Ultralight 2

Ultralight 2

May 2 -25
United Arts Council

ULTRALIGHT 2 is an exhibition of artwork about disability, created by artists living with disabilities. VAE is offering a platform for artists who identify as living with disabilities to take back the narrative that is so often controlled by the medical field, media, and stereotypes. ULTRALIGHT 2 seeks to exhibit work that challenges the viewing public to leave their preconceived notions and sympathy at the door, and experience artwork that tells the real story of living disabilities and the current state of access. The exhibition breaks access into three parts: physical, communication, and attitude.

ARTISTS

Angela Dawson - Wallflower
Rachel Fann - Anxiety Brain
Effy Francis - Sick, Nero
King Godwin - 18-m109 The elephant is happy in the rain because it feels like a shower "67", 18-m301 The bear is smily because its playing with the friend
Wiley Johnson - Uplifting
Eduardo Lapetina - A Simple Happy Life
Jennifer Markowitz - Fleshmap: Chicago 1988-1990, Fleshmap: Chicago April 1992
Jeff Newell - Lined up as meaningless cogs, That Confounded Bird
Mitchell Price -  Imaginative Astronaut
Jaime Robertson - Flourish
Jean Shortall - You're Only as Beautiful as You Feel Inside
Efrat Vaknin - WECONNECT, WEMASTERBATE
Evan Webster - Not Today!, Untitled
Eric Wolf - Magma and Ice
Sherry Spencer -  WE ARE FAMILY

AWARDS

1st - Effy Francis Sick
2nd - Jennifer Markowitz Fleshmap: Chicago 1988-1990
3rd - Jeff Newell That Confounded Bird

Merit Awards
Rachel Fann - Anxiety Brain
Jean Shortall - You're Only as Beautiful as You Feel Inside

Bill Drewitz / Aloft Raleigh

Bill Drewitz

Aloft Raleigh
April - June

ARTIST STATEMENT

William Drewitx (Bill) is an emerging artist that has worked with ink for 35 years. Creating intricate pen and ink drawings since he could hold a pencil, he recently embraced his artistic ability to create photos that are a unique blend of color, light, and design.

Nature reflects the duality within each of us. Nature is chaotic and harmonious, violent and peaceful, tumultuous and still, cunning and innocent. 

Humans are a part of this duality, capable of malicious acts and of benevolent kindness. 

The photos of William Drewitz embody the duality of nature and humanity where chaos and harmony play together in a single photo. 

How the image affects the viewer is a reflection of the inner self at that moment. 

By mixing UV ink, solvents, and oils a pattern is created and then photographed digitally using macro-photography. The art was born from a desire to have a creative outlet coupled with a major life change. It shows the complexity, the beauty, the emotion, and the ever-changing flow of our lives. Bill hopes you find yourself in the experience of these pieces. Everyone sees something different and has a different emotional reaction to any given design. 

What do you see? 

Chryssha Guidry / Aloft RDU

Chryssha Guidry

ALoft RDU
April - June

ARTIST STATEMENT

Chryssha Guidry was born in Florida in 1991. In 2013, she
graduated from Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL, with a BFA in Fine
Arts, Psychology, and a minor in Graphic Design. In 2014, after traveling
across country in a Chevy Conversion van, she landed in Asheville, North
Carolina. Finding a true love for North Carolina, she now resides in
Durham, NC.

This work started as a form of therapy, a method of release. The actions
organically evolve amongst each other, and she emphasizes these
relationships visually. Information is being obscured rather than
revealed. The continuous direction combines multiple perspectives, each
one making the last more obscure showing the whole is less than the
sum of its parts. There is a physical experience that can be considered
the peak, if not the overall purpose of one’s perception of this work. This
is experienced through relaxing and surrendering to the emotion that is
transpiring lulling them into a reflective escape.

CANstruction 2018

CANstruction 2018
Light Rail by Summit Design and Engineering with Monteith Construction and students from Wake Tech

April 6-26
Competition Build Day: Friday, April 6th
First Friday Reception & CANstruction scavenger hunt: Friday, April 6th, 6-9pm

CANstruction is a nonprofit organization that holds annual design/build competitions to construct giant sized structures made entirely out of canned food. The goal of CANstruction, in addition to providing thousands of pounds of food for hunger relief assistance, is to put a spotlight on the design and construction industry giving back to the communities they help to design and build. Architects, engineers, designers and/or contractors participate either by entering competing teams from their firms or by mentoring teams of students, local businesses, clubs or civic organizations. The theme for this year’s event is Save our Planet.

Summit Design and Engineering, a local architecture and engineering firm has teamed up with Monteith Construction and students from Wake Tech to build their entry Light Rail, using 3293 cans of food. The team will compete against other firms in the all-day event to help with hunger relief. Once the event is over the cans will go to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern Carolina. Come by and see how things turn out!

