Courtney Potter I HagerSmith

Courtney Potter

HagerSmith

May - June

ARTIST BIO

Courtney Potter has worked as a professional painter, photographer, filmmaker, and artist for the last decade. As a child she explored multiple art forms—performing in the St. Louis children’s touring choir, writing and illustrating short stories, and playing piano at Carnegie Hall in high school.

Courtney graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2009 with a degree in Photojournalism. Her photography projects have taken her across the world and earned her multiple awards including College Photographer of the year, WPJA, WPPI, and the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops. Her paintings have been featured in art shows along the East Coast, and she’s currently preparing for three 2018 solo exhibitions in the North Carolina Triangle (Raleigh – Durham – Chapel Hill) where she lives.

Authenticity and love fuel Courtney’s work and life purpose. Just like you, she values excellence and soul: she’s not a fan of trends, tropes, or mediocrity. Your artwork won’t look like everyone else’s, because you aren’t like everyone else. You live your life boldly from a foundation of love, and you want paintings and photographs that match your truth.

Courtney helps individuals (who love themselves), couples (who love each other), and creative business owners (who love their work) tap into their own authenticity and creativity. She does this through her exquisite abstract paintings that transform your living space, honest wedding photos that celebrate your quirks and your deep love for your community, stunning boudoir photos that remind you how you feel in your sexiest moments, or soulful branding visuals that let your inspiration behind your brand really shine through.

When not painting or making photographs, you’ll probably find Courtney rockclimbing, chasing her dream to live on a houseboat with her boo, or exploring the Pacific Northwest. Her deepest joy is found in exploring (whether it’s new ideas, the world, or her own creativity) and connecting (with her community, her family, and her friends).

Also, the pelvis is her power symbol.

The Protest Purse

THE PROTEST PURSE

by Kulsum Tasnif
photography by Caroline Cockrell

Exhibition: May 4 - June 16, 2018
Artist Talk: May 5th, 4-6pm
First Friday: May 4th, 6-10pm & June 1st, 6-10pm

Project Statement
For the past months I immersed myself in stories of Muslim women, learning what inspires us to resist and to exist in these times of national chaos, global catastrophes, and day to day struggles. My resistance purses are portraits of contemporary human struggles and triumphs. They are empowering, bold, and collaborative, fueled by our collective passions; they serve as a documentation of an era in which voices are silenced, yet, remaining silent is not an option. This is an ongoing project that seeks to re-contextualize how we view protest, and allows insight into the hearts and minds of a diverse community of women. And I couldn't have thought of a better partner than photographer-friend Caroline Cockrell to join me on this journey called The Protest Purse.

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THE LAB is sponsored by Allen Tate Realtors

A Letter from VAE Staff + Board of Directors

Dear Creative Community,

In April, the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh (CAM Raleigh) opened an exhibition of work by artist Margaret Bowland, whose paintings incorporate, among other symbols, women and girls of color painted in white face. Ms. Bowland herself is white, and without proper context the exhibition threatens the misappropriation (or, worse, the marginalization) of Black history and culture, which is troubling for many viewers.

 As a fellow City-funded arts organization, Visual Art Exchange (VAE Raleigh) agrees with CAM Raleigh that art is a powerful tool for communication. VAE Raleigh also believes this communicative power comes with significant civic responsibility. Unfortunately, CAM Raleigh has not adequately answered individual questions and concerns about the exhibition from members of the creative community. Members of that community approached VAE to give institutional voice to their questions and concerns.

VAE Raleigh believes it is essential going forward that the whole of the presenting art community (patrons, artists, and administrators) are clear on, conscious of, and communicative about the line between provocation and exploitation. We respect provocation as an effective tool for raising awareness and sparking conversations to bring about change. However, responsible, socially engaged cultural art institutes start with an intended impact and work backward from there to present art that achieves the desired ends.

To this end, we are devoting the 2018 VAE Summit to furthering these important conversations and, together, arriving at standards and values that reflect our diverse, inclusive community. Join us on July 21, 2018 as we figure out how Triangle creativity can do its best work!

Sincerely,
 VAE Staff + Board of Directors

VAE BEST PRACTICES
VAE will:

• design our exhibits and programming from the outside in, by engaging the community in the planning process.

• align our resources to identify and address problems using creativity.

• make sure that all exhibition opportunities have real value for participating artists, including press, print materials, and financial compensation whenever possible.

• engage with challenging or provocative work by contextualizing it and facilitating open dialogue about it.

• support free creative expression and lift up work that creates the most positive impact for our community.

• communicate transparently with our audience about the intended impact of our work, the engagement process during planning, and how others can be involved in our projects.

• never exhibit or financially support work that co-opts the story of a community without representation from that community acting in a decision making role.

• select guest curators from communities represented in our exhibits. Charge those curators to engage members of the community in the discussion and to create programming that shows a diverse set of views from that community.

• require guest curators to submit all works for review six weeks ahead of the exhibition so that VAE can make sure the works fits these guidelines and that challenging work is well contextualized in our communications about the exhibition.

• design programs, exhibits, events, and funding opportunities that are culturally, physically, and financially accessible.

• use our institutional privilege to give voice and opportunity to people who might otherwise remain unheard.

• earn a reputation as an inclusive space where thoughts, concerns, and ideas will be heard.

• admit when we make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and work with the community to better understand their diverse perspectives.

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.