Material Matters: Water, Pigment, and Light by Van Every/Smith Galleries

Material Matters: Water, Pigment, and Light

Material Matters: Water, Pigment, And Light Publication ©2016 Essay by Tyler Starr ©2016 This publication was produced in conjunction with Material Matters: Water, Pigment, And Light, at the Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College, August 29–October 7, 2016. Van Every/Smith Galleries Davidson College 315 North Main Street Davidson, North Carolina 28035-7117 davidsoncollegeartgalleries.org All rights reserved. Printed in the United States. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-890573-20-11 Design: Graham McKinney Printing: Zebra Print Solutions cover: Matthew Brandt, Wai’anae 603616, (detail), 2016, Chromogenic print buried in Wai’anae, Hawai’i, 60 x 36 in., Image Courtesy of the Artist and M+B Gallery

Material Matters: Water, Pigment, and Light THE VAN EVERY/SMITH GALLERIES

Introduction and Acknowledgements From 1972 until 1976, Herb Jackson initiated and hosted a landmark exhibition, the Davidson National Print and Drawing Competition. During those five years, artists from around the country shipped thousands of works of art to Davidson College to be juried by acclaimed artists and curators including Clement Greenberg and Marsha Tucker, among others. Each year, works from the exhibition were purchased and added to the College’s permanent art collection, including works by Alexander Calder, Robert Motherwell, and Will Barnet. The series of exhibitions and subsequent subset of the permanent art collection provide a snapshot or glimpse into drawing and printmaking techniques and styles of the time. In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the last Davidson National, and in the spirit of those exhibitions, the Van Every/ Smith Galleries, with the support of the Herb Jackson and Laura Grosch Gallery Endowment, Malu Alvarez ’02, and Davidson College Friends of the Arts, is delighted to present Material Matters: Water, Pigment, and Light, a contemporary look at works on paper across the U.S. We chose a curated approach over a juried process, in part so that we could look more deeply at a larger body of work from fewer artists. The artists selected

represent a compelling range of possibilities for what works on and of paper can be, including explorations of unique processes and materials capable of making marks — from graphite and gouache to water, sun, earth, and time. This exhibition would not have been possible without the groundwork laid by Herb Jackson in the development of the original Davidson National Print and Drawing Competition, 1972–1976. We also owe thanks to Tyler Starr, Assistant Professor of Art at Davidson College, who helped curate the exhibition and contributed an essay to this brochure. We are extremely grateful to all of the galleries who have assisted with the exhibition, including M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; SOCO Gallery, Charlotte, NC; and Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY. We are indebted to our supporters: Malu Alvarez ’02, Davidson College Department of Art, the Friends of the Arts, and the Herb Jackson and Laura Grosch Gallery Endowment. And last, but certainly not least, we wish to thank the exhibiting artists — Nancy Baker, Matthew Brandt, William Cordova, Chris Duncan, Selena Kimball, Lavar Munroe, Liz Nielsen, and Shoshanna Weinberger. Without their dedication, this project would not have been possible. Lia Newman, Director/Curator & Elizabeth Harry, Assistant Curator

Selena Kimball, Mapping Night Vision #1 (detail), Aluminum tacks, inkjet prints on glossy paper, foam, wood, 75 x 48 x 24 in., Image Courtesy of the Artist

Marked Atlases by Tyler Starr Material Matters: Water, Pigment, and Light highlights compelling works of art that take advantage of paper as a substrate. With this relatively humble material the participating artists produce surprising results through innovative manipulation of digital and analog processes. This exhibition also presents an opportunity to investigate installation strategies utilized by the artists to create networks of correlations within a body of work. The installations encourage viewers to participate in the further generation of associations and consideration of wider implications beyond the limits of the venue. Constellation-like groupings deployed by the artists recall the surprise of encountering image results from Internet search engines. Along with this association come the controversies of the algorithms used by the search engines. These algorithms are inevitably skewed either by the nature of the programmers or by the search results’ reflection of the idiosyncrasies of the masses

that generate the data being searched. Information today is sourced lightning-fast from multiple platforms with hyperlinkenabled stream-of-consciousness cross-referencing. Encountering this flow of data generates a sense of excitement as well as some dread as time evaporates within the Wikihole of daily research. People now typically receive their news from a minimum of four devices. The devices in order of frequency of usage in the U.S. are: television, laptops, radio, paper newspapers or magazines, cell phones, and tablets.1 Paper is still on the list after roughly 1900 years since it first became widely available.

