Echoes of Your Dusty Roots

Musings on Memory, Home, Family & Childhood !!!!!!presented by

The Outer Room Independent Gallery Space !!!!!!!!!Brooklyn July/August 2014 !

The Outer Room

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To show the work of emerging artists from all over the world. To making viewing itself a creative

experience. To foster a social and relaxed environment where people naturally contemplate

and discuss the work on the walls around them. To ask the important questions about life, society, and

the self. To value art for its power to provoke thought and reflection.

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Shows curated & openings hosted by Liz Lorenz

Echoes of Your Dusty Roots !When we reflect with idealizing tendencies, summer evokes running barefoot in the grass on no-school days and lazily cloud watching during blue-sky afternoons. We stayed out past dark to collect fireflies. Their illuminations ignited our imaginations; yet, this time in our lives passed almost as quickly as the fireflies expired in their jars. For a while, we return to our families’ homes, finding it comforting at times but so estranged from our present reality that a rift, even a gulf, arises between who we once were and who we are now. What is a home? How does our idea of home change as we progress in years? At what point do we call another city our own? Or feel more comfortable in a noisy, windowless apartment laughing and smoking with our friends than in a spacious, green backyard surrounded by our kin? Have our found companions become as important as our blood? Questions that broach these inevitable transitions and upsets are especially pertinent to the emerging creators featured in this show, many based in New York City. !However, not all of the artists experienced similar childhoods that can be easily romanticized as a whole. They have struggled to understand what family means, and these tensions inspire poetic and provocative works of art. Others remain rooted in their origins and derive great creative power through representing the people and places that recall their youth. Whether they are stored from many years ago or date to a significant encounter just last season, memories are catalysts for self-reflection; a dark and dreamy sense of nostalgia slows our pace momentarily, allowing us to ask ‘‘what has changed?’’ But the past is simply a starting point. Defining and redefining the grand concepts of home and family today is increasingly pressing and challenging; this leads other artists to treat current personal and social issues while relying on a mass of individual and collective experiences. What is a normal family in society’s eyes and what, if anything, does that count for? Which memories do we treasure and which do we repress? By confronting the feelings associated with distant places, dusty corners, and influential relationships, we can explore where and who we came from to better understand where we are going and what home is today. Remember, echoes never fades unless you let them.

Ashes by Julie Stopper Shielded from much of her family by protective parents, Julie experienced a ‘‘golden childhood.’’ Yet, it created a distance between her and the ‘‘keepers of memories’’ leaving the artist isolated from her roots. Now she must ‘‘piece together the true identities of the individuals who share my blood, but have only come into the periphery of my life…How does one put together a puzzle with a handful of pieces and the ashes from the rest?’’ To create a site-specific installation for this exhibition, Julie relies on elements often found within the home space. The clunky slide projector evokes the imperfect nostalgia that is echoed in the broken table and trunks. Comfortably situating itself in the apartment, the work takes on an autonomous energy. Ceramic feet germinate from the windows, and a sculptural figure wrapped in lace soars within the pane. These elements mingle harmoniously with the images of and writing about the artist’s grandmother. Julie’s art is where the puzzle pieces of her history collide, and she hopes her work exists as a platform for others to reflect deeply on their own existence and experience.

!Purple Monster by Arielle Stein The idiosyncratic style and imagery of Arielle’s work draws heavily from an impactful childhood experience—reoccurring night terrors. Although she cannot remember the exact content, the straining, grotesque figures in her work symbolize the creatures she encountered while sleeping. For the artist, the monsters are an ‘‘inter-relational thought space’’ where she can explore her psyche and her past while expressing herself with drawings of of elongated limbs, swollen toes, and scrawling bodies. Both chilling and fascinating in its abstraction, her work—in acrylic and pastel—is rich with energy and hypnotic visuals. Here, the creature rests on a surreal purple background—the friendly color evoking the wonder she must have felt even in the midst of terror.

