Monday, November 24, 2014

Oppositions and Parallels by Robyn LeRoy-Evans, Naomi Shersty and Ryn Wilson

A group exhibition I organized is currently showing at the Front in conjunction with PhotoNOLA. I invited my former photography instructor, Naomi Shersty, and another New Orleans photographer, Robyn LeRoy-Evans to show, and am exhibiting a new photo-installation piece of my own. Come by during gallery hours, Sat/Sun 12-5pm or for the PhotoNOLA opening on Dec. 6th from 6-9pm. We will be doing a gallery walk through with the artists on Dec. 7th from 2-5pm. There are three other great photography shows in the gallery as well! http://nolafront.org/shows/2014-11-04-74

Oppositions and Parallels
Robyn LeRoy-Evans, Naomi Shersty, and Ryn Wilson
Oppositions and Parallels presents artwork by Robyn LeRoy-Evans, Naomi Shersty and Ryn Wilson. Using photography as a unifying medium, the exhibition identifies several opposing and overlapping themes within each artist’s practice. Sharing a mutual fascination with the relationship between environment and self, each artist has depicted the female body either in full or in part, as a distorted, fractured form, via text, or through the use of symbolic objects. Having traveled the United States as well as further afield, each artist has at some point found themselves to be the outsider, the newcomer, and the stranger. They have been transplanted into new environments, forced to navigate unknown territory, and have been met with both understanding and misperception along the way. These artworks explore associated feelings of confusion, loss, anxiety, desire, and loneliness, emotions which can arise from living an itinerant and malleable existence. 

 
Robyn LeRoy-Evans, Bloom from the Forest Series, Metallic print mounted to Sintra, 8"x10", 2014

Robyn LeRoy-Evans
Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to a Canadian mother and Welsh father, Robyn LeRoy-Evans spent much of her early life on the move. In adulthood, travel has become something she craves. The new experiences, emotions, and challenges that unfamiliar locations hold are at the core of her photographic practice, compelling her to make physical responses to her ever changing surroundings. Her fascination with inanimate objects, particularly vessels, drapery, and furniture, could be attributed to a deep rooted desire to finally settle somewhere...to create the perfect home. Robyn currently divides herself between rural Carmarthenshire, Wales, and New Orleans, USA. In 2012 she achieved a First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art from Sheffield Hallam University. Her most recent exhibition was the group show God’s Bridge X, at The Bowes Museum, in County Durham, UK. 
http://robynleroyevans.com/home.html























Naomi Shersty, Jackfruit from the Swaddle Series, Archival inkjet print, 8" x 8", 2014  

Naomi Shersty
 Naomi Shersty has exhibited her multimedia artwork both nationally and internationally at venues such as the New Mexico Museum of Art (Santa Fe, NM), Newspace Center for Photography (Portland, OR), and Gallery 00130 (Helsinki, Finland). Her photographs have been featured in numerous publications including Frontiers: Journal of Women Studies (University of Nebraska Press), Reframing Photography: Theory and Practice (Routledge), and Learning to Love You More (Pentel Publishing). Shersty received her BFA from The University of Florida, and her MFA from The University of New Mexico. She lives and works in Milwaukee, WI.

Ryn Wilson, Oppositions and Parallels III, Archival inkjet print mounted to acrylic, mirror shelves, Dimensions Variable, 2014
Ryn Wilson
Ryn Wilson is a photography and video artist currently living and working in New Orleans. She grew up in the Mid West and received her BFA from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in 2006.  She spent time studying in Thailand, China and Germany and worked as a photographer and artist’s assistant in Tokyo and Shanghai. She has exhibited in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hamburg, Innsbruck, Oslo, Stavanger, San Francisco, Austin, Milwaukee and New Orleans. Ryn received her MFA from the University of New Orleans in 2013 and is a member of the New Orleans artist collective and gallery, The Front.
http://rynwilson.com/


Sunday, October 12, 2014

Back to the Front

I have a piece in a group show at the Front, open Ocotober 11- November 2, 2014.


The Great Escape, 2014, Digital Photograph, Suitcase, Sand

BACK TO THE FRONT

Back to front, present/future, top to bottom, inside/out, The Front draws back the curtain for your viewing pleasure. With Freudian Glaciers, Horses at the Museum, Great Escapes, Desert Cinema, Hunting & Gathering, and more.
Rated F. For all audiences.
 