my Mitchell, Jeffrey Gottfried, Michael Barthel, and Elisa Shearer, “Pathways to the A News.” Pew Research Center, July 7, 2016, http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/ pathways-to-news/ “How Americans Get their News.” American Press Institute, March 17, 2014, https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/ how-americans-get-news/

The paper fragments composing the works in this exhibition speak to previous attempts at visualizing information and implying narratives through the use of images on paper such as Aby Warburg’s notoriously enigmatic Mnemosyne Atlas. Warburg (1866–1929) was an iconoclastic art historian and theorist whose work has generated much recent interest for his pioneering opposition to humanistic portrayals of art. This once dominant art historical trope was a narrative of the supposed progress of high art, but Warburg offered a more ambiguous and mysterious consideration of art embedded within the messy context of visual culture in all its forms. Late in his career, after suffering from a psychotic breakdown induced by his experiences in World War I, Warburg began a project presenting streams of visually encoded primal ideas weaving their way through the Renaissance into contemporary times. The incomplete project was left upon his death in the form of photographs showing 63 collage-like presentation boards of appropriated images that had been composed to accompany his orations. One of the working titles for his unfinished project was Aby Warburg, Picture Atlas Mnemosyne (1928–29), Panel 79; Copyright: The Warburg Institute, London

Mnemosyne: Series of Images for Investigation of the Function of Previously Stamped Classical Expressive Values in the Depiction of Life in Motion in European Renaissance Art. Panel 79 of the Atlas, for example, arranges a schematic of a 9th-century wooden chair for the Pope next to a photograph of a Japanese hara-kiri ceremony along with newspaper clippings of a golf star and the signing of the Locarno Treaties — all presented on equal footing as examples of a complex web of relationships that visually evidence pagan elements of the Eucharist. The placement and groupings of the clippings were used to imply relationships, with the audience filling in the gaps. This layered information, within its acknowledged political context, makes a reconstructive use of archives. Similarly, the works in this exhibition speak both to the zeroing in and panning out of information encouraged by the current state of multimedia research, and the exploration of the physical properties of paper itself. Photographs posted on soldiers’ blogs are used as source material in Selena Kimball’s Night Vision series, which are then digitally output and collaged, puzzle-like, with Shoshanna Weinberger, Embryonic Afro-Stripes, 2014, Ink and gouache on paper, 21.25 x 17.25 in., Image Courtesy of the Artist

tactile aluminum tacks and foam. Lavar Munroe’s assemblagebased work combines his experiences growing up in the Bahamas with research into mythology and a critique of western representations of the exotic. Shoshanna Weinberger maintains a poetic open-endedness in the presentation of her calligraphic drawings, which explore the complexities of race, heritage, sexuality, and iconic portrayals of the human form throughout art history. William Cordova has comparable concerns in his approach to archival sourcing of imagery for redress of overlooked or disregarded histories. The collage-like multimedia development of Cordova’s projects constructs new histories by appropriating, subverting, and reconstituting references to music and film as well as incorporating anthropological fieldwork such as interviews and participant observation. In Nancy Baker’s paper constructions, the accumulation of fragments to constitute a new body plays a central role. Baker utilizes an abstract vocabulary incised out of found commercial packaging and hand-painted paper to create bewildering compositions of complex layers, which she often assembles directly onto a venue’s wall. All of the aforementioned works are imbued with multifaceted experimentation. The various techniques (including photography,