My Folds by Emma Strebel To create this delicate work, the artist captures the negative spaces of her body in plaster—a material that has an acute memory able to freeze fine wrinkles and pores in skin. Emma’s interest in the passing of time lead her to create multiple iterations of the work—this being the fourth in the series. As the body is always changing, the folds she casts will never be the same. Thus, the piece functions like a diary or a ‘‘time capsule of who I once was.’’ By working with the negative spaces, Emma can can advocate a more honest representation of her body removed from recognizable forms endowed with societal standards to better document ‘‘the movement of age.’’ She plans to create additional versions of this work in the future ‘‘as a way of not stopping time, but tracking [it].’’

Worn by Salt and Away into This Threadbare Beauty by Caroline Yopes Influenced by Francis Bacon’s work and existential philosophy, the artist crafted images in oil further manipulated with turpentine and housed in found frames. For her, the series is a meditation on the ‘‘staggering beauty and breathtaking sorrow found in the everyday pain each of us feels.’’ Employing ordinary imagery, including photographs of her father, and muted, earth-toned colors, the paintings focus on damage and isolation but do not ignore the grace and self-knowledge that suffering and destruction can generate. The text is a series of mantras that Caroline repeats to herself in times of anxiety; whether or not they are effective in problem solving, they help her persevere. Ultimately, the phrases are ‘‘existential scream[s]’’ that function with the images to represent ‘‘the idea of being entirely worn down, abandoned, and rejected, yet finding a way to honor…that struggle.’’

Arachne; untitled (squirrels) by Wallace Ludel The artist’s texts are simple, honest representations of daily life. A dedicated observer, Wallace collects fragments of the world and turns these journalistic excerpts into artworks executed with the utmost care and precision. Various layers of parchment and hours of applying pressure aid him in transferring the pigment to the background page. For him, the process is meditative despite the labor, reinforcing his character as a thinker who expresses himself with a compelling succinctness that hints at J.D. Salinger’s prose. In Arachne, Wally describes visiting his uncle at the hospital. He relates his family member to said mythological figure, the great weaver, for their shared assumed infallibility. His aunt Jane continues to exert effort caring for his uncle despite previous trials. Yet, Wallace’s image of the spider suggests a darker element, recalling ancient mythology and recontextualizing it in an intimate contemporary scene, trafficking simultaneously in banality and poignancy. Featuring his characteristic text broken with colorful imagery that moves toward abstraction, Untitled is a matter-of-fact statement of what one sees in New York City. The artist’s reaction is both comic and tender. The later work reads: There are two squirrels fucking on/ my fire escape in the rain. I’m going/ to let it happen, it’s raining after all.

Greetings from Mary and Joseph by Mary & Joseph Anderson This sibling duo produced greeting cards using their family photographs taken throughout the years. They often rely on humor to make viewers question norms and pretensions found in the art world and society as a whole. Incorporated into the landscape of the apartment-based gallery space, the cards evoke many families’s refrigerators during the holiday season, collaged with the toothy grins of kids—from relatives to now near strangers who still send cards out of habit or pride. Complete with an email list that viewers can join to receive a new installment of the Andersons every month, the piece is spirited while hinting at the commercialization of holidays and illusions of familial happiness that greeting cards advocate.

Midori from ���� by Devin Tamiazzo Combining images of Classical sculpture and Japanese text through digital means, Devin capitalizes on contemporary technology to represent two ancient civilizations. The renown Apollo figure and the lyrical characters and leaves of a water plant evoke the West and the East, respectively. Relying on the symbolic value of common visual tropes, Devin juxtaposes two geographical regions and cultures. This allows him to reference both his Western roots and the Asian background of his boyfriend at the time of the work’s creation. Instead of enforcing an East/West divide, their homelands are presented harmoniously in the green tinted image where the collaging allows differences to be recognized yet melded together.

walking down memory lane by Dorothy Lam A compilation of clips taken on her iPhone and on Photo Booth, the video portion of this installation allows a glimpse into the artist’s personal world. The moments Dorothy provides us with are unscripted—ranging from existential musings to urban adventures to the incarnations of her hair. Dorothy brings an energy to this video that is honest and endearing. With the jean jacket and brick wall, the installation appropriates the ‘‘pseudo-cozy’’ environment of a bedroom but somehow remains ‘‘uncomfortable,’’ certainly voyeuristic. Due to the intimacy of the clips mediated by a computer screen, the work becomes ‘‘a landscape of the mind that one can enter and exit, allowing the viewer to both be submerged and distant from the piece.’’

