Dana Haugaard: That breeze just keeps blowing over me (Edge Award 2021 Catalog) by swancoachhousegallery

That breeze just keeps blowing over me

DANA HAUGAARD 2021 EDGE AWARD EXHIBITION

That breeze just keeps blowing over me DANA HAUGAARD 2021 EDGE AWARD EXHIBITION

with Finalists Davion Alston, Fredrik Brauer, Eleanor Neal and Saige Rowe

APRIL 10 - MAY 20, 2021 GALLERY HOURS: By appointment Tues-Fri, 11am-3pm Open for walk-ins on Saturdays, 11am-3pm To reserve a time, visit www.swangallery.org gallery@swancoachhouse.com // 404.266.2636

The Swan Coach House Gallery and the Forward Arts Foundation are pleased to present That breeze just keeps blowing over me by Dana Haugaard, recipient of the organization’s 2021 Edge Award. The Edge Award is given annually by the Forward Arts Foundation to an early-career or underrecognized visual artist of merit in the greater Atlanta area. In April 2020, Haugaard was awarded the $10,000 cash prize, a two-week residency at the Hambidge Center and a solo exhibition at the Swan Coach House Gallery. The Finalists for the award—Davion Alston, Fredrik Brauer, Eleanor Neal and Saige Rowe—each received $2,000 and have work displayed in the front Gallery space during Haugaard’s exhibition. That breeze just keeps blowing over me is an exhibition of portraits of people and their “sense memories.” Haugaard creates these portraits through the use of color, line, shape and a drawing machine that he built—an Audiograph— that translates sound into marks on a surface. The sound transcribed by the Audiograph was sourced from recordings of people recalling stories that were formative to their sense of self, as well as the sensations that accompany these stories. The resulting portraits are abstract and ambiguous markers that a person was present and a memory was shared. At its core, this exhibition is a way to engage with and experience the physicality of another person. This exhibition is sponsored by Betty and Bob Edge

Everything around me was nebulous and wispy (I remember just feeling everything) [Ryan], 2021 Spray paint, grease pencil, colored pencil, ink Audiograph drawing on paper 43 x 54 inches

12 of them to tear into, like a little monster (Savages) [Mel], 2021 Spray paint, grease pencil, ink Audiograph drawing on paper 21 x 20 inches

12 of them to tear into, like a little monster (Savages) [Mel] (detail)

I just really didn’t understand, like, what that feeling was [Maxwell], 2021 Spray paint, grease pencil, ink Audiograph drawing on paper 26 x 56 inches 10

I just really didn’t understand, like, what that feeling was [Maxwell] (detail) 11

I was over the moon [Leigh], 2021 Spray paint, grease pencil, ink Audiograph drawing on paper 31 x 48 inches

I was over the moon [Leigh] (detail)

Everything was kinda moldy, but also bright (Sucked into the vortex) [Emily], 2021 Spray paint, grease pencil, colored pencil, ink Audiograph drawing on paper 46 x 27 inches

That breeze just keeps blowing over me [Mom], 2021 Spray paint, grease pencil, ink Audiograph drawing on paper 57 x 46 inches

That breeze just keeps blowing over me [Mom] (detail)

I felt weightless and, like, in love [Lizzy], 2021 Spray paint, grease pencil, colored pencil, ink Audiograph drawing on paper 20 x 14 inches

I felt weightless and, like, in love [Lizzy] (detail)

You can just sort of hear the house sounds and your hair is swirling [Claire], 2021 Spray paint, grease pencil, colored pencil, ink Audiograph drawing on paper 34 x 34 inches

You can just sort of hear the house sounds and your hair is swirling [Claire] (detail)

Bench: (An External Source of Movement), 2021 Wood, steel, 2-channel audio, 31 minutes, tactile (vibrating) transducer 71 x 28 x 17 inches

Dana Haugaard Artist Statement

Artist Bio

What lives in the quiet moments of remembering that drift in orbits around the longer narrative of our lives? What grows in the fertile tension between the attraction and repulsion of memory— what we integrate vs. what we discard—and what stays liminal and never stabilizes? What small circles do we weave ourselves into, and is there pleasure in those constraints?

Dana Haugaard received his MFA from the University of Iowa and is a graduate of Emory University. Dana has been a resident in the Atlanta Contemporary’s Studio Artist Program and is a Hambidge Fellow. He recently exhibited at the Atlanta Contemporary, the Zuckerman Museum of Art, the Macon Museum of Arts and Science, and the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As an artist working with sound and sensation, Dana investigates how our self-awareness in any given moment functions in relationship to our presence in space, place and time. He works with sensation and perception to create environments that provoke a heightened sense of awareness of one’s self. Dana uses and manipulates sound, reflective surfaces, and vibrations to construct experiences that draw attention to and call into question ou relationship to our surroundings. These situations play with physical, spatial, and temporal reference points to take what is often a minimal presentation and make it an overwhelming experience. Dana currently teaches Visual Art at Emory University as part of the Department of Art History.