collage, drawing, painting, and digital printing) are strategically manipulated so that the artists are often somewhat at the mercy of their chosen media. They purposefully introduce glitches into the process, ceding some control to the alchemical properties of the medium, before reassembling and editing those outcomes. Experimentation with materials and process extends into challenging optics and the light spectrum. Chris Duncan drapes fabric over skylights so that UV rays affect the delicate lightfastness of dyes, capturing traces of time, folds, and architectural structures. Liz Nielsen utilizes analog photo processing techniques and jerry-rigged darkrooms to develop images from negatives, themselves handconstructed from color gels on glass. Matthew Brandt reintroduces landscape photographs into the environs from which they were taken, subjecting them to the mercy of environmental chemistry. The bodies of work in this exhibition take advantage of the speed of light in multiple ways — ambiently, photographically, and digitally — as a means of creating systems of relationships and new knowledge. They are exciting attempts to become oriented within a breakneck world, akin to marked atlases that will offer insights well into the future. Tyler Starr, Assistant Professor of Art, Davidson College

Nancy Baker (American, b. 1951) Boson, 2016 Printed and painted paper construction, 44 x 37.5 in. Vernal Star, 2016 Printed and painted paper construction, 44 x 37.5 in. Eating Mist, 2016 Printed and painted paper construction, dimensions variable Nancy Baker’s paper constructions combine digitally printed, hand-cut, and laser-cut forms. Though her imagery is roughly based on machine components, Baker creates her own visual vocabulary, altering the objects to become more generalized and geometric. On occasion, she weaves letters or phrases into the structures. Astoundingly, these arrangements are primarily comprised of paper — a material that Baker marvels at for its adaptability and transformative nature. Beginning with blank, white paper, Baker cuts, molds, layers, paints, and adds glitter, gold leaf, and printed commercial documents, ultimately creating dynamic, energetic, three-dimensional “lace” networks that are reminiscent of glittering gemstones, minerals, and rock formations.

Artist Biography: Baker earned her BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. Her work has been widely exhibited throughout the U.S., including at Schema Projects, Brooklyn, NY; Greenhill Center for NC Art, Greensboro, NC; Jancar Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC; ODETTA Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Central Booking, New York, NY; and Lump Gallery, Raleigh, NC. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections including the International Collage Center, Bucknell, PA; the United States Embassy, Kiev, Ukraine; City of Raleigh Municipal Art Collection, Raleigh, NC; the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC; MCI Corporation, Raleigh, NC; Reynolds Industries, Winston-Salem, NC; Herman Miller, New York, NY; Bellevue Hospital Center, New York, NY; TRW, Cleveland, OH; American Hospital Corporation, Nashville, TN; First National Bank, Nashville, TN; among others. She has participated in several artist residencies including Casa de Mateus, Vila Real, Portugal and Studio Camnitzer, Valdottavo, Italy.

Nancy Baker, Eating Mist, 2016, Printed and painted paper construction, dimensions variable, Image Courtesy of the Artist

Matthew Brandt (American, b. 1982) Wai’anae 3751, 2016 Chromogenic print buried in Wai’anae, Hawai’i, 36.5 x 5 in. Wai’anae 110221, 2016 Chromogenic print buried in Wai’anae, Hawai’i, 110 x 22 in. Wai’anae 603616, 2016 Chromogenic print buried in Wai’anae, Hawai’i, 60 x 36 in. Wai’anae 603626, 2016 Chromogenic print buried in Wai’anae, Hawai’i, 60 x 36 in. Wai’anae 926019, 2016 Chromogenic print buried in Wai’anae, Hawai’i, 92 x 60 in. For several years, Matthew Brandt has been making photographs on a family farm in Wai’anae, Oahu, Hawai’i. Brandt merges his concept and process, taking photographic prints of the dense tropical rainforest and rolling them in materials from the site. Rolled up in burlap and lace, the prints are then buried under dirt and leaves for several months. Emulsion erodes in some areas, and patterns and textures imprint into others; the earth itself produces almost alchemical results, transforming the original works into new, unique prints. For his installation at the Van Every/Smith Galleries, Brandt has screen-printed a repeating image of palm trees directly on the gallery wall. Using mud from the grounds around Davidson College, the printed backdrop helps connect these new works — excavated thousands of miles away — to the local environs. 10

