artist statements

Melody Bilbo

Fallen

In Fallen, I have created a series of small maps drawn on leaves. Because I commute between Chicago and Champaign for work, the history on my phone’s GPS makes a range of very diverse patterns. I have collected leaves from each community, representing the beginning and end of my weekly journey. I have also included a common leaf with a map joining the two communities.

Fallen draws a connection between time and travel. Time is precious; it is fleeting, it is temporary. Maps are often used for planning or tracking, and become an unrealized documentation of our time. The leaves are fragile, and handling them allows the possibility for damage.

As the exhibition moves forward with time, small fragments of the leaves break and collect within their resting place. Even if handlers are careful, taking them out and returning them to the small compartment within the gallery space is enough to cause the leaves to crumble over time. These tiny fragments are collected and placed in a small glass bottle, and the work transforms from one form into another. The leaves are temporary and a new work begins to form, documenting their time and travel. Two separate communities merge together through transportation.

Paulina Ramirez Parra

PolyRoots

A seed begins to spread its roots, claiming its nutrients, to use them to become a great being someday. It begins to grow, twists itself in search of sunlight. Unfortunately, this tree has a predetermined destiny written on its roots, to please mankind. It can serve two purposes: we keep it for aesthetic pleasure or we kill it to create wood planks to satisfy our materialistic desires.

In my piece, PolyRoots, my tree has the same faith. Its roots are in the shape of a square, foreshadowing its inescapable future. As its twists its way upward, its finds a taste of the near future: plywood. It wraps, trying to overcome this by separating its branches, choking the plywood. But at the same time, this weakens it.

I was given a certain dimension to work with for Terra/Form: 2 x 2 x 2 inches. When this tree reaches the plywood, its height reaches two inches. I gave leisure to the branches because I wanted to push the limits of my concept. This little tree was meant to be a great art piece, commemorating every tree that has lost its life due to our materialistic desire, or to serve us in any which way.

Tall Tim Llop

Vessel

I am a storyteller, but I don’t necessarily use words to tell my stories. Through a meditative reductive process, I explore the physicality of wood as well as my own psyche. Amorphous wooden forms have become the tangible distillation of the stories I’ve lived so far. This piece is the collected remnants of a scaled down wooden form. It was fashioned using glue and cedar shavings.  The shavings are held in a folded paper basket (a small clutch) that was a gift from a friend.

Judy Radovsky

Vitreous Enamel

Vitreous enamel is a material coating composed of fused powdered glass and mineral additives for color. Heat fuses the granules together binding the material to its surface.

Experimentation with this elemental substance occurred years ago when I discovered colorful glass vials populating a secret cupboard. I became attracted to their alchemical charm. This piece is one of a series of tests, performed with these particulates -- small chunks of earth preserved in glass.

Applying flame, the glass progresses through stages: sugar, resembling granules; orange peel, acquiring the smooth pocked unevenness of the citrus; full fuse; and over-fired, showing edge discoloration, black spots and pitting in the burned surface. Working with the torch necessitated finesse as the flames licked the surface; the results displaying a nuanced process.

In truth this practice was short lived, yet in considering these panels I’m struck that the same attention to surface, process, material, and alchemical geology remains the basis of my work today. A seemingly isolated island of inquiry in a studio practice I had forgotten. Having been reminded, I want to revisit them, as they are more prescient today. And so this sample of mineral and metal also weaves a past practice onto a future one, becoming a roadmap for beginning again.

Christen Calloway

Family Tree

A Jasmine tree stands, swaying in the hot summer breeze, the sticky, sweet smell of its blooms floating in the air. This tree was planted in Sally Mom, my great-grandmother’s, yard, where four generations spent long stretches of their adolescent summers. Instead of passing down houses or heirlooms, my family has kept with them cuttings from this tree, taking it with them from Dallas to Atlanta to Denver to anywhere. For this exhibition, I lend the scent of this tree to our community garden–something old and abstract, yet close to home.

Landon Williams

HERE

Hailing from a small place gives a person a different way to evaluate and perceive the world. Sounds and images can prove to be overwhelming to the senses once one is accustomed to one thing. In the hustle-and-bustle world we live and thrive in, we sometimes forget to stop and breathe to take in truly where we are in accordance to who we are; a wonderful experience that re-centers the balance of life and helps us to move forward as a group. The piece HERE helps give people that breath of fresh air to truly sit back and realize who they are and where they are. Nothing is like the here and now because nothing will ever be just like the here and now.