You thought you are the center of the universe - Jan-Ru Wan

You thought you are the center of the universe

Jan-Ru Wan
August 21 - October 5

ARTIST STATEMENT

Motherhood brought out a different perspective in my life on how we understand love. After the 2016 election, I found even newer meanings about this perspective. The current work was initiated and inspired by my own thoughts through raising my daughter. In a child’s development, I found that it is important to let the child understand the idea of “self” to develop one’s individual identity, but at the same time, it is also important to teach the child about the idea of sharing, and that we are all connected with one another in this universe.

In this world we live in, the idea of white privilege is implicitly embedded in everyday life, either we aware of it or not. Even in Taiwan where I grew up, we had only beautiful white dolls to symbolize the ultimate beauty, and white foreigners were more popular and respected in our little society. We did not know what racism was nor white superiority. This culture was such that everyone thought things were just the way they were; until one day, the perception was broken, we all woke up and we were taught that everyone was created equal, and we all collectively contribute to this beautiful world.

Letter to my daughter in the future: Dear daughter, growing up with you every minute has been the sweetest moments in my life, and we bathe you with all our love. But one day you might learn that someone would dislike you because the color of your skin, or the way you talk, or your gender, or even the name I gave you. That is ok because you are still loved. I hope that, despite these unpleasant experiences in the future, you will still have compassion in your heart, know that the universe is dependent on all living beings. Even though, you are not at the center of the universe anymore, the universe is a much more beautiful and peaceful place when we all lived in balance.

ARTIST BIO

For more than two decades, Jan-Ru Wan has been reusing found objects, especially those discarded from industrial factories, in her sculpture and installation work, re-inventing and elevating their original purpose. Her unique way of incorporating wildly diverse materials with layers of repetition and creating a space of awe is the signature of her installation works.

Throughout Wan’s career, she has participated in 28 solo exhibitions and 44 group exhibitions, including the 1st International Biennial of Casablanca at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art in Taiwan; the Yango-Biennial in Kinshasa, Congo, and her solo exhibition at the Mint Museum in Charlotte NC. Her work has been featured in Surface Design Magazine and Sculpture Magazine, as well as, The National Art Education Association Anthology: Globalization, Art, and Education, which devoted an entire chapter on her work. In 2006, The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee honored Wan with the GOLD award, recognizing her as the Graduate of the Last Decade. Wan was the recipient of North Carolina’s 2008 Visual Art Fellowship. She has been awarded artist residencies in Taiwan, Thailand, Morocco, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States.

These Things Take Time: Susan Skrzycki

These Things Take Time: Susan Skrzycki

June 26 - August 3

Opening Reception Friday July, 12th 6 - 8 pm
Closing Reception Friday August 2nd 6 - 10 pm

ARTIST STATEMENT

I create art to express ideas and emotions that cannot be expressed by other means. Due to a long love affair with dance, my artwork is often inspired and informed by movement, use of space, lighting and sound. I’m currently working in a series that focuses on vintage theaters and dancers. I’m often interested in everyday objects that tend to go unappreciated beyond their practical purpose, like zippers and lightbulbs. I’ve worked in a variety of media over the years ranging from painting and installation to performance. For the last year I’ve been working with encaustic and am thrilled by the seemingly endless possibilities this medium offers. I find encaustic media to be the ideal conduit for me at this point, as diverse memories and influences are manifested in my new work.

ARTIST BIO

Susan Skrzycki is a largely self-taught Raleigh-based artist working in a variety of media including murals, installation, assemblage, encaustic and painting. Her extensive dance background is sometimes noticeable in terms of movement, dancers as subjects, and kinetic installation. Although each medium, material and subject seem to dictate the style and approach, her work is alive with, light, texture, atmosphere and presence. Susan’s goal is to continue to push the boundaries of her abilities and knowledge while collaborating with others. Skrzycki finds daily inspiration in studying the work and life of Johann Baptist Hofner, her 2x great grand uncle, having recently traveled to Germany to investigate. Susan is currently enjoying the process of earning a Certificate of Nonprofit Management at Duke.

Accumulated Color: Kelly Sheppard Murray

Accumulated Color: Kelly Sheppard Murray

June 8 - July 23

ARTIST STATEMENT

Guided by the idea that consistent small actions create significant impact, these small sculptures grow the body of work over time. This process of creating over months or years is meant to also tie to the notion that our small actions affect the world beyond us. I encase, cover, stitch or layer found, industrial, cast-off or surplus materials to create objects or images that are not easily identified as natural or man-made. The pieces begin without an initial plan but instead rely on an intuitive response to the materials and a search for forms that feel familiar. Bold color and the process of building up encaustic wax to transform industrial materials has been central part of the visual outcome and process of this series. The small individual pieces have grown to a considerable collection that offers endless configurations and groupings to explore different relationships. Each piece is marked with a numbered copper tag to indicate the order in which it was created. Studying, organizing and categorizing the objects by color, form or other characteristics during the exhibitions becomes a bit of a process like a scientist’s study of plants, animals or fungi led by a curiosity to see the similarities and differences that occur over time in the process of creating.