Artist Biography: Matthew Brandt earned his BFA from Cooper Union in 2004 and his MFA from UCLA in 2008. He currently lives in Los Angeles, CA. Brandt has been the subject of recent institutional solo shows at the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA; and SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA. Recent group exhibitions include The Magic Medium, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Second Chances, the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; What Is a Photograph?, International Center of Photography, New York, NY; and Land Marks, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. His work can be found in numerous permanent collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn; among others. In 2015, Brandt was shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Pictet award and had his work showcased in an exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Other upcoming events include a video work that will debut at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and participation in a thematic exhibition at the George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY. Brandt is represented by M+B Gallery, Los Angeles. Left to right: Matthew Brandt, Wai’anae 603626, 2016, chromogenic print buried in Wai’anae, Hawai’i, 60 x 36 in.; Wai’anae 3751, 2016, chromogenic print buried in Wai’anae, Hawai’i, 36.5 x 5 in.; Wai’anae 603616, 2016, Chromogenic print buried in Wai’anae, Hawai’i, 60 x 36 in.; Images Courtesy of the Artist and M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

William Cordova (Peruvian, b. 1969) ceiba: reconsidering ephemeral spaces, 2016 Mixed media installation, Smith Gallery, dimensions variable William Cordova’s mixed-media installation, ceiba: reconsidering ephemeral spaces, centers around Fort Mose in St. Augustine, Florida, an area founded in 1739 by runaway African slaves and Native Americans fleeing British persecution. Just over two decades later, in 1763, the group relocated to Ceiba Mocha, Mantanzas, Cuba. Cordova’s exhibition, comprised of reclaimed ephemera, film, photography, sound, and more, explores topics implicative of transcultural migration by linking these early migrations with the movement of more than 80 Asian, Black, and Latino individuals from America to Cuba between 1968 and 1971 — a time typically associated with Cuban exile into the U.S. Cordova’s installation is comprised of four components. Component I, sculpting elsewhere in time (fort mose, st. augustine, florida / ceiba mocha, matanzas, cuba), is a short film based on Third Cinema concepts, first defined by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino. Side-byside images display two different interpretations of landscapes, portals, and time. An LP vinyl record plays field recording audio tracks from Fort Mose, St. Augustine, Florida, and Ceiba Mocha, Matanzas, Cuba. The film imagery — from the aforementioned locations — explores the contributions made through trans-cultural migration, including the construction of community, the archiving of history, and the dissemination of information. Component II is an artist-made publication that centers around the historical connections between St. Augustine and Ceiba Mocha, with writings by Ralph Johnson, Professor at Florida Atlantic University and Director of FAU’s Center for the Conservation of 12

Architectural and Cultural Heritage, board of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Component III, entitled flossing (francisco menedez, tyrone won y nehanda abiodun) is a suite of 50 collages that began during Cordova’s 2012 and 2015 trips to Cuba. The works focus on political exiles of the 1760s, 1960s, and 1970s, and are installed in Ziploc bags and sheet protectors reclaimed while in Cuba and St. Augustine, Florida, mounted on floss string, and hung as if from a clothesline. Component IV is a collaboration with science fiction/magic realism writer Ivette Vian. One single image is presented on a 35mm slide projector, set to a vinyl recording of Vian’s short story, “Mujercita Bembelanga,” narrated by Panamanian born, Miami-based poet Lela Lombardo. Artist Biography: Cordova is an interdisciplinary cultural practitioner born in Lima, Peru. He currently lives and works in Lima, Miami, and New York City. He received a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996 and an MFA from Yale University in 2004. He has been in residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Museum of Fine Arts in Houston’s CORE/MFAH program; the Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; Artpace, San Antonio, TX; Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, NY; MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH; and Woodstock Center for the Arts, Woodstock, NY; among others. He has exhibited in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and Asia. His work is in the public collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; the Yale Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; Museo de Arte de Lima, Lima, Peru; Ellipse Foundation,

