Kemang Wa Lehulere: In All My Wildest Dreams

On November 26th I attended the showcase of contemporary artist Kemang Wa Lehulere, who is a visiting artist at the Art Institute of Chicago. His exhibit, In All My Wildest Dreams, focuses on the culture and history of Capetown, South Africa where Lehulere was born. In addition to his solo exhibition at AIC, Lehulere has also showcased at Gasworks, London; Lombard Freid Projects, New York; the Goethe-Institut, Johannesburg; and the Association of Visual Arts in Cape Town. 

 When I can't laugh I can't write (2015) chalk on
blackboard paint

Lehulere's work was very aesthetically pleasing to view. His combination of installation and 3D work complement each other in a very dynamic way. When I first entered the exhibit, his piece titled "When I can't laugh I can't write", which features a chalk drawing of a pencil sharpener on top of chalkboard paint, immediately caught my attention. Suit cases filled with grass and broken porcelain cat statues lay at the bottom of the painting, covering a large amount of the floor area space, preventing viewers from walking past while pulling them in for a closer look. 

X Y Z (2016) Salvaged school desks, metal

Moving deeper into the exhibit, I discovered my favorite piece, titled X Y Z. X Y Z is an 
installation piece made of three school desks, cut and reassembled to create objects that resemble paper airplanes. It's interesting Lehulere titled the piece X Y Z- the last three letters of the English alphabet- instead of ABC, because ABC is so commonly associated with schooling. Maybe this is a nod to the end of a time in Lehulere's life where school is the focus of his time. 

One is too many, a thousand will never be enough (2016)

Symbols of schooling and education litter the exhibit, with chalkboard paint, school desks, pencil sharpeners and sheet music.

During an interview about his exhibit, Lehulere stated “My caution is, always, what kind of story does one tell outside the country? You have CNN and the BBC saturated with images of poverty and violence. They want the flames — Africa burning again. But there is peaceful, intellectual protest, too.”

Maybe Lehulere's goal throughout In All My Wildest Dreams is creating the intellectually themed environment to talk about Africa- about apartheid, protest, poverty. Real issues that affect Lehulere on a personal level. 

Broken Light (Feya Faku) (2016)
Chalk and paint on wall-mounted
blackboard

Lehulere's work can be classified in the postmodern category of contemporary art, as he attempts to show a physical representation of an ideology or reoccurring theme, in his case education and the culture of South Africa.

Lehulere's work similarly reminds me of Felix Gonzales-Torres, with his work straying from the literal and instead focusing on the viewer's interpretation and interaction with the overarching theme the work revolves around. For Gonzales-Torres, this was the AIDS crisis, and how it personally affecting him and his partner. For Lehulere, this is Apartheid, and how this affected his home life having biracial parents. 

View of main gallery room

Overall, Lehulere's exhibit was very engaging of all the senses. From his piece "One is too many, a thousand will never be enough" which consisted of a robotic parrot repeating letters and numbers, to his video of a cigarette endlessly burning, to his drawings of sign language and musical notes, viewers are consistently engaged and involved in Lehulere's work, which is what makes his show so successful.

Julie Nelson

Julie Nelson's exhibit Flora at the McLean County Arts Center was breathtakingly beautiful, in a simplistic way. Julie Nelson is an artist and retired art museum professional in Quincy, Illinois. She received both her BFA and MFA from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb. Nelson is no stranger to art exhibits, as she was the Executive Director and Curator at the Quincy Art Center for twenty years.

In Flora, Nelson showcased only a selection of thirteen watercolor paintings she created based off floral arrangements she herself created. However, Nelson's technique in handling watercolor completely abstracts the subject matter. Her use of foreground/background, and highlighting which objects to overlap exist in a space only possible in the two-dimensional world.

Left to Right: Cardinal Flower and Milkweed,
Black Petunias, Roses and Sweet Potato Vine,
Roses and Delphinium 

Some areas of the paintings are highly detailed, while some are over-simplified. This balance makes her work strong and fluid. Nelson states about her work:

"I look for repeated rhythms in shapes and lines and a push and pulling positives and negatives and lines and areas of color. This begins early on with the selection of elements for the still-life. These works are not meant to be true representations of what I am seeing but spontaneous reactions to the beauty found in nature."

 Close up of Red Carnation

Overall, I think Flora was a successful exhibit. Nelson's personal style and flair is both original and tasteful to the average eye. Although some may view her work as simplistic, I think Nelson was very purposeful in how she generated her watercolors, and that the true beauty and success lies in the details.