Discover Art 2 Abandoned near Union Square, this found object is a source of innocent wisdom. The textbook is geared toward second graders to introduce the practice and theory of art. Instead of using convoluted or dogmatic schemas like many texts we read in critical and scholastic contexts, the language is beautiful in its simplicity: what is art? How do we make it? This lesson describes what I do when I collaborate with these artists and open my home to you. I was touched by the description’s clarity and lack of pretension. To me, this should be the mission of any institution or space looking to share art and ideas, and I am both thrilled and humbled that it is found in a child’s book.

Self-portrait with blunt #2 by Matthias Smith This digital photograph is a part of the artist’s series ‘‘Home Enough’’ which concentrates on ‘‘impermanence, social anxieties, and finding solace in the unfamiliar.’’ The image depicts a moment when Matt is truly relaxed—experiencing life as if the camera were not there. His environment evokes the small-town interiors of the suburbs. The glowing light and relaxed atmosphere foster an inviting vibe that makes us feel comfortable entering into the artist’s personal moment.

Crooked by Tim Reed ‘‘There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile. / He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile. / He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse, / And they all lived together in a little crooked house.’’

Down by the river by Tim Reed At the Rainbow Gathering in Wyoming—a congregation of a couple thousand punks, anarchists, and hippies—Tim was immersed in a week of experiences he describes as ‘‘profound, incredible.’’ One of these moments was witnessing a group of thirty people roaming nude in the woods. As they processed to the water, they sang ‘‘Down to the River to Pray.’’ The blissful energy, peace, and comfort they found in each other moved the artist and proved what constitutes a true family.

Untitled by Nora Normile Incorporating wordplay in much of her recent work, Nora narrows in on the phrases that captivate her, repeating them until they become as abstracted and strange as the genesis of idioms themselves. In these prints—etching and letterpress, her goal is to ‘‘use text as image’’ rather than retell a biographical event. Composed in part from found books along with the artist’s intuitive mark-making, the works have both an immediacy and a diary-like quality in their seriality and repetition.

Selections from ‘‘Imagined Reality’’ by Colleen Mann The photographer captures interiors that possess a strong sense of space while subtly incorporating her own form. Beyond documenting her body, the works are self-portraits because they depict the space she called home. The series was created while Colleen was recovering from an eating disorder. Even today, ‘‘the world is still unsettling…and it is unsettling living in this body.’’ Thus, her photographic compositions are a visual representation of how it feels to live between two bodies—‘‘strange, still, and uncanny landscapes’’ where fragments of her flesh and hair peak out from unsuspecting crevices. In this alternate reality, we never see her full form and can feel the effect of her isolation from herself, enhanced by the abundance of bare, white surfaces.

Sunny by Kira Shipway This painting, in acrylic, immediately inspires an emotional response and broaches more questions than answers—certainly part of its intrigue. Who is the sweet-faced girl reclined on the chair? Perhaps she is languishing in sadness, quite potent when a child truly experiences the emotion for the first time. It does not seem like simple pouting. Could she be sick and home from school curled up in blankets? The sumptuous atmosphere and ambiguous pose put her age—moreover her maturity—in question, evoking Balthus’s young subjects. Her gaze is at once cold, melancholy, and lost—making her a magnetic character no matter her actual years.

