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24WORKS.ORG
Curator’s Statement Louise Siddons, Ph.D. // Associate Professor of American, Native American, Modern and Contemporary Art History at Oklahoma State University.
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Paper is about possibility—both literal and metaphorical. Familiar and accessible to artists at every level, paper has spurred centuries of innovative creation. Over the past two decades or so, paper has even proven itself resilient in the face of digital technologies and screen culture. We love the look and feel of paper, its responsiveness to pencil, ink, chalk, marker, and paint—and we love the drama of its sound as it is cut, torn, folded, and crumpled. We likewise love its history, which opens up the potential for wit, humor, and profundity. In this exhibition, twenty-four artists from across Oklahoma masterfully explore the limitless possibilities of paper. Juried exhibitions like 24 Works on Paper reveal the depth and breadth of artmaking across the state. The large number of young applicants this year is a valuable reminder that educational institutions—high schools, colleges, and universities—make Oklahoma’s art community possible. I was particularly gratified when I realized that both of the artists I selected for awards this year—Sheri Talkington and Jennifer Johnson—are students, early in their careers but already making reflective, technically impressive work. A significant part of the drama of 24 Works on Paper unfolds quietly behind the scenes, during the selection process. As curator, I bring all of myself to bear on that process: the art historian shares equal time with the printmaker, the art critic wrangles with the teacher—and all of those perspectives are inflected with my personal taste and experience. Without discounting subject matter, I decided early on to privilege craft and technique, selecting works that showcase the diverse possibilities of paper through artists’ display of skill and production of unexpected effects. My first short list was far too long, so I faced tough decisions, trying to whittle my way down to just twenty-four artists. Eventually, I could start visualizing the exhibition as a whole instead of considering individual works on their own terms. I struggled to make the last five or seven cuts, but this final stage is always invigorating because it demands a creativity of its own. As I juxtaposed the artworks I selected with one another, it became clear that as a group they suggest some surprising paradoxes. For example, several of the watercolors share a delicate, sensitive approach to descriptive realism—but each artist uses that technique to very different philosophical ends. Similarly, a number of artworks in the show take the human body as their subject, but the artists’ various choices to use lithography, cut paper, mixed media, and graphite add dimension to their differences in interpretation. As the exhibition travels to different venues around the state, I hope that the myriad conversations that I have tried to elicit between these works are drawn out by each installation—and I look forward to visitors discovering more of their own.
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August 13 – September 28, 2018 Guymon Public Library and Arts Center, Guymon, OK
October 8 – November 23, 2018 SWOSU Art Gallery, Weatherford, OK
December 3 – January 11, 2019 The Wigwam Gallery, Altus, OK
January 21 – March 1, 2019 McArts Gallery of Fine Art, McAlester, OK
March 11 – April 19, 2019 Artesian Gallery, Sulphur, OK
May 11 – June 14, 2019 Leslie Powell Gallery, Lawton, OK
June 24 – August 2, 2019 Prairie Art Center, Stillwater, OK
August 12 – September 20, 2019 Spider Gallery, Tahlequah, OK
September 30 – November 15, 2019 Eleanor Hays Art Gallery, Northern Oklahoma College, Tonkawa, OK
December 2 – January 17, 2020 Tulsa World | Lorton Family Gaylord Pickens Museum, home of the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City, OK 3
OK- 47: Dewey County by MJ Alexander //Oklahoma City photography, 2 2 x 28
The spacious skies churn with storm clouds. The amber waves of grain are withered. The stars and stripes are frozen in mid-furl, anchored in an iconic American landscape straddling the border of reality and illusion. Photographed May 28, 2018, as part of my ongoing series of people and places of Oklahoma and the American West.
Red Light by Marti Cordova // Wetumka photography, 2 2 x 28 I was preparing a Study in Red, Black & Gray. I came across this very large red light in a black marbled vestibule of a downtown OKC building. I liked it’s unusual shape. Challenges to obtaining an artistic photograph included: a night shot with out flash while capturing the large subject at an angle in which the light bulb would not disperse yellow light glare. This permitted the lamp’s shape and color to be the focal point.
Divided by Michelle Bradsher // Oolagah conte crayon , 2 2 x 28 When my older brother was three years old he had his first heart surgery which entered him into “zipper club” membership. As an adult, we thought all was well, but the early 1960’s surgery somehow damaged his heart leaving his only chance for survival- a transplant. In the days before the ACA, a preexisting condition meant you kept your job and your insurance for fear of never being covered again. He reasoned that a transplant would require a life time of expensive anti-rejection drugs and a life spent working at a low paying job meant only to get him through college. A
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Samson’s Trip by Jason Cytacki // Norman computer science geek and a recent college graduate facing a bleak and uncertain future, he decided to leave it up to fate. On September 2, 1995 he left this world after 34 years of life.
graphite on paper, 2 2 x 28 Secluded below the earth’s surface far away from the world above, strange environments have grown
and entwined themselves around this figure. Calling to mind the secret lairs and hidden places often found in childhood stories of adventure, these spaces function as symbolic sanctuaries of escape - particularly alluring for contemporary individuals dealing with an increasingly uncertain world. Paths and stalagmites wrap the figure in an embrace like a comfortable blanket while simultaneously keeping him trapped like a modern day Gulliver. The figure is a direct reference to Ruben’s painting of Samson, who likewise is lost in a dream and oblivious of the impending dangers around.