I want to hold space here for the small moments that may seem mundane, easy to discard, but which carry the weight of all their contexts: all the futility of remembering and all the necessity of remembering. They exist, though, now in light of what we hold presently and in light of what we’re carrying—socially, politically, interpersonally, ecologically. All memory is, to some extent, invented, and the installations I create are no different. But can comfort and terror coexist here, and what can they generate simultaneously? I am exploring the fluctuating relationships between our self-awareness, place, and time, and how memory brings to light perceptions that can be both true and false from moment to moment. These paintings are an attempt to use color, line, shape, and an Audiograph drawing machine to translate the language that we use to describe a memory or a past sensation into a record that acts as a physical placeholder for something that is ephemeral, but real. This exhibition is also a way to engage with and feel the physicality of another person. The voice and touch of a distant friend, a mother, or even a complete stranger are a balm, especially when physical proximity and touch are forbidden but needed, now more than ever.

Davion Alston Stepping On The Ant Bed, 2020 Archival matte photograph, mixed media 36 x 46 inches 24

Davion Alston, 2021 Edge Award Finalist Artist Statement

Artist Bio

Not necessarily knowing how to love, I collect thoughtfully like a bird of paradise and create out of the desire to be loved, in hopes that one day it will be noticed. I use still-life and assemblage to build worlds that reflect the constraints of freedom during this time of isolation, distance, and longing.

Davion K. Alston is a visual artist living and working in Atlanta, GA. He was born 1992 in Landstuhl, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany and grew up with Geechee-Gullah roots along the coast of Georgia. He received his BFA from the Welch School of Art and Design at Georgia State University. Alston is a 2020-2021 MOCA GA Working Artist Project Fellow; an awardee of the 2020-2021 International Center of Photography: Black Press Freedom Fund; and a 2020-2021 Black Artist Fund Recipient.

I reproduce moments from past bodies of works to inform and collapse current realities. I then layer and interweave a sense of time that has passed through moments of fleeting motion and casts of elongated shadows. My memories are fragmented like windows of passing time or soft moments of stillness. Currently my ideas have started exploring outward towards utopic themes such as the desire to gather whether it is to memorialize, protest, or celebrate. I question the reasons for us as humans to be in one unison striving for collective liberation. I work intimately, quietly, and collectively.

Alston’s recent work has been featured and reviewed in national and international publications such as the Aperture Foundation, the New York Times, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, and BURNAWAY, amongst others. Alston is included in The 2020 Atlanta Biennial: Of Care and Destruction at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, curated by Dr. Jordan Amirkhani & TK Smith. His first solo museum exhibition will be on view at The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia this spring, a culmination of his time as a Working Artist Project Fellow for the 2020-2021 year.

Fredrik Brauer Image: #20 C-Print 59 x 49 inches framed

Fredrik Brauer, 2021 Edge Award Finalist Artist Statement

Artist Bio

Using the formal aspect of the built environment I distill the three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional plane. By combining a large number of images I create one large one. My images take on content that differs from the buildings themselves: they are made to preserve the fleeting moment I have envisioned weeks before of an idea that is simply too valuable to lose. The materials themselves give an understanding of time, technique and building code. With that, I create a relationship between shape and color that conveys kinetic, calm and hypnotic qualities.

Fredrik Brauer was born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden. His work considers the formal aspect of the built environment in his daily practice as well as his artistic projects. Fredrik’s work has been published all over the world and his work was last on display at the show Project at the Temporary Art Center in late 2019.

Currently, within our state of self-isolation, the buildings’ existing value is found in colors and shapes, with unkept promises of their original purpose of shelter and profits.

Eleanor Neal Montage of a Secret Place, 2021 Eco-plant print, India ink on paper 34 x 23 inches 28

Eleanor Neal, 2021 Edge Award Finalist Artist Statement

Artist Bio

My artwork speaks to my interest in memories and place, where identity and nature connect. I explore abstraction and its connection to myths and Southern stories. Within a web of entangled lines, I communicate stories of survival, isolation, and empowerment.