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THE LAB is sponsored by Allen Tate Realtors

Cindy Morefield I HagerSmith

Cindy Morefield 

ARTIST STATEMENT

In my current practice I build large wall collages, called texture matrices, from paper, tape, and other leftover studio materials, then I make rubbings from the matrices as they evolve. The rubbings are made with wax pastel, watercolor crayon, and sometimes charcoal on paper or Yupo, and then some sections are worked in more detail with colored pencil and/or soft pastel. The completed rubbings are treated with an archival varnish.

Most of the pieces in this show were made from the Texture Matrix #3, identified as “TM3” in the titles. Four of these are collages created by combining two rubbings from adjacent areas on the matrix. The remaining pieces came from Texture Matrices #1 and #2 (TM1 & TM2) which were created during a residency at MassMOCA in August of 2017.

The process of creating the texture matrices and then making rubbings from them is like hiding a treasure and then rediscovering it. Even though I create the matrix, I can’t keep all the layers and their possible interactions in working memory, so every rubbing is a discovery of what’s there, what elements will come to the fore at each stage of the matrix’s evolution. Rubbings force me to work in the realm of the hidden, and to trust what will be revealed. I am intrigued by the play between what is hidden and what is revealed, and most particularly interested in what needs to remain hidden. Just as tree roots can only function properly if they stay hidden underground, much of what is important to our inner life must transpire underneath what is visible/conscious/apparent. Like X-rays, the rubbings reveal much of what is hidden beneath the layers of the texture matrix, but there is also a limit to what is revealed.

Natacha Sochat I UAC

Natacha Sochat

United Arts Council
March

Artist Statement

Artists are part of every aspect of society, there is nothing created that does not include an artistic principle as much as it includes mathematical and physical science.
I have always merged science and art in my work. I live my life reflecting my ethical beliefs and artistic philosophy. My work embodies what I am: for good or bad, for perfect or flawed. The objects I create are imbued with my struggle to understand the unpredictability and the complexity of being human in the 21st century: as an older woman, as an American Latina, as a wife and mother, and as a believer in an ethical political/economic system for the world we live in.

This series of drawings/paintings embodies my research into the NeuroMorphic Universe that we all inhabit, playfully transcending the complexity of life.

My Hand is my Mind.

Artist Bio

Natacha Sochat was born in Manhattan, New York City. As a very young child she grew up in Habana, Cuba. Her father was a Cuban revolutionary. In later childhood, her family lived in the south Bronx. Her love of art was nurtured while growing up in the rich cultural landscape of NYC. She attended the Bronx HS of Science. Natacha lived and worked in Europe in the early 1970’s, travelling to many different cities viewing many artistic works in person. She worked as a professional photographer in Berlin, Germany, including freelance work for "Berlin Today" magazine. After Berlin she moved to Boston MA in 1974, where she attended Boston University.  She is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Boston University (BA Biology with distinction, minor art history). Her post-baccalaureate studies at Brandeis University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston included painting, printmaking, photography, and video. She received her MFA in Studio Arts from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her MFA thesis embodied the NeuroMorphic Universe - our connectedness biologically and otherwise, and her work still resides in this realm to this day. She received her MD degree from Boston University School of Medicine.


Natacha met Michael Sochat in 1975 while attending Boston University and they married in 1980. While at Boston University College of Liberal Arts, Natacha met Arthur Polonsky and Harold Tovish. Their philosophies greatly influenced her decision to be an artist. She learned how to code in 1975 before the personal PC was introduced. This was the stepping stone for Natacha to the world of computers that she would later naturally incorporate into her artistic process.


In 2010 Natacha co-founded NKG (Boston contemporary art gallery, now closed). NKG gave voice to the pluralism that continually enriches contemporary art and ideas. NKG's mission was to further contemporary art by giving equal value to the mind and the hand. Natacha curated many exhibitions and works during this time. She also created and managed the gallery’s website.

Natacha has taught at numerous places including School of the Museum of Fine Arts (painting), the New Hampshire Institute of Art (drawing/printmaking), and was Master Teacher in Studio Arts at the St. Paul's School Advanced Studies Program (Concord, NH). She is an interdisciplinary thinker, curator, and artist including painting, printmaking (etching, relief, monoprint, etc), bookmaking, small sculptural objects, performance, video, drawing, and photography. Her work is in numerous collections, has won many awards and has been in exhibitions throughout the United States. She was a member of the College Board Association and served on the Board of the Woman's Caucus for Art (NH), including President and webmaster.

In 2015 Natacha left NH and moved to Raleigh, NC where she currently resides and has a studio in ArtSpace.

