COSO 2021 BIENNIAL

OPENING RECEPTION + AWARDS NIGHT

October 18 2021, 6PM - 8PM

ABOUT COSO

COSO* 2021 brings together 21 artists from across the American Southeast. As one of VAE’s longest running exhibitions and popular recurring projects, COSO has continued to bring contemporary Southern artists together, highlighting what artists and makers in the regional South are currently thinking, discussing, and making work about. COSO’s goal is to observe the contemporary social landscape of the region and to deconstruct the myth of the South as monolithic. Across eleven states, over 82 million people make up one of the most diverse regions in the country.

VAE brings this cross section of Southern art to Raleigh as our continued contribution to the city’s goal of being “The Arts Capital of the South.” This year’s exhibit was juried by Death Nurse and Kidd Graves, two contemporary Southern artists themselves. Works in the exhibition address themes related to body autonomy, class, labor, and race; pressing topics relevant to the current geopolitical climate of the Southern United States. 

When you think of the South what are the first things that come to mind? Sweet tea...humidity...front porches...While these few examples may be true, they do not get to the core of what the South really is, and what the South can really be. Although typically thought of as backwards, non-progressive, vastly rural, and non-diverse, the contemporary American South embraces traditions in order to reject and reframe them to better support the diversity of the region, our deep connection to an unmatched landscape is celebrated, and our resilience emboldens the constant growth and creative byproducts of the regions makers. As VAE Raleigh’s profile as an equitable, high-quality, and conscientious space for contemporary art continues to rise, COSO only increases in importance as a project for bringing our entire arts community together to discuss our challenges, celebrate our successes, and make new connections for a stronger future.

*Contemporary South

ARTISTS

Andres Risquez - King Macqueen

Angelica Fields - Depiction, Fuel

Dasean Ultra - Ronnie Drake

Davis Choun - Pins 27

Doris Kapner - Girdle

Emma Dickson - Closed Circuit #1, Closed Circuit #2

Erin Ethridge - Tideswing

Isabel Lu - The Kiss

JP Jermaine Powell - Baby Bullets / Self Defense 101

Jenny Eggleston - Captain America

JURORS -

Karena “Kidd” Graves is an artist and sculptor from Greensboro, NC. They received a BFA in Sculpture from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2019 and is a current MFA candidate in sculpture at East Carolina University. With their degree they gained more experience in metal fabrication, ceramics, woodworking, and carving. Their artwork consists mostly of found - repurposed materials from junk yards and the streets of North Carolina. The found objects they collect and bring to the studio become assemblages based on movement, form, and color in context of their research at the time. Their current research is based on their family and African American dream symbolism. Along with creating sculpture, they participate in collaborative public art projects.

Death Nurse is an interdisciplinary artist based out of Nashville, TN with a background in printmaking and illustration who is currently deep in a tattoo apprenticeship. She looks forward to exploring the bounds of tattooing within her practice and how it combats notions of high and low brow art.