Beatrix Reinhardt

Beatrix Reinhardt gave a lecture at University Galleries on October 27th, 2016. Reinhardt is an alumni of Illinois State University, where she received her Masters of Fine Art.

Reinhardt started the presentation by explaining how her residency in India dramatically changed her work output, and the work she shows in her presentation is work created post-India residency. She shifts to focusing her energy on creating work that revolved around the "politics of space" or the investigation of interior spaces.

Reinhardt poses some questions regarding interior spaces such as "How can decoration be an issue of demarcation?" and "can you tell
anything about the people who reside in this space?". After investigating interior spaces, Reinhardt moves to focusing on exterior spaces. Her photos covering the gas pipelines in Erdgasleitung is evidence of this. Reinhardt met with former works who built the pipeline, and received archival photographs from them. Through this experience working with the pipeline, she was able to piece together the idea that discovered exterior spaces need to be "charged places", filled with past, present, future and memory.

Reinhardt later applied for a residency in South Africa to explore battlefields. Through this experience, she created her first body of work. Reinhardt assumed she was finished with this body and returned to the States, only to realize something felt incomplete. Reinhardt later returned to South Africa, and created more work. Through her second trip, she felt more connected to the battlefields, and took on a new approach to her photos, where she documents the land in an almost scientific record keeping manner.

Overall, Reinhardt covered a lot of ground in her short presentation. While her work was impressive in the sense that she constantly changes perspectives and mediums, I would've loved to hear more information in greater depth for just one more two bodies of work, instead of barely scratching the surface on seven or eight bodies of work.

Bethany Collins

On October 26th, artist Bethany Collins gave a presentation at University Galleries in Normal, IL over the work she's created surrounding the intersection of race and language. Collins started off the lecture introducing some of the first pieces of work she created under this big idea, which she titles her "White Noise" series. Her piece "Don't You Think That's a Little Elitist" (see fig. 1) was her first attempt at addressing race through her work. Collins told of her experiences in grad school, with predominantly white colleagues attempting to understand her identity as a black woman, while not fully understanding the history of colorism. So she poses the question "don't you think that's a little elitist" by writing it hundreds of times over again on a black chalkboard with white chalk.

Figure 1: "Don't You Think That's Elitist", 48x72x2 inches,
chalk and charcoal on chalkboard, 2010.

Collins continued to create work similar to "Don't You Think That's a Little Elitist" through her white noise series, but later found her perspective had shifted. She explained "I no longer wanted to define or defend the identities of others. So instead of writing legible sentences, Collins moved to erasing them with a chalkboard erasure, and then smacking the erasures together to create a powder that fell onto the chalkboard. Her first attempt at this new style was through her piece "I Wish I Was Black Too". Collins explained by letting the rescue create a new image on the chalkboard, the words were set free, not tight and imprisoned.

After the White Noise series, Collins moved into assessing language as it relates to race and systems of oppression. She starts by explaining the idea that as we understand the world, our use of language shifts, therefore language is fluid. Collins collected old dictionaries and encyclopedias to find poetry in the language, and found that often times words will have two different meanings that starkly contrast one another. For example, the word "ravel" has two different definitions; to complicate or to make very simple. How is this possible?

Collins then shredded the pages of dictionaries with these contradicting words, and made them into piles. One example of this work is Bound (see fig. 2) which Collins explained "contains the essence of the language, but changed in form holding onto the residue".

Bound, 1968. Dimensions variable, American Masters paper
and Pink Pearl eraser, 2015.

Another connection Collins made while spending so much time analyzing the English language is that examples used in the definitions of words are often related to either violence or the criminal justice system. While Collins couldn't articulate a reason for this occurrence, she wanted it noted.

Overall, Bethany Collins was a very inspiring speaker. She was able to articulate her work very effectively, naming each step in the process for why she creates the work she does. Her rationale was easy to understand, and her perspective as a female black artist shown brilliantly through her work.

Shattered

Image 1: Shattered, Justine Kaszynski

On October 4th, Illinois State University's gallery Transpace debuted an exhibit containing works of current MFA students. Among the works displayed was Justine Kaszynski's piece, Shattered. Kaszynski's piece is created from an archival inkjet print, framed with the shattered glass protruding from the surface of the frame. Stepping into the gallery filled with dozens of works, this piece in particular drew me in. Shattered conveys a stark emotion. Kaszynski was successful in generating a reaction from me, as a viewer. The piece had an immediate, instinctual reaction, which was to check the ground for shards of glass, careful not to step on anything. Because of this, I feel confident in saying the piece successfully interacts with the viewer, in a very organic way. 