William Cordova, untitled (narratives), 2012–2016, Polaroids on custom Ceiba wood shelf, Image Courtesy William Cordova

Cascais, Portugal; Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL; and La Casa de las Americas, Havana, Cuba; among others. His work has been widely exhibited, including in Greater New York, Museum of Modern Art/PS1, New York, NY; yawar mallku: royalty, abductions y exiles, La Conservera, Murcia, Spain; Prospect.3, New Orleans Biennial, New Orleans, LA; Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba; and at 80M2 Gallery, Lima, Peru. He is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and the American

William Cordova, untitled (mujercita bembelanga), 2016, Film still, Collaboration with Ivette Vian, Image Courtesy William Cordova

Academy in Berlin Fellowship. Cordova was included in the 2016 SITE Santa Fe Biennial, Santa Fe, New Mexico; has a solo exhibition forthcoming at Sikkema Jenkins, New York, NY; and is part of a group exhibition, Southern Accents, Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC and Oakland Museum of Art, CA. In addition to his 2016 fellowship at the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, LA, Cordova will participate in a 2017/2018 artist residency at the Montalvo Art Center, Saratoga, CA. 13

Chris Duncan (American, b. 1974) BLUE BEAM, Winter–Summer 2015 Long-term sun-exposed cotton fabric wrapped around wooden beam used in sound sculpture, 64 x 54 in. RED CINDERBLOCK, Winter–Summer 2015 Long-term sun-exposed cotton fabric wrapped around cinderblock and left on a rooftop in Oakland, CA, then painted into, 38 x 32 in. BLUE CINDERBLOCK, Winter–Summer 2015 Long-term sun-exposed cotton fabric wrapped around cinderblock and left on a rooftop in Oakland, CA, then painted into, 70 x 54 in. SUN MAKES MOON/BLACK CIRCLE #1, Summer–Winter 2015 Long-term sun-exposed cotton fabric wrapped around circular metal frame and left on a rooftop in Oakland for 6 months, 50 x 48 in. To create the works presented in Material Matters: Water, Pigment, and Light, Chris Duncan stretches fabric over windows, skylights, and other architectural elements for between four and twelve months, often around his home in Oakland, CA. Through his primary media — mainly cotton, time, and sun exposure — Duncan creates works that blur the line between painting and photography. This process requires Duncan to let go and remove his hand, instead relying on continual natural cycles like the passage of time, marked in this case by the rising and setting of the sun.

Artist Biography: Duncan earned a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts, San Francisco, CA (2003) and an MFA from Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA (2013). His work has been widely exhibited internationally, including at V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark; Et al., San Francisco, CA; The Elaine de Kooning House, East Hampton, NY; Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto, ON, Canada; Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY; Nakaochiai Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Motel Gallery, Portland, OR; Lump Gallery, Raleigh, NC; Geary Contemporary, New York, NY; Palo Alto Arts Center, Palo Alto, CA; Loyal Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden; and the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; among others. Duncan has been honored with residencies at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; ACRE, Steuben, WS; University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS; Kala Institute, Berkeley, CA; and Island Press, St. Louis, MO. His work is part of numerous public and private collections including the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, MO; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; SFMoMA, San Francisco, CA; JP Morgan Chase Collection; Wellington Management Company, Boston, MA; The Progressive Art Collection, OH; and Jaffe Book Arts Collection, Boca Raton, FL. Duncan currently lives and works in Oakland, CA. Left to right: Chris Duncan, BLUE CINDERBLOCK, Winter–Summer 2015, Long-term sun-exposed fabric wrapped around a cinderblock and left on a rooftop in Oakland, then painted into. Sun, time, oil paint on cotton, 70 x 54 in.; BLUE BEAM, Winter–Summer 2015, Long-term sun-exposed fabric wrapped around wooden beam used in sound sculpture. Sun, time, cotton, 64 x 54 in. Images Courtesy of the Artist and Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY

Selena Kimball (American, b. 1973) Mapping Night Vision #1, 2014 Aluminum tacks, inkjet prints on glossy paper, foam, wood, 75 x 48 x 24 in. Mapping Night Vision #2, 2014 Aluminum tacks, inkjet prints on glossy paper, foam, wood, 90 x 95 x 10 in. Night Vision (K-9 peak), 2015 Digital silkscreen on Dibond, 62 x 50 x 1 in. Night Vision (K-9 to K-12), 2015 Digital silkscreen on Dibond, 115 x 95 x 12 in. In order to create her Night Vision series, Selena Kimball utilizes found documentary evidence, in this case, night-vision photographs taken by American soldiers while deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Kimball collages the images — initially found on soldiers’ blogs — to construct two- and three-dimensional works of art. She physically recreates time and place in an attempt, as Kimball notes, to “search for what is hidden in both the content and appearance of these printed histories.” It’s in these images that Kimball observes some of the peculiar, disorienting imagery her father described while flying with night-vision goggles during precarious Nap Of the Earth (NOE) campaigns while serving as a pilot for the National Guard.1

Artist Biography: Kimball earned her BFA in sculpture from The Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI and her MFA in combined media from Hunter College, New York, NY. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Feature, Inc., New York, NY; Entropia Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland; The Estonian National Museum, Tartu, Estonia; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME; Katonah Museum, Katonah, NY; The Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland; and the Museum of the Romanian Peasant, Bucharest, Romania. She is the recipient of numerous awards including a 2015 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and residency fellowships at MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH and the Millay Colony, Austerlitz, NY. For over a decade, Kimball has collaborated with visual anthropologist Alyssa Grossman on films that have been shown at documentary film festivals internationally. Her published work can be seen in the collage novel The Dreaming Life of Leonora de la Cruz, which was produced together with art historian Agnieszka Taborska. Taborska and Kimball’s most recent book, The Unfinished Life of Phoebe Hicks, was published in 2013. Kimball is Assistant Professor in the School of Art, Media + Technology at Parsons, the New School for Design, New York, NY, and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. 1

ap of-the-earth (NOE) is a type of low-altitude flight employed by the military in which aircraft N fly close to or within geographic features such as tree lines and valleys to keep below enemy radar coverage.

Selena Kimball, Mapping Night Vision #1, 2014, Aluminum tacks, inkjet prints on glossy paper, foam, wood, 75 x 48 x 24 in., Image Courtesy of the Artist

Selena Kimball, Night Vision (K–9 to K–12), 2015, digital silkscreen on Dibond, 115 x 95 x 12 in., Image Courtesy of the Artist

Lavar Munroe (Bahamian, b. 1982) Site-specific installation at Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College (to be titled upon completion), 2016 Mixed media Lavar Munroe is an interdisciplinary artist whose work encompasses painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation art. For Material Matters: Water, Pigment, and Light Munroe will draw and paint directly on the gallery walls to create a large-scale installation, responsive to the space. The process of the resulting work — specifically its temporality — aligns with much of Munroe’s recent works exploring transience, from the passing of his father to his own diasporic identity. Artist Biography: Munroe earned his BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2007 and his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, MO in 2013, which was immediately followed by tenure at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME in 2013. Munroe has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors

including a 2013 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painting and Sculpture Grant; and a 2014 Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he was later recognized with a Postdoctoral Award of Research Excellence. He has been honored with residencies at MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH and Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, LA. His work has been widely exhibited, including in the 2010 Liverpool Biennale, Liverpool, England, where he represented the Bahamas with a site-specific drawing project; SCAD Museum and Gutstein Gallery, Savannah, GA; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, MO; National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau Bahamas; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC; Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, NC; and in the International Art Exhibition at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Munroe’s work is represented by Jenkins-Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, CA and New York, NY; Jack Bell Gallery, London, England; and NOMAD, Brussels, Belgium, and Miami, FL. Munroe lives and works between Washington, DC and Nassau, Bahamas.

