Photograph of Brenda McKinney with one of her MANDALAS: Lotto , from the What is Your Mantra? series shown at Haley-Henman at Gallery 422
Congratulations Brenda for receiving BEST IN SHOW at the Dallas Area Fiber Artists “Focus: Fiber”, 2015 Membership Show
Photography by Anne Marie Evans
David DeSalvo and John Marcucci Trafficking
Statement by DeSalvo and Marcucci: On each screen of plastic an image is projected and can be viewed only from a side angle. Straight on, the image is obliterated into a pattern of color and light. The installation provides an opportunity to view images in different ways and from different physical positions in the act of viewing. Trafficking projects the images of Khmer and Kachin people by photographs processed in the media of slides transferred to a digital video format. The intent of projecting these images in the old media of slide projections exaggerates how quickly technologies change. It amplifies the precarious nature of information being archived and preserved, and how the information lost or distorted can alter our understanding of past experiences and history. Trafficking focuses on the aspect of changing technology in the manner of how it can distort perceptions of people and their lives. Thus, these images are distorted by their projection on three layers of clear plastic and one sold white plastic screen. The light of the projector creates interplay of light and color–a prism to explore.
Henry Biber Waking Monolith
Statement by Henry Biber: The video installation of Waking Monolith is mimetic of a motif which we all may experience repeatedly, regardless of age, experience or acuity. We find ourselves in situations which make no sense–which may appear as utterly chaotic which eventually come to full clarity. Such seeming dimness in the observer is not a comment of that individual but is the manner in which we grasp the external world. The evolution of Waking Monolith into its final form exemplifies this movement of obscurely sensing—to seeing situations in a way that resonates. The theme has primal quality and we’re susceptible to its playing out whenever we open our eyes again.
Piloto Nature’s Utensils
Statement by Piloto: My work represents a minimal concept of the basic and fundamental organic utensils that have been utilized over and over through the centuries in the evolution of civilization becoming industrialized. The installation takes a conceptual and critical view of the representation of the social and cultural means of production that have developed to sustain societies in their cyclical development from organic methods to more technical and industrial processes. These elements are denoted in the use of birdseeds, ropes, nails and a nutritional apple. They are displayed in a gallery of plastic museum boxes to represent how these items once often valued are now seen as historical relics in society that is more concerned with industrial progress rather than embracing the basics of sustainability.
Arjoon KC Hours, Hours and Hours
Statement by Arjoon KC: Time is unstoppable, unpredictable, and uncontrollable, but it controls everything. Everything is variable but change is the only constant. Human life is a perfect example of a change. It is continuously changing even when we are into deep sleep. Sleep is both conscious and unconscious scheduled phenomenon which involves rest, dream and imagination. But nobody can sleep forever even though it’s a perfect moment of life. It’s perfect in the sense that it takes us away from a chaotic world and relieves us from stress. It can be either the dark or the light side of life, it just depends on expectation, desire and hope. Based on these thoughts, I have installed Hours, Hours and Hours which is a combination of a Spiritually Balanced Wooden Sculpture referring to the shape of a Classical Hour Glass along with two skeletons of fragile beds, six canvas with lots of imperfections. It’s a fusion of meditation, symbol, elements and colors.
JAMES B. MILLS PRISM PYRE
Statement by James B. Mills: Dances are celebrations and the act of celebratory movement evokes a certain jovial air which makes it difficult for anyone involved, from participant to viewer, to maintain a critical face during execution. Yet not all dances can be taken in a jovial vain: Salome danced famously for the head of a local favorite and one can only image the jig Nero did as the crackling flames cast shadows which erupted from the burning empire onto his fiddle. In essence, although the idea of dancing creates the air of excitement, the actual act may be celebrating part of life and history which should not be celebrated at all. The Prism Pyre installation evokes all aspects of the dance, from the jovial togetherness, to the forced happiness of participants in a dystopian society, to inviting audience participation. My work is based on an imagined far off civilization which originally creates the piece for a lost and unknown ritual, is lost and buried by time, then rediscovered as an artifact and interpreted incorrectly. This installation should be viewed as what it is: a piece taken out of context and presented improperly for public consumption. It is meant to be views from all sides and it’s meant to be interacted with, just like some dances are meant to be interacted with.
Pouran Borders The Black World
Statement by Pouran Borders: The black boxes reference the dark side of the first stage of civilization. The contrasting vibrant color suggests images of power lines, telephone poles and other wires the light the new stage of our civilization. The question though: Is all this artificial light really the true color of black or darkness? In a way, we are living on a black stage and we may not be fully aware of the end result of the on-going, fast-paced and sophisticated technology, whereby we are actually contributing to a destruction of the earth’s ecology. The installation shows the black shadows of the boxes. The truth may be that there are not any true colors and that we are living in a black world.
Pierre Durand The Golden Age
Statement by Pierre Durand: Because the PRISM theme was around the idea of civilization, I chose to start with Hesiod’s legend of Humanity going through four ages. That Greek concept with Golden, Heroic, Bronze, and Iron Ages also can be noticed in other oriental cultures with the idea of cycle. In Christianity, it appears that heaven is in the future and not in the past and the time is linear not cyclic. Ovid also described different steps of civilization. I added another Age to the Golden, Heroic, and Iron Ages that I names “Digital Age”. I tried to continue in my way to create a mythology for our time. I figure the cycle concept by keeping each Age in a cacoon constructed as a carousel that could turn into the light. This movement of the Ages coming into the light and showing color contributes to the concept of “eternal return”.
Last three days for PRISM: April 24, 25, 26 at 2900 Bataan (The big green bldg.) Hours: 7-8 pm and after the Prism performance.
Photograph by Heather Levy
Heather Levy ReCycle of Life
Statement by Heather Levy: Imagine you are stepping into the perimeter of a single cell, into the beginning of all things, on a cellular level…Feel the mystery of how from darkness it creates life…The nucleus of this cell is created with recycled wine corks and expired lightbulbs….These materials represent a small part of the vastness of cells that create a civilization, as if looking at them through a prism…Recycled lightbulbs are positioned in a starburst pattern to symbolically illuminate the party and represent the Wheel of Life…The same starburst pattern is repeated with twine around the mirror…A symbolic reflection as well as representative of a Cycle of Life motif…The blue and red color lamps represent oxygenated energy infusing the paintings and mirrors whilst eliciting a primordial aura and is meant to compliment the paint used in the Prism performance.
Cindy Holmes The Skinny Bitch Inside Me
Statement by Cindy Holmes: When I first heard about the Prism story and how my art would need to relate to it, I really had to think about how all strife and struggle begins. For me, it begins internally with one person. Does that one person struggle to overcome evil on a large scale? Is it small lies on a small scale. Do they take a step to change themselves physically as well as mentally? I chose to represent a life long struggle with body image. I think it’s something so many of us can relate to but understand that it never goes away. It affects how others perceive us as well as how we perceive ourselves. Does it make us good when we succeed and bad when we fail? I don’t know.
All I know is that it’s unending
.