Image 2: Side View

The subject of the inkjet photo is a close cropped photo of glass shards. A tight shot of the piece in image 3 highlights the quality of the work, being unable to differentiate the 2D glass in the photo from the 3D glass actually protruding from the surface. This quality is what makes Kaszynski's work unique and successful.

Image 3: Close Up of Glass Shatters

The composition of the photo highlights the use of rule of thirds, with the two main shards of glass intersecting at a point that would fall on a 3x3 grid. In addition to the pleasing composition, Shattered uses the complementary colors blue/green and red/orange to create an aesthetically balanced work. 

To summarize, Kaszynski's work breaks the boundaries of working with a typically 2D medium. Her piece successfully draws in the viewer, and creates a sense of balance amongst a seemingly uncontrolled situation. 

Wonsook Kim

Lines of Enchantment

University Galleries

Normal, IL


Wonsook Kim's showcase, Lines of Enchantment, at University Galleries can be summed up by one word; magical. From the subject matter to the medium, her work is enchanting and engaging. Kim takes the viewer to a space where childlike fantasies and storybook qualities collide, through her glowing illustrations. Much of her work uses a technique where orbs of light are painting over the surface of the painting, creating an illusion of the painting literally glowing, perhaps from fireflies or holes where light shines through the canvas. Regardless, it successfully draws the viewer in, and adds to the magical and mystical attributes of the work.


Kim was born in Korea in 1953, and moved to the United States in 1972. She received her Masters of Fine Arts degree from Illinois State University in 1976. Since then, she has displayed her work around the world, including New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Hamburg, Paris, Seoul, Bologna, Sofia, Sao Paulo, and Tokyo. 

Forest Scenes II, 2008. Mixed media on canvas, 54 x 70 in. (137 x 177 cm)

Her impressive resume is no surprise, given the enchanting affect her artwork has on the viewer.  

Eyes on Me, 2011. Cast bronze, 38 x 26 in. (97 x 67 cm)

Her subject matter focuses heavily on femininity, and the almost narrative experiences of reoccurring female figures. Some are portrayed as angelic, others are carved out of metal and wood. But each piece of work maintains a soft and delicate representation of the female figure.

The contrasting colors- cool, dark background and bright, warm foreground- create a glowing affect. The figures seem to radiate off the page, and float within their setting. 

It's also interesting to note some figures hold paintbrushes, seeming to be the creators of the light orbs filling the canvas. This is a unique interaction with subject matter and painting, setting up the subject matter to be the creator of the work. 

Kim explains the inspiration for this series from listening to Robert Schuman's piano music collection, titled "Forest Scenes". Kim creates a narrative for this music, a visualization to describe a story without words.

Overall, Wonsook Kim's showcase was enchanting and engaging for the viewer. Her wide variety of mediums, from cast bronze, to paintings to drawings demonstrate the artist's wide range of skill sets, while maintaining a fluidity and connectedness through the body of work selected for the show.

Carry On, Rob Swainston

Cara Shapkauski
Formal Analysis
12 September 2016
Jason Judd

Carry On
Rob Swainston
Woodblock print on paper

Viewed at University Galleries, Normal, IL on September 6th, 2016.

Rob Swainston's piece Carry On was created in 2015, made from a woodblock print on paper. The piece is long, stretching vertically 198x51.5 inches, allowing the eyes to travel up and down the piece in a fluid motion. The piece, part of the series We thought they thought what we thought, but they didn't, was on view at University Galleries in Normal, Illinois until September 9th.

There are many qualities the piece has that allows the viewer to feel engulfed in the work. One of these factors is the size of the work. Carry On is a gigantic piece, standing double or triple the size of most viewers. This factor brings a sense of scale to the viewer, and creates a sense of presence, standing in the rubble and wreckage illustrated on the paper. The stairs traveling down the piece, and figures seen walking down the piece moving towards a ground zero, give the impression some disastrous event has happened to the city. The title, Carry On, suggests the figures are looking to move on, past the rubble the viewer sees them in currently.

It is interesting to note that Carry On is a combination of the triptych But They Didn't, now stacked and stripped of color. By making the piece monochromatic, it allows the viewer to focus more on the details that unite these pieces, instead of separating them as previously displayed.

Barry Blinderman describes Swainston's work as "evocative of some of the finest moments in art history: Han Dynasty printing on silk, early Renaissance military scenes, Hokusai's waves, Clifford Still's dark-hued paintings..." which perfectly illustrates the dedication and familiarity Swainston creates through his work, presented in a new, refreshing medium. His work is successful in firmly grabbing the attention of the viewer and urging them to stay a little longer.