Left to right: Lavar Munroe, Leopard Man, 2015, Pencil, pen, markers, liquid paper, die-cut sticker, staples, latex house paint, and found fabric on cut paper in artist frame, 15 x 17.25 in.; The Natives, 2015, Pencil, spray paint, acrylic, markers, pen, and stickers on cut paper in artist frame, 12.5 x 17.5 in.; Self Portrait with blisters, empty head, long nose, bananas, and a pink tennis ball, 2015, Pencil, spray paint, acrylic, and markers, on cut paper in artist frame, 20 x 27.5 in., Images Courtesy of the Artist

Liz Nielsen (American, b. 1975) Space Totem, 2015 Chromogenic photograph, 51 x 44 in. Hive, 2015 Chromogenic photograph, 27 1/8 x 23 1/8 in. Agave, 2015 Chromogenic photograph, 27 1/8 x 23 1/8 in. Time Machine, 2015 Chromogenic photograph, 23 1/8 x 27 1/8 in. Fortune Teller, 2016 Chromogenic photograph, 25 1/8 x 21 1/8 in.

Artist Biography: Nielsen studied Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she received a BFA, and attended the University of Illinois at Chicago to earn her MFA. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including in recent solo exhibitions at Schalter Gallery, Berlin, Germany; Benrimon Contemporary, New York, NY; Interlochen Center for the Arts, Interlochen, MI; Danziger Gallery, New York, NY; SOCO Gallery, Charlotte, NC; and Sirius Art Center, Cork, Ireland; among others. Her work has been reviewed in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Artslant, Hyperallergic, and The Wall Street Journal. Nielsen lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Liz Nielsen creates jewel-toned photograms by first making complex, handmade collages on glass plates comprised of layered transparent gels. Nielsen then brings the collages into the darkroom, where she shines light through blocks of color and utilizes flash bulbs and candles to alter the light-sensitive photographic paper. Her unique prints are the result of methodical, technical preparation juxtaposed with intuitive, spur-of-the-moment actions.

Liz Nielsen, Hive, 2015, Chromogenic photograph, 24 x 20 in. Image Courtesy of the Artist and SOCO Gallery

Liz Nielsen, Fortune Teller, 2016, Chromogenic photograph, 25 1/8 x 21 1/8 in. Image Courtesy of the Artist and SOCO Gallery, Charlotte, NC

Shoshanna Weinberger (Jamaican-American, b. 1973) Embryonic Afro-Stripes, 2014, Ink and gouache on paper, 21.25 x 17.25 in. The Return of Princess Tam Tam, 2014, Ink and collage on paper, 26.5 x 20.25 in. My First Doppelgänger, 2015, Ink on paper, 21.25 x 17.25 in. Escape Artist, 2015, Gouache and collage on paper, 21.25 x 17.25 in. Busted Seams 36 DD, 2015, Gouache on paper, 21.25 x 17.25 in. Broken Flower, 2015, Gouache on paper, 21 x 29.5 in. Hair between the Legs, 2015, Ink and collage on paper, 21 x 16.5 in. The Anxiety of Developing a Shadow, 2016, Ink and collage on paper, 29.5 x 21 in. Curly Hawk: All I ever wanted was a Pony in Stripes, 2015, Ink and collage on paper, 14 x 11 in. Approaching her artwork as a visual anthropologist does, Shoshanna Weinberger catalogues her own experiences — both public and private — growing up in a society obsessed with particular notions of beauty. She comments, “I find the idea of what popular culture defines as feminine beauty to be skewed and distorted. My practice is an ongoing investigation of experience, memory, abstraction, and present and future histories.” The bodies presented in Weinberger’s works are adorned with props and hairstyles from the artist’s youth. Bright lipstick, high heels, and gold-colored chains reminiscent of jewelry add decidedly feminine character traits to figures otherwise viewed as malformed. Weinberger’s jewelry could easily be intepreted as shackles, perhaps alluding to the 22

