instead? Modernity’s dehumanizing atomization of social connection is not a new phenomenon but how are artists looking at that disconnect now? Walter Benjamin describes the ability of the camera to bring nature closer to the spectator through artifice, what is our current proxy for connection? What does our artifice say about our connection?

The artist’s presented here grapple with growing alienation by seeking an honest intimacy between us - an intimacy through artifice. By analogy, they make connections to the viewer's experience of the contemporary moment. By the material they employ, their craft or touch closes the distance between our bodies. Ultimately it is by the obstructions or rules that they place on their practices that makes room for us to empathize with them.
It is the recognition of our limitations that creates intimacy between us.

“Since finitude marks the point where we end and others begin, spatially and temporally, it is also what makes room for them--and acknowledging these limits allows us to experience the expansiveness for which we yearn, because it gives us a powerful sense of our emplacement within a larger Whole.”- Flesh of My Flesh, Kaja Silverman