!Dacha II by Eve Survilo A paper incarnation of the artist’s installation on the roof, this silkscreen print depicts the physical structure of a home—more precisely, a fort. The architecture appropriates a childlike energy, and we all have memories of building forts. However, the recognizable motif stems from the artist’s concerns about recent Vladimir Putin speeches in which the leader employs cultural nostalgia to captivate and even manipulate his constituency. Putin references the dacha, Ukrainian summer homes that symbolize happy memories to many former Soviet citizens despite their status as veritable shacks. Contemplating her family’s heritage in her work, Eve employs their personal past to speak about the collective realities of the present. Additionally, the delicate patterns in the silkscreen are literal fabrics of her (now dying) Ukrainian grandmother, etched into a copper plate and printed in black ink.

Untitled by Paige Greco (Luna Niluna) Driven by idiosyncratic aesthetic sensibilities, the artist created an installation based around Polaroids of ‘‘boys in dresses,’’ the primary model being her current boyfriend. Each portrait is sweet but raw. The pastel colors and boudoir-setting create an immersive environment that allows us to enter the couple’s playful world, sensuous in its strangeness. Paige is attracted to vulnerability and takes interest in men wearing female clothes in part because her ‘‘father figure was always a woman.’’ Lacking a traditional family and finding a ‘‘deadness’’ in home, the artist fulfills her emotional needs with people who share similar predilections for ‘‘angst and sentimentality.’’ Translating her personal life into her art, Paige distances herself from digital means of creation, and here she handwrites on crinkled newsprint. Adorned with locks of hair and wilted flowers, the embroidered scrap of fabric evokes ‘‘the death of a memory you’re trying to preserve.’’

Stay for the View; Living Room; Coming Out; St. Francis in the Garden; Cul de Sac Hunting from ‘‘Dead End Saints’’ by Amanda Retotar The artist grew in up in ‘‘the formerly rural suburbs of wooded New Jersey, in the middle of the American dream.’’ Yet, the pace was too slow and the town utterly boring, as many youths find after a dozen years living in stale sprawl. This discontent unites the kids with angsty spirits. They make mischief—like trespassing to steal garden gnomes—and find solace in each other while hanging out in parking lots. ‘‘The suburbs were our prison and our playground, and we were its dead end saints: featured in the honors student newsletter, the police blotter, and our parents'  sighing pleas.’’ Amanda understands the curious realities in the white-picket fence ideal and recognizes with sweet nostalgia the strong families that grow between strange kids in the suburbs.

deda; baba by Rachel Sipser The artist confronts the aging of her grandparents in these photographs. The strong contrast within the images echoes her raw emotion. Her grandfather grips her shoulder as she grips his hand and her dress—the intensity, love, and tension is manifest in every squeeze. Quieter in tone, the portrait of Rachel’s grandmother depicts the inner life of a woman who looks similar in old photographs but whose skin is now ‘‘soft like suede.’’ Beyond capturing the present realities of her family, Rachel uses the works as catalysts for contemplating other times. In her writing, she recounts gleeful childhood memories and confronts the certainty of death.

Forgot My Jacket from ‘‘Photographic Memory’’ by Meredith Meer While looking through pictures at her childhood home, Meredith was inspired to create the ‘‘Photographic Memory’’ series. The images she encountered evoked distant memories, both subtle and monumental, and forced her to consider perceptions of herself throughout time. Drawing on specific reminiscences—in this case her first grade ‘‘picture day’’ when she forgot to wear her jacket—the work is biographical and personal—a narrative peppered with nostalgia. The source image is painted on the back of a white-washed canvas and lit from behind, a reference to how our memory functions as the illuminator of our past, the candle that lets us reread our stories again.