Ron Lambert

Ron Lambert

Living Goodbye

December 20 - February 2

ARTIST STATEMENT: 

There are instances when the environment reminds us of our lives, such as the point at the beginning of a rainstorm when you’re not sure if you feel the water yet or not, in extreme weather when our lives are threatened, and also when we encounter something so breathtaking that for a brief moment our lives are taken off course. Art has been given the job of capturing contemporary life, providing mementos of things the culture does or should feel for. Culture moves at an exhausting pace yet it is difficult to make art about flux, to make objects and images that ask the audience to remain still in a culture which constantly threatens to pass them by. As we leave our bodies to move at the pace of progress, we pass the physical parts of life which remind us that we take up space. It is in the moments of the sublime experience that life slows down if even for a second. Art making provides me with an opportunity to explore the sublime through the construction of experiences. Art can mimic life physically; it can also mimic the experiences of life, adding interjections to remind us of the pace at which we live and how one perceives beauty and the aesthetic of contemporary life. 
 

Culture aims its efforts toward a sense of perfection. I see this in how we construct the landscape: by making it manicured we believe it is under control. The more we try to force our environment into submission, the more we are faced with the futility of imposing a system. My work is an attempt at beauty and perfection that understands the failure of that effort. I equate it to the way in which we start a process and once we are invested in it we find a problem. Instead of starting over and admitting the idea was unsuccessful, we put a patch over the issue. We start putting patches on patches and after a while the process is more about the attempts to repair than the original goal. In the end it might be the patches are more beautiful than the goal of the original plan.

I desire to artistically explore a sense of constructedness and impermanence, which remind me of our own impermanence despite the best efforts of science and medicine. While technology explains away things that were once mysteries, phenomena, or even miracles, the sight of such occurrences still inspire awe. The sublime comes from a need to be awed, a need to break routine, a need to feel there is still wonder in the world around us. As the natural environment shrinks, the sublime recedes into such miniscule events as the concentric rings formed from a drop of water, of the reflection of the sky in a puddle alongside the walkway.

Susie Silver I HagerSmith

Susie Silver

HagerSmith Designs
January - February

ARTIST STATEMENT

I seek to eliminate all or most realistic imagery from my work. I acquit myself from making work that has been expected of me. I focus on manipulation of media while immersed in the process of creating. Pieces are built with layers of media, constructing the final product over time through multiple working sessions. Basic elements and principles of art such as line, shape, color and movement are key components in my current body of work.  I use minimal tools in the process of creating pieces often using my hands, fingers and breath to guide mediums around the working surface. Spontaneous and unplanned moments occur in every piece, which is exciting and challenging to me.

When I was a teenager, my attitude towards making art shifted dramatically as I let go of the notion that successful art had to be realistic. I was enamored by artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Wassily Kandinsky, Frank Stella and Jackson Pollock. Their work supported the ideas I had; to be focused on color, process, composition, etc. I knew that I could make tightly rendered, realistic work, but never felt comfortable with those creations representing me as an artist. I eventually listened to my instincts and started to strip away imagery, or at the very least abstract it. I allowed myself to focus on process, use of media and the basic components of art. I held onto this foundation through my college body of work, which allowed me to heavily investigate my viewpoint as an artist. I completed most of my work in clay and glass during this time (BFA, Alfred University 2002). As I moved into my professional teaching career, the artist I became started to dwindle. As educators, we strive every day to inspire our students to find their own personal voice in their artwork. As educator-artists, we often struggle with finding that very voice in our own work. I found myself back at the crossroads of feeling like I was supposed to make realistic art, as that was a great deal of what I was required to teach. I started many pieces that have never been finished and at times I was paralyzed by indecision and the pressure to be a realist. I placed a false reality on myself as a realistic artist. As a result, my authenticity and creativity suffered.

Over the past year, I have revisited my artistic influences and have opened up again to the mindset I established over twenty years ago.  I have placed no restriction on myself regarding what a final piece should look like. I get lost in the process of creation and media manipulation.  The subject matter, style and media are now my confident choices, not decisions that I feel were made for me. After years of dormancy, I have finally revealed work that is authentic and genuine.

Adam Coulter I Aloft Raleigh

Adam Coulter

Aloft Raleigh
January - March

ARTIST STATEMENT

Chaos has been defined as the first thing to exist.

New ideas emerge from it. Society moves forward because of it. Weather changes because of it. Art is created from it.

The world is full of chaos. Mental, physical, and environmental chaos comes at us at all times. But the world is also full of beauty. And sometimes this beauty is found in the chaos.

Even something as simple as a child’s Slinky toy can turn into chaos. Once tangled, it can never be returned to its original form. Why not take the misshapen, both in life and in objects, and make something out of it? You may be surprised by what results.