Eleanor Neal lives in Atlanta and received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work is featured in the 2021 Atlanta Biennial at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. She has recently exhibited at the Marietta-Cobb Museum of Art, the Dalton Gallery at Agnes Scott College, MOCA GA, and the Sullivan Gallery at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work can also be seen at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Select awards include the Elizabeth Catlett Printmaking Award and the Faith Ringgold Anyone Can Fly Foundation Printmaking Fellowship. Eleanor will attend a residency at the Hambidge Center in July 2021, and the Sarah Ball Allis Museum in Milwaukee will feature her artwork later this year.

Inspiration comes from nature: Spanish moss which lives on the trees along the Georgia Sea Coast. It holds water which gives it life. Sometimes I feel present, sometimes not. Textured, sculpted, colorful beeswaxed paper in organic shapes echo water and form. I am interested in women’s voices from historical places like the Georgia Sea Islands and the Gullah Islands. I reflect on historical stories of powerful women as they chant, dance, connect and disconnect through migration and separation of family. These cultural stories are explored within a web of entangled lines and layering of material. Ultimately, I reflect on hope and the importance of staying in a place of empowerment, even in the middle of change, chaos, and uncertainty. I reflect on this collective moment of progress we are experiencing today in this historical moment. How can I explore these thoughts and feelings in my work? The natural dyes from eco plants become abstract paintings in small intimate artworks. The spontaneity and unpredictability of the process gives me another voice in the abstraction of nature connecting with a sense of place.

Saige Rowe broody blooms, 2020 Digital video (5 mins, 38 secs), tv, artificial foliage 15 x 15 x 20 inches 30

Saige Rowe, 2021 Edge Award Finalist Artist Statement

Artist Bio

In the moment of making, I feel as though I am sculpting both behind and in front of the camera. I unconventionally interact with mundane objects for an extended time and then mine the footage and draw connections and new meaning through a very involved and open-ended editing process. This method of working is intended to foreground and pay homage to process itself. The very labor is meditative and introspective, it inches me towards interactions I wouldn’t otherwise assume. My backyard has always been my studio and in the same way, it functions as a stage. I often find the objects-turned-subjects in my pieces from around my home; they’re props I begin to study in front of the camera. The more I interact with them the further I get from using them as they are meant to be—a lounge chair becomes a table, a shelter, a sculptural arc. Similarly, my filming and editing process is a painterly one. As I film, I allow the camera to interject and become a character itself. It moves and has a point-of-view acknowledging its environment along with me as the performer. The editing is a character as well, bringing you into the subject and away through cuts, the video quality breaks down and becomes textural and abstract and then goes back to higher more recognizable detail. It beckons you in and pushes you away at exact moments. It slows down time to give you a better chance to see something. It appreciates the performance.

Born in 1993, Saige Rowe lives and works out of Atlanta, Georgia and received her BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Rowe has recently exhibited at Hi-Lo Gallery in Atlanta and Selena’s Mountain in NY.

Pricelist Dana Haugaard

Everything around me was nebulous and wispy (I remember just feeling everything) [Ryan], $4,500................................pg 7 12 of them to tear into, like a little monster (Savages) [Mel], $1,100.........................................................................................pg 8, 9 I just really didn’t understand, like, what that feeling was [Maxwell], $2,700.......................................................................pg 10, 11 I was over the moon [Leigh], $2,700.................................................................................................................................................pg 12, 13 Everything was kinda moldy, but also bright (Sucked into the vortex) [Emily], $2,700 ..........................................................pg 15 That breeze just keeps blowing over me [Mom], $4,500...........................................................................................................pg 16, 17 I felt weightless and, like, in love [Lizzy], $1,100 (sold).............................................................................................................pg 18, 19 You can just sort of hear the house sounds and your hair is swirling [Claire], $2,700...................................................pg 20, 21 (An External Source of Movement), $3000..............................................................................................................................................pg 22

Edge Award Finalists

Davion Alston, Stepping On The Ant Bed, $750....................................................................................................................................pg 24 Fredrik Brauer, Image: #20, $5,000...........................................................................................................................................................pg 26 Eleanor Neal, Montage of a Secret Place, $1,200.................................................................................................................................pg 28 Saige Rowe, broody blooms, $900.............................................................................................................................................................pg 30

Acknowledgements This exhibition is sponsored by Betty and Bob Edge Photo credit: Dana Haugaard Catalog designed and created by Michelle Laxalt, Manager, Swan Coach House Gallery Installation assistance provided by Michael Fitzgerald and Maria Bruckman, Assistant Manager, Swan Coach House Gallery

That breeze just keeps blowing over me DANA HAUGAARD 2021 EDGE AWARD EXHIBITION

with Finalists Davion Alston, Fredrik Brauer, Eleanor Neal and Saige Rowe