“Feminine Spirit: Perseverance, Reflection & Heart”
Table of Contents
February 17 – April 3, 2022
7077 E. Main Street, Suite 6, RoyseContemporary.com Scottsdale AZ 85251 602-810- 3449
Royse Contemporary presents “Feminine Spirit", a small group exhibition showcasing five renowned local female artists. The artists featured include Cherie Buck-Hutchison, Marilyn Szabo, Charmagne
Vasquez,
Casey
Wakefield,
and
Kris
Manzanares. Feminine spirit encompasses the ideals that women house incredible power, ability, and growth. Growth, including physical, emotional, or spiritual, that they share and bring to the world.
Each artist brings their own story to the table, creating riveting enigmatic work. This exhibition highlights each artist's style, engaging medium, and unique imagery. They have an amazing ability and skill to work with a variety of mediums including painting, photography, mixed media and sculpture. These artists are constantly evolving and growing within their artistic practices and pushing their work to the next level. They have created intriguing and powerful pieces that connect with a large audience.
Women possess a special strength in the depths of their soul. It balances the energies and perspectives in life. It brings perseverance, reflection and heart to everything women do. This is such a special collection of compelling and emotive work created with such heart and passion. “I have selected this alluring group of artists that have an incredible energy, originality, and a distinctive voice in their fascinating bodies of work ,” states Curator, Nicole Royse.
An excellent collection of work has been assembled from this talented group of artists. Aesthetically different but have an undeniable bond and vitality that connects their work. "Feminine Spirit" offers artwork that is visceral, authentic and engaging, states Royse.
We had an incredible evening celebrating with artists and patrons at the Opening Reception of “Feminine Spirit” at Royse Contemporary on February 17, 2022.
“Los Pajaritos” By Charmagne Vasquez Mixed Media on Canvas, 40”x30”, 2022, $2500
“Arriving Incarnations” By Charmagne Vasquez Mixed Media on Canvas, 40”x30”, 2022, $2500
“Evoker” By Charmagne Vasquez Mixed Media on Canvas, 30”x40”, 2022, $2500
“Lithic Waver” By Charmagne Vasquez Mixed Media on Canvas, 48”x48”, 2021, $4800
Charmagne Vasquez artwork on display at Royse Contemporary in “Feminine Spirit”.
Charmagne Vasquez Charmagne Vasquez is a native Arizonan artist. She earned a minor in art, a BA in elementary education at Northern Arizona University and is also self-taught. She grew up in mid-town Phoenix in a family of creatives who taught her many art forms. Young, foundational experiences began a life of communicating and expressing by art. She has internationally exhibited her paintings and drawings. Her work has been found in, amongst others, the pages of Creative Quarterly in which she was a winner in the category of fine art, Phoenix Magazine, Luxe Interiors + Design and Utne Reader. She has collaborated on projects with other visual artists and musicians, such as the ambient UK band, Pausal, and Michaela Meadow in her book, Viriditas: Anthology Celebrating the Work of Contemporary Women Artists. In Arizona, she had past careers as an elementary school teacher and a fiber arts business owner, concurrent to her journey as a visual artist. She had her first formal solo exhibition, Embark, at Coconino Center for the Arts. Later, she went on to exhibit in other Arizona institutions such as ASU Institute for Humanities Research, Arizona Opera, Herberger Theater and downtown Phoenix’s monOrchid Gallery, gaining representation in 2013. In 2015, she and her family moved to Vashon Island, WA for a year. The remote experience had a significant, introspective impact on her perspective and visions. The verdant coastline and temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest additionally informed the way she biophilically approaches composition, texture and color. She regularly ferried across the Puget Sound to be represented by Seattle’s Ghost Gallery and participate in the Center on Contemporary Art. In 2016, she moved back to her hometown, Phoenix. She regularly participates in the Downtown Phoenix art community and is actively involved in several art organizations. Her most recent direction of art is in assemblage and abstract surrealism across many media. She relies on an intuitive, spontaneous approach to guide her. The element of surprise is critical while weaving together two and three-dimensional narratives. These narratives can be highly abstracted, while also imbedding characters and other identifiable subjects. Ephemera from her home, travels and nature are enmeshed and pushing out from the canvas surface. Each painting is a response and mediation on the struggles and joys of everyday life. She creates works in her home studio, and immensely enjoys working en plein air.
My paintings are evoked translations of life experiences. They circle back and inform as an ouroboros. I am composing menageries of internal and external worlds. Charmagne Vasquez
“Ma Table” By Marilyn Szabo Digital Print on Archival Museum Paper, 31”x35”, Framed, 2022, $900
“Burnt Dreams” By Marilyn Szabo Digital Print on Archival Museum Paper, 18”x18”, Framed, 2021, $600
“Columbine Survivor” By Marilyn Szabo Digital Print on Archival Museum Paper, 16”x16”, Framed, 2021, $600
“Yuko in Kimono” By Marilyn Szabo Digital Print on Archival Museum Paper, 16”x16”, Framed, 2021, $600
Marilyn Szabo artwork on display at Royse Contemporary in “Feminine Spirit”.