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FF Io Drips Redacted by Brian Dehart // Tulsa charcoal, ink, and inject on paper, 1 6 x 20 This drawing is part of a series of grayscale drawings that combine a portrait-type figure with abstract forms. The drawings in this series have a recurring figure based on a 1944 newspaper photograph of the actor Frances Farmer taken in Antioch, California where she was arrested for vagrancy. The drawing was created with digital and physical tools. It began as a digital image made on a PC with a pen tablet and then printed onto paper with an inkjet printer. Additions were made to the drawing with charcoal, graphite and drawing ink; subtractions were made with sandpaper and erasers. The drawing was revised further with more layers of inkjet printing.
Longhorn at Sunset by Bryan Dahlvang // Oklahoma City oil on prepared paper, 1 6 x 20 Light is so fleeting, and I love to capture how it falls upon subjects of my interest. Portraying this beautiful animal was done quickly, as if racing the sun before it slipped below the horizon on a crisp November evening.
Above and Below by Emma Difani // Oklahoma City
Blushing Peony by Kiana Daneshmand // Edmond
serigraph on hand dyed paper, 2 2 x 28
watercolor, 1 6 x 20 I primarily work from life and careful observation of translating what I see. Working with and painting this peony was no exception to my practices as I strived to capture in this piece the many subtleties happening across the subject that I was working from. Using a systematic approach to building up colors and values one layer at a time, I was able to capture the delicacy of the flower not only as a whole but with each petal that was constructed. For me, as demonstrated in this painting,
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capturing the details of a complex subject in a simplistic way is vital for my work.
My work focuses on exploring wild places in urban spaces. Living for the first time in a city where unaltered environments are scarce within the urban/suburban expanse, I need to broaden my appreciation of ecology to include the four foot squares of soil inset in the city sidewalks, the birds’ nests in the eaves of bridges and the ivy creeping unrestrained across parking garages. I map these traces of the grown environment on the constructed one and vice versa. This piece focuses on the two most easily accessible forms of “nature” we experience and interact with everyday-the sky and the earth.
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Scape #15 by Douglas Shaw Elder // Norman
Body Scan 4 by Jennifer Johnson // Stillwater
ink on paper, 1 6 x 20
lithograph on paper, 2 2 x 28
SCAPES takes an abstract perspective, observing the cycles of nature that inevitably direct all life forms. This series contemplates the specific transformative forces of creation and growth and their counterparts, destruction, and erosion. Organic and dark in character, SCAPES conveys the sense of the raw, unalterable power of nature - its splendor, its force, and its sheer magnitude.
Award of Merit Regrowth by Claire Holloway // Oklahoma City
I’m interested in the human form and the various ways in which the body can abstract itself through movement and contortion. This piece is part of an ongoing journey to express those surfaces, textures, and forms that embody those abstractions. To create Body Scan 4 I first inked and printed models onto mylar, and then used various printmaking methods to draw, edit, and layer those impressions. Then I combined photo, drawing, and scanned imagery to highlight those areas of the body that I find most compelling. It is my hope that viewers will appreciate the diverse forms that the human body can provide through examining the multiple surfaces at work in this image.
cut paper, 1 6 x 20 Regrowth is about the incredible ability for animals to adapt to their environment. Pictured in this piece are two species; the African elephant and the Sika deer. In Gabon, Africa, where these elephants reside, are several oil fields that the elephants have actually flourished in because of the strict regulations imposed on the oil fields. In a similar situation of human encroachment, Sika deer, which are native to Japan, are akin to squirrels in the United States; they`re everywhere in some of the most densely populated cities
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Mud Trace, Caddo Co, OK by Howard Koerth // Oklahoma City digital image, 1 6 x 20
in Japan. It looks as if even with continual human growth, nature finds a way to flourish.
I use the photographic image to record what I find of visual interest, the found objects of the world as we see it. The “Mud Trace” images serve as abstractions, in that abstract art compels the viewer to question what they perceive as reality.
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Average Subject/ Medium Distance #4186 (Average) by Andy Mattern // Stillwater pigment ink print, 2 2 x 28 Turning the camera on its own logic, the photographs in Average Subject / Medium Distance (2018) reconfigure paper. Guides once used to determine exposure and other image settings. Stripped of example imagery, technical numbers, and explanatory text, these relics from midcentury photographic practice are reduced to their underlying structure. In the process of removing this information, digital traces are created, shifting the surface into a rupture between physical and virtual, analog and digital, functional and useless.