psychological trappings associated with beauty for all women, from prepubescent pageant toddlers to strip club dancers, celebrity icons, and everyday women like Weinberger. The figures depicted have too few body parts — namely torsos or heads — or too many, as in the abundance of breasts in Busted at the Seams 36DD, a personal work whose title references Weinberger’s own bra size. Stripes, noted on the legs of bodies pictured in The Anxiety of Developing a Shadow, Curly Hawk: All I ever wanted was a Pony in Stripes, and My First Doppelgänger, allude to Weinberger’s mixed race identity and the artist’s internal conflict or “double consciousness” — W.E.B. Du Bois’ term for the psychological impact of viewing oneself through the eyes of others.2 This double consciousness is reflected in a cast of characters that occupy hybrid identities, as challenging and humorous; sexualized and grotesque; animal and human; modern and antiquated; mythological and historical. Artist Biography: Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Shoshanna Weinberger earned her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1995) and her MFA from the Yale School of Art, Yale University (2003). She is the recipient of several prestigious awards and fellowships including a 2014 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant; 2015 Joan Mitchell Center, Artist Residency, New Orleans, LA; a 2016 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts; 2016–2017 Artist residency at The Gateway Project, Newark, NJ; and forthcoming, visiting artist at Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR. Her work has been widely exhibited in numerous solo exhibitions including at Project House, Newark, NJ; Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL; Carol Jazzar

Left to right: Shoshanna Weinberger, Busted Seams 36 DD, 2015, Gouache on paper, 21.25 x 17.25 in.; Broken Flower, 2015, Gouache on paper, 21 x 29.5 in. Images Courtesy of the Artist

Contemporary, Miami, FL; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ; and in group exhibitions internationally including at SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa; the Delaware Center of Contemporary Art, Wilmington, DE; the Newark Museum, Newark, NJ; Nomad Gallery, Brussels, Belgium; Tiwani Contemporary, London, England; and in the Jamaica Biennial (2006–2014), National Gallery of Jamaica; among others. Weinberger’s work is part of several public and private collections

including the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ; The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ; The Sagamore Collection, Miami, FL; Girls Club Collection, Fort Lauderdale, FL; and The Margulies Collection, Miami, FL. Weinberger currently lives and works in Newark, NJ. 1

u Bois originally applied the term to minority individuals of African heritage living in a majority White D society; today, the term is sometimes applied to other individuals experiencing social inequity.

Curators’ Biographies Elizabeth Harry

Dr. Tyler Starr

Elizabeth Harry graduated from Davidson College in 2014 with a degree in Studio Art. While at Davidson, she interned at the Van Every/Smith Galleries, the Mint Museum, and the McColl Center for Art and Innovation, and was a recipient of the McAllen Art Scholarship. Prior to returning to Davidson as Assistant Curator in the summer of 2015, she worked as a Shift Supervisor and Workshop Coordinator at Paper Source in Charlotte.

Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Davidson College, Tyler Starr received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota. In 1998, Starr was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the Academy of Fine Arts, Krakow, Poland. In 2011, he graduated with a Ph.D. in Studio Arts from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts, where he was a recipient of the Japanese Ministry of Education Scholarship. Starr was a 2011 Grant Wood Fellow at the University of Iowa, a 2013 Christiania Researcher in Residence, and a 2014 OMI International Arts Center resident. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions including at Yale University’s Haas Arts Library, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Liège, Belgium, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan.

Lia Newman Since January 2013, Lia Newman has held the position of Director/ Curator of the Van Every/Smith Galleries at Davidson College. From 2002–2012, Newman was Director of Programs and Exhibitions at Artspace in Raleigh, NC. She earned a BA in Art History and a BFA in General Studio with concentrations in sculpture and photography from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, and an MA in Liberal Studies from Duke University, Durham, NC. Newman is responsible for curating exhibitions, developing exhibition-related programming, and overseeing and growing Davidson College’s Permanent Art Collection, including the Campus Sculpture Program.

THE VAN EVERY/SMITH GALLERIES