Virtual Exhibitions _Saturday, March 13_12:30–14:00 (eastern us)_
As we “stay together apart” during the global pandemic, we have increasingly had to experience art through online galleries and virtual exhibitions. Today a museum or gallery website is the equivalent of the Museum without Walls or “musée imaginaire” that the French art historian André Malraux (1901- 1976) envisioned where museum exhibitions take the form of photographic books. Recognizing this virtual reality, this session will consist of three presentations of hypothetical, virtual exhibitions. For Disconnected: a Virtual Contemporary Print Exhibition, Madison May presents the works of 10 print media artists adapting their practice to COVID-19. Canadian artists Jamie-lee Girodat and Myken McDowell have organized an exhibition that examines ways that the heritage and legacy of our material culture have resonance and memory in work of fellow Canadian artists. Finally, Erin Wohletz has assembled a virtual exhibition that offers an index of LGBTQ+ practitioners working within the medium of printmaking. A short Q&A will follow each presentation.
Aubrey Roemer, moderator
PhD student (Anthropology), University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Disconnected: A Virtual Contemporary Print Exhibition _12:30–13:00_(eastern us)_
Madison Nicole May, curator
MFA student, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Organized by Bend Gallery’s virtual viewing room, Disconnected presents work from 10 interdisciplinary artists working across the United States, showcasing contemporary prints made during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a time in which artists are responding to the extraordinary strain social distancing and quarantine practices have put on themselves and their relationships. The works included offer introspective contemplations of the self and render narratives of public, private, and personal connections in their lives. Portraiture, family heirlooms, and the body are depicted as artists are processing the results of being isolated. Utilizing a variety of hand-pulled print media methods including lithography, screenprinting, and monotype, the works all utilize traditional print processes, as well as some combination with digital, sculpture, and collage techniques. The works in this exhibition were chosen by Madison Nicole May, the gallery’s executive director. May is inspired by connections between the artists in this exhibition, and the similar themes of contemplation in artists across the chronological print time span, including the confessional etchings of Tracy Emin, brooding lithograph portraits of Kathe Kollwitz and Edvard Munch, and the desolate object still lives of Wayne Thiebaud. The exhibition will go live on Bend Gallery’s website March 8, 2021, and will be featured through April 8th, 2021 at bendgallery.com/disconnected.
Madison Nicole May is an interdisciplinary artist in Chicago, IL. She attends the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in pursuit of a Master of Fine Arts degree in Printmedia. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Printmaking from Kendall College of Art and Design (2016) in Grand Rapids, MI. She has participated in a number of local and national exhibitions and print exchanges, and has been an artist in residence at Zea Mays Printmaking in Florence, MA. Madison has held the title of Gallery Assistant, Printshop Technician, and Continuing Studies Instructor. In 2017, May opened Bend Gallery, a not-for-profit contemporary art gallery, which also hosted the artist collective she co-founded, Good Manufacturing Artist’s Co. The gallery space ran successfully for three and a half years in Grand Rapids, MI, and now exists as an online platform to promote a variety of virtual submissions and to showcase curated online exhibitions. madisonnicolemay.com
Where Do We Go from Here? _13:00–13:30_(eastern us)_
Jamie-lee Girodat & Myken McDowell, curators
MFA student & recent MFA graduate, University of Alberta, Canada
It’s sometimes surprising what people hold onto. A hooked rug; a dumpling recipe; window blinds; a pink toned, depression-era glass candy jar; and a love letter from your grandmother’s college boyfriend. In the wake of a loss, it’s curious what things can take on a peculiar, emotional weight in the process of navigating what's worth keeping and what's not—in making sense of what remains. Our minds and our bodies remember and carry the past forward in various ways. It can also be surprising what gestures, practices, and other modes of communication endure from one generation to the next. Cooking methods, craft skills, language—just how important are these things? What are we going to leave behind? How do we be a “good” ancestor? And where do we go from here? Amid a pandemic, questions of heritage and legacy have greater resonance and concern for a widening public. Our virtual exhibition Where do we go from here? will present an online exhibition of artworks that confront, highlight, and illuminate this line of creative inquiry. The exhibition will showcase recent work selected from early-career, Canadian artists working through print and interdisciplinary art practices that display well in an online gallery setting.
Jamie-Lee Girodat is an Edmonton based artist who completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Lethbridge in 2016. She is currently in her final year of the Master of Fine Arts program in Printmaking at the University of Alberta. Her interest in genetic history and scientific developments informs her practice in print media, ceramics, and animation. She has presented work nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at Concordia University in Montreal, Jyväskylä Art Museum in Jyväskylä, Finland and the Strzeminski Academy of Fine Art in Lodz, Poland. Recently, she had a solo exhibition at Casa Gallery in Lethbridge, AB, and was a recipient of The Alberta Arts Graduate Scholarship and the Canada Graduate Scholarship. www.jamieleegirodat.com
Myken McDowell is an Edmonton based visual artist working primarily in photo-based printmaking and video installation. She received her BFA from Concordia University in 2016 and her MFA in Printmaking from the University of Alberta in 2019, where she received the Canada Graduate Scholarship-Masters (SSHRC-CGSM) as well as the Walter H. Johns Graduate Fellowship. Her art practice explores the boundary between memory/identity and domestic spaces and has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Myken at Parallel Space in Edmonton and Printed Matter at the Strzeminski Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, Poland. She was an invited visiting arts researcher at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Japan and was a recent recipient of the Visual Arts and New Media Project Grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. www.mykenmcdowell.com
The Future Is Queer _13:30–14:00 (eastern us)_
Erin Wohletz, curator
MFA student, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
‘Queer’ is a term which has evaded definition. Just when you think you have an answer it morphs and changes into something new, always encouraging further exploration. Without the ability to define the term with words we can only hope to define queerness through a variety of visual representations. ‘The Future is Queer’ is an exhibition which seeks to create an index of LGBTQ+ practitioners working within the medium of print. The LGBTQ+ community like printmaking thrives through community practice. In this era of global pandemic community is harder and harder to find. ‘The Future is Queer’ seeks to create, visualize, and connect printmakers within the queer community. Utilizing the benefits of a virtual exhibition my goal is to highlight the work of as many practitioners as possible. In this way we can form a beautifully varied visualization of ‘queerness’ within our growing printmaking community.
To be part of the exhibition and to view the collection, visit TheFutureIsQueer.com.
Erin Wohletz is an artist originally from Las Vegas, Nevada. They received their BFA in painting and printmaking from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2016, and are currently an MFA candidate at The University of Tennessee Knoxville. Erin Wohletz’s thesis exhibition ‘The Black Vortex’ is scheduled to open April 8th 2021. Wohletz’s work has been exhibited across the United States and in the United Kingdom. Wohletz’s inaugural (non-virtual) curatorial exhibition “Between Hand and Sky: The Work of Elizabeth Gould” will be on view at the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture from August - December 2021. ewohle.otherpeoplespixels.com
Remote Contact Exchange Portfolio on Instagram
_view prints from the portfolio throughout the symposium_