In conjunction with Prospect 3, The Front presents all new work by member artists:
Angela Berry
Brooke Pickett
Claire Rau
Cristina Molina
Eddie Lanieri
H. Cole Wiley
Imen Djounini
Jamie Solock
Jessie Vogel
John Isiah Walton
Jonathan Traviesa
Kyle Bravo
Lee Deigaard
Megan Roniger
Ryn Wilson
Stephanie Patton


The Front • 4100 St. Claude Avenue • New Orleans, LA 70117 • Saturday & Sunday 12 to 5 pm

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Discipline.

Peter and I working on drawings for a collaborative show in March 2015. We each pick a theme every other week and create 2D works based on the themes. There are 30 weeks from when we started until March. The idea is to keep each other disciplined and create a body of work.


Tuesday, August 5, 2014

VIDEOSCAPE: Film screening at the Kunsthall Stavanger

My short film Parallel Realms is screening tonight in Stavanger, Norway alongside four other films, including Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon. The Kunsthall Stavanger curated this video screening event to coincide with Nicolas Party's exhibition, Landscape.




From the website: 

Videoscape is a film and video screening inspired by Nicolas Party's exhibition Landscape. Landscape combines site-specific installations, paintings and drawings inspired by Stavanger artist Lars Hertervig (1830 - 1902) to create a new landscape within Kunsthall Stavanger's five galleries. The exhibition comprises both artworks and stagings of events, where the audience is invited to understand the kunsthall as a place for social interaction and participation.
Videoscape presents five video works that offer an exploration of different types of landscapes; the film and video landscape, the natural landscape, the cultural landscape and the urban landscape. By utilizing film and video, the artists examine what happens at the intersection of time and space, nature and culture, the conscious and unconscious, and between "them" and "us".

Program:
Steina and Woody Vasulka, In The Land Of The Elevator Girls, 1989
Ryn Wilson, Parallel Realms, 2012-2013
Mikhail Basov, Free Movements, 2012
Maya Deren, Meshes of the Afternoon, 1943
Chaj Hertog and Nir Nadler, Harvest, 2013

Welcome!
Videoscape is part of a series of events in Nicolas Party's exhibition Landscape, organized by different people involved at Kunsthall Stavanger. Videoscape is organized by Astrid Helen Windingstad, art historian and volunteer at the kunsthall.

August 05, 2014

19:00

Thursday, July 17, 2014

WET at the UNO St. Claude Gallery

Currently up at the UNO St. Claude gallery is a group show titled WET, which runs through August 3rd, 2014. Regular gallery hours are held on Saturdays and Sundays from 12-5 p.m at 2429 St Claude Ave, New Orleans, Louisiana 70117.


David Hassel, snail on proust on tissue box, 2014,
digital photograph

WET is a group exhibition focused on liquid relief for one of our hotter months in the sweaty Crescent City. The artists in this exhibition demonstrate the damp in a wide variety of mediums and attitudes, from wishful-thinking pleasure-romps in the swamp to unrelenting evaporation under the buzz of a desperate air-conditioning unit. Works include photography, video, installation, drawings, sculpture, and painting. This self-curated exhibition features current and recent graduates from the University of New Orleans Fine Arts Department. Exhibiting artists include Kevin Baer, Vanessa Centeno, Jason Christopher Childers, Valerie Corradetti, Robyn Denny, David Hassell, Peter Hoffman, Sylvia Santamaria, Natalie Tobacyk, Bradford Willingham, and Ryn Wilson.


Also, a review of The Front in May, including an image and description of my show, FATHOM.

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/review-new-works-at-the-front/Content?oid=2446811

Ryn Wilson, FATHOM, 2014, digital photograph

Saturday, May 3, 2014

The Front @ Art Lab in Tokyo

Opening on Monday the 5th of May is a group show of The Front at Makii Masaru Gallery and Art Lab in Tokyo. I will be showing a video alongside fabulous work from other Front members. The show will run through May 17th. In addition to the Tokyo shows, we will have a group installation at the Front Gallery in New Orleans which will be on a live feed to Art Lab so they can see a virtual version of an ongoing collaboration.