Exteriors by Sophie Frost Intricately crafted in ceramic, the stone and brick facades reference the architecture of New York City and Brooklyn—the adopted homes of many of the artists featured in this show. Sophie’s work is highly specific and geographic, as the pattern of the masonry and arrangement of the windows are quintessentially New York. Her work directly questions the transitioning nature of home. When does the city that we adopt truly feel like our own playground—the primary place that our memories are

Sweet Trash by Nora Normile Nora is fascinated with text and the fact that it can be read both as words and as a visual image. The artist draws from diverse influences such as these stereotypical—yet bizarre, even perverted, when their origin and literal meaning are considered—phrases found on her canvases. The complete installation references the domestic in its salon style arrangement, pastel colors, and incorporation of commonplace materials. Nora’s work is an uncanny accumulation of the elements that shape American ideals of domesticity and femininity, including fetishized visual tropes like cherries. The uniqueness of her aesthetic and deliberate utilization of phrases seem nonchalant and expressive in her installation composed of both paintings and objects. Together these elements illustrate the inconsistencies and quirks the artist finds while contemplating society’s often warped views of women and the hearth-space which they inhabit.

Prayer by Tim Reed Recent natural disasters such as tornados in Oklahoma and the typhoon in the Philippines provoked the creation of this work. The artist ripped away parts of a shoebox to expose the cardboard underneath, a gesture that parallels his drawing style. The young, praying figure is perhaps a native from an area that experienced one of these tragedies, providing an opportunity to put ourselves in the place of someone who has witnessed their home destroyed.

Untitled by Arielle Stein The idiosyncratic style and imagery of Arielle’s work draws heavily from an impactful childhood experience—reoccurring night terrors. Although she cannot remember the exact content, the straining, grotesque figures in her work symbolize the creatures she encountered in her nightmares. For the artist, the monsters are an ‘‘inter-relational thought space’’ where she can explore her psyche and her past while expressing herself with drawings of of elongated limbs, swollen toes, and

Video

Epigram by Jong Yoon Choi Living with a ‘‘besmused chagrin,’’ Yoon uses his works to contemplate internal wanderings that, to him, seem never-ending. Epigram is composed of footage taken while journeying on a train overlaid with quotations from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. He juxtaposes these astute instructions on how to live with biographical anecdotes where he ‘‘silently deal[s] with worry and with irrational fears.’’ Even his earliest recollections reveal the truest facets of human nature: the selfishness one feels toward what they own and love, in this case a pet, can be overpowering and only recognized in retrospect.

Cranston by Kevin Patterson Using footage of his uncle as a child warming up for Little League baseball, Kevin created a video work that plays with both time and place. The film is sped up, stopped, and reversed at different intervals which leaves the figure standing in the same place—infinitely throwing and catching. Kevin played Little League at this same park, two blocks from his house. He is affected by the fact that his family has never moved, preferring to stay close to their origins. The jarring visual style and characteristic blur of old film is complemented by the music; Kevin composed a score in a minor key and reversed it in a similar way to the video so that it ‘‘parallels looking back [and] the sense of nostalgia one feels.’’

Eat Your Cake and Have It Too by Rachel Sipser Rachel’s video appropriates the setting of a child’s birthday celebration—complete with cardboard hat. The whimsical dress and pigtails transform the artist in years, but the strangeness of the footage is more impressionable than the playfulness of the atmosphere. The unpredictable movement and absurdity of her actions illustrate ‘‘how blinding consumption can be. Instead of facing difficulties and attempting to take responsibility, we tend to consume because the ease of it makes us feel like we are taking some kind of action.’’ Wavering between celebratory and disturbing, the video demonstrates what a powerful symbol youthful imagery can be in addressing various aspects of contemporary culture.

Born and Bred; Double Rare; Capital Vice by Devin Tamiazzo Raised in Las Vegas, Devin drew on his untraditional childhood home to create these video works. Used as source imagery, the technicolor rocks found in the desert just outside of the city were once the artist’s backyard. They seem to dance as the undulating white ground flashes below. The busyness of the colors is cut with an eery silence, subverting what the sense expect to instead evoke the silent flickering of neon signs at night. The spread of desserts references the sumptuous tendencies of Vegas—overwhelming excess. The other videos are explorations of the self in this bizarre landscape. The works reference a sense of inner strength and uniqueness and the struggle with amphetamines faced by many in the region.

