First Years Present

September 7th, 2010

Lloyd Lowe, Jr. : He has three ways of working usually. Music as a hobby for himself, he is represented by the Rising Gallery and does so as a method of making money and creating work. For money-making opportunities, furniture design. But he is concerned with having a mission statement as an artist.

Kim Llerena: She displayed prints along the wall, all of them depicting night-time forest/cityscapes where there are specific light sources while having a haunted effect in the darkness. She was inspired by living in Maine and noticing the scariness of the environment when it became dark. Trying to explore the sensation of fear. Something terrifying of an otherwise innocent setting. The sensation of the absence of human figures drives that emotion further. This is more of her first series of exploring all of these emotions. Second series are of photos of her old high school with the absence of people. Memories that are connected with an environment that is intrinsically tied to large groups of people. By photo-graphing them, it became introspective and to try and get people to ‘remember’ their own high-school nostalgia experiences.

Travis Masingale: Pictured: painting -> obsessed with technology. Event that drove him rock bottom when he drove his car into trees attempting to kill himself. His paintings dealt with nationalism. Then decided while living with his grandmother to reanalyze his life and have a cathartic experience by cutting his ‘best drawings’ and sell them off as individual pieces. Has an interest in exploring “destruction begets creation.” About very much his own process to naturally evolve and take over the project. Very interested in the idea of codes and the basis of construction to then base his work on the experimentation of that process. Interested in ‘Augmented Reality’ Can art be made with it? And the applications it has available.

Will Knipscher: ‘Traditional Photographer’ : Shooting gas stations at dark, little spots around the country and moments would exist for just a moment. Also the network they create that link our nation together. Interests in the aspect of photography of having a decisive moment. About using photography to see what isn’t possible through normal perception. Photos of the ground -> to then show it with a photograph and realize their abstract nature. Interested for a bit about the representation that the nature of low-bit photography has. Latest work dealt with searching online popular photos (i.e. Statue of Liberty) and then overlapping the images to fit a principal photo. How trying to ‘monument’ yourself against a monument is a failure since it is lost into the abyss. Interested in tree carving etching as a form of photography.

Gavin Stewart: Interested in creating a photo-diary. Likes to create collages making up a smaller images of a space. A series of quotes laser cut 3D forms. Spaces that are intermediate in the suburbs, and interactions between humans and their surroundings. Entire rolls of negatives exposed to document the progression of time.

Branden Rush: Alternative processes was something he was exploring while in West Virginia earning his undergraduate. Worked as a photo-journalist, attempted to create a narrative from his position at an auction house to create a ‘narrative’ with other juxtaposed images. Old-photographs repurposed and QR codes. Doesn’t have a clear direction to go.

Heather Stratton: Most sources of her work come from her personal life. Some of it coming from her father’s movement to being a born-again Christian. Has three photos including herself as these iconic words. “Resurrect, plague, etc… all of it focusing on death.” “Suburban life” Documentary the empty landscape of the suburban ‘realized American dream.’ Bred of it, then wanting to document the people living in these landscapes-specifically, house wives. Photographing them in their beds with no direction and exploring voyeurism. What it means to be a ‘housewife’. Paranormal and paranoid are subjects she wishes to explore logically. Sleepwalking being another element within these subjects. She dedicates that factor to living in funeral homes because of her husband being a funeral director.

Rachel Beamer: Alternative processes is of interest of motion and stillness. Purchased her first digital camera 1-year ago and is exploring color. Big on nature photography.

Sohyun An: Houses that are about to be destroyed, she decided to photograph their interiors, to try and capture the anticipation. Worked sculpturally by casting furniture draped in a white cloth. Likes the usage of curtains as a device.

Arisha Trifonova: Portraits in a staged environment. Latest piece dealt with people holding glass as a metaphor in dealing with the world. Planes representing relationships and cause-effect relationships. Environment shopping the individual. In the short-run, what are some immediate cause-and-effect relationships.

Meg Rorison: Always writing, and doing photography as a hobby. Last year was important to explore painting and drawing. Obsessed with people and their psychology. Mark-making being important on a large canvas. Grandparents being subjects. Van Dyke prints a focus. They are being documented as they progress in their lives. Grandfather having dementia, grandmother having other physical ailments. Her sister documented using alternative processes. Her as a sad interesting figure, also sad. To move into animation with photos of the same subject as a narrative. Using film again with multi-exposure as a technique. Wants to continue writing and working with film/video to create a ‘continuous space’.