Marilyn Szabo Growing up in the heart of American history – Norfolk, Virginia, Marilyn Szabo began a lifelong interest in history and photography. She received her Bachelors in History from Virginia Commonwealth University with a minor in Photography. Szabo is a true creative force in Arizona culture and has worked for over twenty-five years as a photographer. Her photographic subjects vary from people to architecture to landscape, and the work has been praised for its depth, craftsmanship and versatility. Her work can be found in many public and private collections throughout the U.S. as well as receiving the Alligator Juniper’s 2010 National Photography Award and cover. She has extensively exhibited her artwork nationally and internationally, while garnering prestigious awards and grants including five from the arts commission. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Triumph of Our Communities, Black and White, Focus, In/Sights: Self-Portraits by Women edited by Joyce Tenneson Cohen, just to name a few. In 2014 At Work in Arizona: the First 100 Years book was published and funded by Alliance Bank of Arizona, featuring 168 pages including 80 of Szabo’s photographs. This impressive photographic project was a 15-year endeavor created by Szabo, who took on numerous roles including: artist, curator and historian. The exhibition presented a selection of images from the project providing a glimpse into Arizona’s past including images of transportation, mining, and manufacturing to agriculture, retail and the arts. In 2017 Szabo presented a new art installation “Ligature” at the Walter Art Gallery in Scottsdale, featuring photographs although surreal are figurative, both mysterious and lyrical, offering viewers a visual extravagance and a strange glamour. Szabo’s Life&Death: Portraits were exhibited at the Mesa Arts Center this summer, highlighting a “landscape of Arizona personalities and international persons” photographed by Szabo over a 25 year period. She is currently working on several books, including historical photography by an Arizona Photographer Jim Gorraiz and Szabo’s Life&Death: Portraits.
“I am a fine art Photographer, creating museum quality images. Her work encompasses her passion for history while exploring and capturing a variety of subject matter included but not limited to architecture, landscape, portraiture, and still life.” Marilyn Szabo
“The Unbearable Lightness of Guide Dogs” By Kris Manzanares Oil on Wood Panel, 42”x36”, 2022, $3325
“Back To School Body Armor” By Kris Manzanares Oil on Wood Panel, 36x48”, 2022, $3500
“Escalate” By Kris Manzanares Oil on Wood Panel, 16”x29”, 2022, $1150
“Beet” By Kris Manzanares Oil on Wood Panel, 12”x24”, 2022, $875
“Snowflake” By Kris Manzanares Oil on Wood Panel, 12”x12”, 2022, $450
Kris Manzanares artwork on display at Royse Contemporary in “Feminine Spirit”.
Kris Manzanares Kris Manzanares is an oil painter and domestic multi-media artist. She uses personal iconography and the human form as a way to explore the world around her. Her work depicts ideas of seemingly inconsequential everyday decisions and their ripple effects as she studies her life in relation to currents of culture. Starting with an idea usually sparked by a photograph, she creates narratives in oil paint that help bring her subconscious ruminations to light. She works with visual imagery of the people and objects that inundate her home, especially her children, and uses personal images as she finds them or modifies and enhances them to more effectively communicate her ideas. She is also interested in examining the complexities and tensions of her self-definition as a mother and artist and how this affects her family. The process of painting helps her make sense of parenting, e.g., Was it really a good idea to teach her daughters to be polite? Wouldn't it have been better to teach them to stand up for themselves even at the expense of another’s feelings? Society already critically demands their empathy. Painting helps her work these issues out. Her process of careful imagery selection and the amount of time she spends with each idea lets her think and feel things through. The realizations she comes up with help shape the positive change she is working towards in herself and gives her confidence that she is being a healthy and productive role-model for her kids, who, if all goes well, will continue to expand upon these ideas.
I start with an image, or a couple of images, and a loose idea of how to put them together. Then as I work, it becomes a game of what do I let go of and what do I rein in, a visual dance of getting lost and refocusing until I don't feel like working on it anymore; that's when I know the idea is complete. Kris Manzanares
“Pearls in Springtime (January 6, 2021)” By Cherie Buck-Hutchison Pigment Ink Photograph, 16”x20”, (23”x29”) Framed, 2022, $900
“Catastrophe Paradise” By Cherie Buck-Hutchison Pigment Ink Photograph, 12”x15”, (16”x20”) Framed, 2022, $600
“Snakes in Paradise” By Cherie Buck-Hutchison Pigment Ink Photograph, 16”x20”, Framed, 2021, $800
“Ode to Mille Rawls (First Female Elder in Ajo, AZ” By Cherie Buck- Hutchison Mixed Media Sculpture, Organza, Thread, Vintage Hosiery, Lily, Root,16”x4”, 2022, $400
“Ode to Deborah (Judge, Seer and Prophetess)” By Cherie Buck- Hutchison Mixed Media Sculpture, Organza, Thread, Monofilament, Amethyst, Steer Stone, 21”x7”, 2022, $550
“Ode to Lydia (First Female Deacon in Philippi)” By Cherie Buck- Hutchison Mixed Media Sculpture, Organza, Thread, Murex Shell, Lily, Root, 18”x5”, 2022, $500
Cherie Buck-Hutchison work at Royse Contemporary featured in “Feminine Spirit”.