Postcard Image: Still from "Test Pattern" by Ryn Wilson, 2014
The Front at Tokyo Art Lab

In continuation of The Front's Collective Exchange Program, The Front is having a group show with Tokyo Art Lab in Japan during the month of May.  As a satellite component of this exhibition, The Front will produce a collaborative work within their New Orleans gallery, the evolution of which will be digitally streamed to Tokyo Art Lab's gallery in Japan.  The month-long duration of this work will allow members of The Front to contribute as individual artists in response to contributions made by fellow members in service of the greater whole.  The Front at Tokyo Art Lab is the second half of a Collective Exchange with Tokyo Art Lab, who first showed as a collective at The Front in October 2013.  

Monday, April 28, 2014

Fathom (MCMLXXVI) at the Front




My solo exhibition Fathom (MCMLXXVI) opens on May 10th at the Front. There will be an opening reception on May 10th from 6-10pm and the exhibition will run until June 8th. Gallery hours are Saturdays and Sundays from 12-5pm. The Front is located at 4100 St. Claude Ave. in New Orleans, LA.


Artist Statement

There was a renaissance of artistic freedom in mainstream films during the 70s. At this time, the public began to embrace international, independent and alternative cinema, which encouraged filmmakers to redefine their craft in visual and narrative terms. This resulted in a strangeness and originality that could never make it into the big budget films of today.
Horror and sci-fi often express the zeitgeist or fears of an era. In this period, feminism translated into the new phenomenon of the female protagonist transitioning from victim to heroine, such as in classics like Halloween or Alien. The Satanic Panic of the religious right created an interest in occult subjects, which were the focus of so may filmmakers of the time like Roman Polanski and Dario Argento.
The exhibition, Fathom (MCMLXXVI), examines elements of horror and sci-fi from this period. Through digital photography, I create the outline of a narrative, giving the viewer stills from an imagined film. I give clues, such as a female lead being pursued by an invisible antagonist, which suggests the supernatural is at play. I project a video of a ghostly scene on loop behind a velvet movie curtain with a single red light bulb, suggesting a space where a medium would summon spirits. Style and subject matter take on the elements of the uncanny, the seductive and the enticing quality of our anxieties and curiosities.

Friday, March 7, 2014

Video Weekend!

Two excellent film fests are occurring this weekend.

The Oslo Screen Festival kicked off yesterday. My short film, Parallel Realms, will screen Saturday afternoon with a number of other shorts in competition with each other. See more details here, http://screenfestival.no/

http://screenfestival.no/


http://entry.screenfestival.no/2014/Program_OsloScreenFestival_LOW.pdf


Also for Saturday, I've worked together with the Plugged Art Collective to present: Her Shorts: Selections International Women’s Video Festival. This will be held at the Front gallery in New Orleans during Second Saturday openings from 7-9pm. Find out more about the Plugged Collective at http://pluggedartcollective.org

Monday, January 6, 2014

The Front: Artist Collective

I'm very excited to announce that I am now a member at The Front, an artist run gallery space/collective in New Orleans. We will open the new year and new group with a show of work by all the members, 8 new and 10 old. The opening is Saturday, January 11th from 6-10pm and the show will run through February 2nd.

The Front • 4100 St. Claude Avenue • New Orleans, LA 70117 • Saturday & Sunday 12 to 5 pm www.nolafront.org



To celebrate the beginning of our fifth lease cycle, The Front invites you to a group show of new work by spanking new and ongoing member artists.

Last fall, The Front's open call for new members reaped us a bounty of new talent. Come see what's new. We were 14, now we are 18. We're an octadecagon. We are e pluribus unum/ duodeviginti members.

18 and Life follows 2012's New Lease, 2011's Love, The Front, and 2010's Refresh.

Featuring New Members:

H. Cole Wiley
Imen Djouini
John Isiah
Edna Lanieri
Cristina Molina
Jamie Solock
Jessie Vogel
Ryn Wilson


Members saying fare-thee-well:

Andrea Ferguson
Dave Greber
Kyle Hossli
Rachel Jones Deris


And Old Hands:

Angela Berry
Kyle Bravo
Lee Deigaard
Morgana King
Stephanie Patton
Brooke Pickett
Alex Podesta
Claire Rau
Megan Roniger
Jonathan Traviesa