Pool by Jana LaChance // Oklahoma City pastel on paper, 2 2 x 28 It’s intriguing to analyze an environment. A pool, whether man-made, natural, literal or not, could transfigure perception or be introspective. I let the gestural mark-making define the tension and movement of the simplified figure and undulating pool; smooth, choppy, blended. Does a space have an effect or alter self and vise-versa? Do we disassociate, become part of, or pause somewhere in between? The undercurrent of a place invites and envelops a person, or maybe we are separate entities?
Just So by Regina Murphy // Oklahoma City acr ylic , 2 2 x 28
Cut Skull by JJ Hawkey // Stillwater cut paper/papercutting, 1 6 x 20 I am an amateur self-taught artist/ crafter. I was inspired by papercut artists on social media and attempted my first papercutting in 2016. Since then, I have shown my work at several small art exhibitions and continue to grow as an artist. A large portion of every sale of my artwork is used to support community outreach efforts benefitting at risk children and the homeless.
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“Just So” is a recent work and the first I have created on paper for several years. When I received notice of this exhibition (24 Works on Paper) I was challenged to return to paper for a support after years of painting only on canvas. In my over 50 years of creating art, I have tried most 2D media, starting out in oils, then acrylics, turning to watercolor, and then pastels and back to acrylic. Also along the way I tried printmaking, both etching and mono-printing. I have finally settled on acrylic as my medium of choice because of its versatility and fast drying time. My work can be seen in
my studio – Studio Six – in the historic Paseo Art District in Oklahoma City
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The Reach by romy owens // Enid
Cloud View by Mat Reed // Norman
photographs and thread, 2 2 x 28
watercolor, 2 2 x 28
This process creates a new surface that hints at broader formal themes in the medium. A single word remains in each composition in its original location, while all the other information has been neutralized. This word operates as a springboard for interpretation while pointing to the priorities and conventions contained in the original object.
This work Could View is part of a group of works I began thinking about our relationship with beauty and even more so with nature. How in we our hubris as we stand ourselves against nature and the way we experience nature’s beauty as if we are seperate. Focusing in the way we interact in the moments we are confronted by beauty face to face. Our willingness to self-mediate ourselves in lieu of being fully engaged in the actual experience. This is loss is represented by the rectangle in the sky” the thing we captured”. The white band dividing the upper sky area and the lower expressive area is there as a false boundary between the dualites we find in our lives.
Portrait of Cameron Richardson: Peace, Piece 2 by Mark Sisson // Stillwater linocut, woodcut, lithograph , 2 2 x 28
Churn by Haley Prestifilippo // Norman graphite on paper, 2 2 x 28 My drawings explore the symbiotic nature of relationships within various systems. I am also fascinated by the similar dichotomy found within the symbolic imagery of the vanitas, where vibrant beauty and the pall of mortality subtly inhabit the same aesthetic space. In my work, I draw upon the lush beauty of those still lives, recasting the familiar animals and natural elements in ambiguous narratives, offering a contemporary meditation on the complexity of existence.
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We all have biases and those biases lead to assumptions, which in turn lead to predictable consequences. Those biases expose and magnify our innate fears of the other and produce threat assessments that are incorrect or overstated; the end product is tragedy, recrimination and distrust, as has been amply and repeatedly documented.
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Desert’s Fire by Virginia Sitzes // Oklahoma City
Flowers by Carla Waugh // Norman
monot ype, serigraphy, 1 6 x 20
watercolors and pen and ink, 1 6 x 20
There is freedom in letting go of control. My work, in a literal sense, is my inner thoughts manifesting visually. While working with a surface and letting intuition guide my mark making, I play with process and abstraction while letting my brain subconsciously deal with moments, memories, and thoughts. I hope to give a glimpse of what it may be like to walk down a tiny stream, gather around a campfire at the end of the day, or stand in the midst of waves crashing during the setting of the sun. To express wanting to cry, dance, laugh, and sleep all at the same time through layers and colors and marks. My work becomes more than just a
Through my experimentation with watercolor techniques I have accomplished unique ranges of contrasting colors, value and movement. This process can be full of surprise and unexpectedness. My goal is for the viewer to be immersed in a kaleidoscope of color.
visual experience; it begins to beg an emotional response.
we have the eyes by Sheri Talkington // Edmond digital illustration , graphite, colored pencil, watercolor, oil pastel, and chalk, 2 2 x 28
Curator ’s Choice Award 14
In my piece, we have eyes, I am exploring the agonizing effects that neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s can have on a diagnosed individual and their loved ones. Through the layering of mixed materials, I allow the image to change and shift as I cover up certain areas and allow others to peek through. This process is a metaphor for the ways in which memories compound, morph, and ultimately disappear from our minds. The helplessness that accompanies memory loss is both terrifying and isolating. With our memories accounting for such a large part of our individuality, who are we once that begins to fade away?
Rope by Jenny Woodruf f // Oklahoma City digital photography, 1 6 x 20 For most of my years on the planet I have been engaged in one creative endeavor or another. My primary medium is photography with deviations in all directions. I describe myself as eclectic, or don’t fence me in please.
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