Cherie Buck-Hutchison Cherie Buck-Hutchison is an American artist living in Phoenix, Arizona. Buck-Hutchison is a photo and video-based artist, often incorporating other mediums into her work. She summons the use of her imagination to reorient spatial and social boundaries. Her use of layered imagery is a counteraction of the movement to invisibility that is often imposed through authoritarian practices. The lens shifts to bring the unseen into greater focus by manipulating the private onto the public landscape. Red rock configurations and canyons often appear in her imagery; a manifestation of her interest in reconciling the metaphoric interiority and exteriority of the landscape. In this series formerly marginalized women share an intrepid role in the transformation of leadership within specific cultures. Using family photos, the women in imagery such Sisters Lead at Dinosaur National Monument are magically empowered while still allowing space for all genders. Unfolding through time and space, Buck-Hutchison’s work portrays an invented American melancholy, inviting conversation regarding contemporary women’s issues within a national identity. The enchanted southwest of the future is deftly layered into existence. Buck-Hutchison has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Intermedia from the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. She is the former co-President of eye lounge Gallery, a collective of eleven artists in downtown Phoenix. She was named one of the top 100 Creatives in Phoenix, Arizona in 2016 by The New Times. She is a cofounder of InSight, an initiative to deepen community, cultural and artistic practices through collaborations between the visual and literary populace in Phoenix, Arizona. Her recent exhibitions include the Brownsville Art Museum, The Old Courthouse Center for the Arts, eye lounge Gallery, Bokeh Gallery at the MonOrchid, the Providence Art Club and the Appaloosa branch of Scottsdale’s Public Library.
“I negotiate an uncomfortable agreement between authority, intervention and feminism through gossamer, translucent layers. I often deploy magical thinking to explore, repair and reinvent authoritarian narratives. I shift depths of field to call into question the veils of hidden oppressions as I move between photography and sculpture.” Cherie Buck-Hutchison
“Essence in Wonder” By Casey Wakefield Oil & Mixed Media on Canvas, 48”x36”, 2022, $3000
“Wellspring” By Casey Wakefield Oil & Mixed Media on Canvas, 24”x24”, 2022, $1250
“Interweave II” By Casey Wakefield Oil & Mixed Media on Canvas, 24”x24”, 2022, $1250
“Like Sea” By Casey Wakefield Oil & Mixed Media on Canvas, 24”x24”, 2022, $1250
“Interweave I” By Casey Wakefield Oil & Mixed Media on Canvas, 24”x24”, 2022, $1250
Casey Wakefield artworks at Royse Contemporary featured in “Feminine Spirit”.
Casey Wakefield Casey Wakefield is an abstract artist who creates color impressions. She captures the essence of experiences, moments, and memories in unique and spontaneous color patterns. Her depictions express a contemplative and genuine transformation of colors, drips, and marks onto the canvas with mixed media and oil that develop into individual layers and depth within each piece of art. When viewing her abstract paintings, you will see and feel an inner working that has traveled onto the canvas. She creates her artwork in her studio while listening to different genres of music, usually based on what experience or memory she is depicting.
For her the joy of painting is to watch the abstract emerge into something that evolves from the process and the finished painting will hopefully create an emotional connection for someone. "In the process of painting, I have found that each brushstroke is just like the journey in life, taking one step at a time towards your purpose and surprised by how you transform and evolve by trusting each step." Her paternal grandparents were raised in the Amish faith and within Casey's artwork you can see an internal reflection of their way of life in her minimalist, but purposeful approach to her abstract paintings.
Wakefield grew up in small Midwestern town in central Illinois. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Illinois State University. Wakefield has studied classical painting at the Milan Art Institute, where she discovered her passion for color and applying layers of paint and letting the process determine the outcome. Wakefield currently resides in the Gilbert with her husband and three children.
“I am inspired by groupings of color that catch my eye and the essence of a memory or experience, music, quote or poem. For me, the joy of painting is to watch the abstract emerge into something that evolves from my process and in the end creates an emotional connection for the viewer.” Casey Wakefield
7077 E. Main Street, Suite 6, Scottsdale, AZ Phone: 602-810-3449 Email: Nicole@nicoleroyse.com @roysecontemporary
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