2015ResidencyExhibition – Spudnik Press

Spatial Collage: Getting Wacky Wit It

Spudnik — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 13:57:11 +0000

Featured Artist:

Julia Arredondo

Dates:

4/01/2016 – 4/30/2016

Location:

The Annex @ Spudnik Press

Corresponding Events:

Gallery Talk

Friday, April 1, 2016
6:00 p.m.

Student Debt Suicide Letters

Saturday, April 2, 2016
1:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Community Workshop

Press Release:

“Spatial Collage: Getting Wacky Wit It” is an exercise in taking the collage format of assembling ephemera on paper – and transferring that practice to a larger-scale. “Spatial Collage” is an experiment rooted solely in self-expression and freedom, while simultaneously toying with ideas of formal exhibition and product placement.

Artist Statement:

Self-empowerment is a main focus of my work, specifically in the realm of publications and zines. Aspiring to be more like cartoon characters who suffer trauma but never seem to carry emotional baggage, I believe in the power of constructing positive present and future actions by taking sometimes traumatic past experiences and letting those memories work for me. I seek to empower myself and others in a way that let’s us confront oppressive experiences and turn them into badges of strength, humor, and grace.

“Hate it or love it the underdog’s on top. And I’m gonna shine homie until my heart stop.”
– 50 Cent and The Game

New Demands?

Spudnik — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 13:56:19 +0000

Featured Artist:

Lisa Vinebaum

Dates:

5/06/2016 – 5/28/2016

Location:

The Annex @ Spudnik Press

Corresponding Events:

Gallery Talk

Friday, May 6, 2016
6:00 p.m.

Opening Reception:

Friday, May 6, 2016
6:00-9:00pm

Press Release:

New Demands? presents silk screened posters, digital prints, cloth banners, and a neon sign inspired by historical demands of the American labor movement, from approximately 1890 to the present. Drawing primarily on archival research into flyers, posters, placards, and advertising produced by the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU)— historically the largest and most important union representing workers in the women’s apparel industry — this exhibition explores the struggle for better working conditions in the garment industry, the winning of rights and benefits by the ILGWU, and the eventual demise of the entire American textile industry. New Demands? connects past and present struggles for workers’ rights, and reminds us that there was a time when American workers fought for and won historical rights including the right to a regulated, eight-hour work day and the 40-hour work week; vacation and overtime pay; collective bargaining rights and the right to freedom of association; and pension and health care benefits. These rights have been dramatically curtailed; since the 1980s, hundreds of thousands of full-time, well-paid, unionized positions have been lost here in the US, yet workers continue to fight for living wages, better working conditions, and the right to organize. This exhibition is part of a larger, ongoing series of work under the title New Demands? initiated in 2011, and incorporating public performances, text based installations, neon, printed works, and participatory workshops.

Artist Statement:

Dr. Lisa Vinebaum is an interdisciplinary artist, critical writer, and educator. Her studio practice incorporates text-based installations and work with neon, performance and site specific interventions, textiles, video, photography and protest tactics. Current research and artistic investigations explore labor, performance and collectivity in the larger context of economic globalization and cutbacks to workers’ rights. Lisa Vinebaum holds a PhD in Art from Goldsmiths, University of London (UK); an MA in Textiles also from Goldsmiths, and a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal.

Discipline and Distraction

Spudnik — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 13:30:05 +0000

Featured Artist:

Devin Owsley-Aquilia

Dates:

3/04/2016 – 3/26/2016

Location:

The Annex @ Spudnik Press

Corresponding Events:

Opening Reception

Friday, March 4, 2016
6:00-9:00pm

Gallery Talk

Friday, March 4, 2016
6:00 p.m.

Press Release:

‘Discipline and Distraction’ is a body of work by Devin Owsley-Aquilia inspired by her transition into Chicago, into isolation and a new understanding of what it means to be present. “To accept challenge and change, I use material to guide myself through these mental obstacles to reach a place of poise and clarity. Layered images of abstracted landscapes derived from personal experiences, place, relationship, behavior and interaction are inscribed into copper plates, informing the basis of which my work manifests. The importance of line and act of carving speak to a growing dialogue between material and my person as well my emotional attachment to place.” The image transferred into a physical print serves as an artifact, a portrayal of momentary consciousness that nurtured self-discipline and potential.

Artist Statement:

In my work, abstracted images derived from anatomical forms emerge through the use of methodical printmaking and drawing process. With focus on detail and mass, these forms become expressive gestures of movement, intimacy and identity. The images reveal an understanding of what forms define the sacred and emphasize moments of female identity. I seek the potential in creation through the intricacies of human form and the natural world to further a conversation between material and person.