ARTIST BIO

Kelly Sheppard Murray is a Raleigh, North Carolina artist, educator and designer with BFA, and MFA degrees from UNCG and ECU respectively. Murray’s career as an artist has emphasized three-dimensional design and fabrication for nature, health, science, and history museums, although her personal practice includes a wide array of media and processes.

While maintaining professional practice in design and fine arts, Murray teaches 2D & 3D design, painting, sculpture and art appreciation at Wake Technical Community College. In 2014, Murray was awarded faculty rank as Associate Professor at Wake Technical Community College

Murray is a 2018 recipient of the International Encaustic Artists Emerging Artist Grant. Other recognitions include being selected as a 2016 the Artspace Regional Emerging Artist in Residence, as well as a 2000 and 2012 recipient of Regional Artist Project Grant by the United Arts of Raleigh and Wake County. She now maintains a tenant studio at Artspace in order to be able to continue sharing work and having conversation with the public.

Recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition Kelly Sheppard Murray: Sculptures at Wilma Daniels Gallery, Wilmington, NC; Knoxville Tennessee’s Dogwood Arts 2018 Regional Arts Exhibition, Raleigh Fine Arts Society’s 2018 North Carolina Artists Exhibition, Artspace’s 30th Anniversary Retrospective Juried Exhibition.

Sifting: Eric Kniss

Sifting

Eric Kniss
April 24 - June 8, 2019

ARTIST STATEMENT

The key concerns in my work have to do with notions of the value of physical labor, the accumulation of material as evidence of time, and challenging prevailing assumptions about material, its uses, and hierarchies of value. I have used non-traditional materials like rope, unfired porcelain pots, and clay dust (industrial Kaolin). I am interested in discovering ways that material might visually reveal (or challenge assumptions of) its own characteristics. This is accomplished by implementing simple but concentrated and repetitive physical activities like winding, sifting, stacking, or compressing, creating contextual surprise as a result of process over time. I am interested in the capacity of physical labor to generate a visceral sense of connectedness to place. The sifting of Kaolin produces a tenuous situation of delicacy and impermanence that creates tension between the embedded sense of investment and the ephemeral nature of the result.

Over time I have become increasingly aware of the performative aspects of my work and have thought long about how to open the process to viewers without sacrificing the solitary, contemplative space necessary for its making. The specifics of the Cube have allowed me to put forward one scenario as a solution. For this exhibition I have closed the gallery space to public view and used video feeds to provide viewers access to the work and the process of its making via TV monitors in the gallery and online viewing options.

The situations described above build on the work I have been pursuing for a number of years, and the use of technology that mediates the viewer’s experience of the work bring new questions into the mix that I find very compelling. For example: What is the ontological status of the object of art in the context of mediated experience? What is the nature of knowledge in an intensely mediated reality?

This exhibition has been funded in part by a Faculty Research Grant from Bridgewater College, Bridgewater VA.

ARTIST BIO

Eric Kniss earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Bethel College, North Newton KS, and an Associates of Art from Hesston College, Hesston KS. Kniss has been awarded the Joan Mitchell MFA Grant (2010) and is a fellow at the Hambidge Center for Creative Art and Sciences (2015). His work has been exhibited in various venues including the Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro NC), CUE Art Foundation (NYC), Lexington Art League (Lexington, KY) and Staunton Augusta Art Center (Staunton, VA). Kniss teaches a wide range of courses in the Art Department at Bridgewater College, Bridgewater VA.

Lost and Preserved: Eun-Kyung Suh

Lost and Preserved

Eun-Kyung Suh

May 3 - 31

ARTIST STATMENT

Suh will construct multiple pentagonal and hexagonal boxes that can be arranged next to one another on a wall in appropriate patterns symbolizing ethnic enclaves. Her focus is the assimilation process of immigrants of color and their formation of ethnic concentrations in the settled areas. Immigrants often cluster in close geographic areas and develop migrant networks, thus forming ethnic enclaves. The transitional phase of learning a new language and social norms of the country restricts immigrants’ activities within the enclave and subsequently sequesters them from the larger societal context. These constructed ethnic enclaves act as havens where their heritage can be preserved and fortified.