Pierre by Julie Stopper The video was produced while the artist was living in Ghana; being far from home culturally and geographically provoked reflection on growing up in Pennsylvania. Inspired by an unusual loss, the work emphasizes the little dog more than Julie’s human neighbor, highlighting how a child’s mind focuses on such intriguing elements and demonstrating how a simple, innocent motif can stand for existential concerns. Juxtaposing her drawings with handwritten text and various personal clips, Julie composed a video that runs the length of a quick shower. Where does our mind wander during those mundane moments? How does a fleeting encounter with a neighbor’s pet ultimately illustrate the sadness found in life and provoke the fundamental questions that can only be answered with time?

Sound: The Bathroom

Portraits by Dorothy Lam An intricate sound collage of interviews the artist conducted with friends and fellow creators, Portraits transforms the bathroom into a surreal think tank. A location in our homes where we complete tasks that are both mundane and private, the bathroom is an unexpected room to be confronted with philosophical musings and reminiscences. The speakers start by discussing the origins and meaning of their names. They candidly express what they see as the meaning of life, creating a rich medley of voices and ideas. Subverting our preconceptions concerning the role and importance of specific parts of the domestic landscape, Dorothy brings art to a non-art context, inspiring us contemplate joy and spirituality while we wash our hands—a poignant and humorous gesture.

The Roof & Performances

Untitled by Amanda Retotar With Holga in hand, the photographer captures natural and urban moments. Raised in New Jersey, Amanda explores her outdoor territory, flora and fauna alike. The violence of the dead deer rendered in sweet low-fi colors alludes to the prevalent suburban buildup found in many areas of America, creating a link between the radiant flowers and scenes of Brooklyn. Today she is based in Crown Heights and documents her new home with an eye for architecture; the images echo the view from the roof.

Dacha by Eve Survilo The artist’s interactive installation directly references the dacha—a Ukrainian summer home from the Soviet era. Almost everyone, including Eve’s mother who ultimately fled as a political refuge, had a dacha. Many seemed like shacks, but they symbolized joy and relaxation. In recent Putin speeches, the dacha has become a gambit to create an overwhelming sense of cultural nostalgia. In Eve’s point of view, Putin’s rhetoric is similar to Hitler’s actions before the WWII; she is concerned with the misuse of power by leaders that depend on sentimentality to stir nationalism and unrest. When political decisions are set in motion because they were provoked by emotion, there is room for profound error and danger. This interpretation of a dacha is manifested in a youthful architectural structure—a fort. As a symbol of childhood—the time when the artist’s mother enjoyed her family’s dacha, the installation appropriates a more playful energy that is nevertheless rooted in memory and collective history. Upon entering, we reminiscence about our own fort-building days. Beyond referencing the Soviet homes, the minimal materials remind us that our first creations used pillows, chairs, and any household material that our imaginations—and our parents—would allow.

Uncommon Deity by Laura Britton Laura's piece centers around memories, both her and her father's. She speaks of her teenage years in New Jersey, alluding to the character she once was and revealing a tendency to party. Drinking and car rides become a motif in her writing that demonstrate a link between the author and her mother. In the final section, we learn why it is important for Laura to trace these comparisons and speak of the past. Laura will read excerpts of Uncommon Deity tonight which can also be found on the FORTH magazine website.

Altar para Veracruz y Todas las Tierras by Gabaccia Gabaccia grew up in Veracruz, Mexico and later relocated to America. Once she realized the potential for beauty and mysticism her homeland possessed, the region had become a dangerous place. The artist mourns for the culture—her roots that she did not properly explore. Tonight she makes an offering to Veracruz longing for the healing of the land. Expanding her offering to geographically and spiritually, the altar is all-denominational: we are invited to participate with petitions and offerings of prayer, tobacco, incense, seeds, and more—each with a personal or traditional meaning. The viewer is reflected in the mirror and inspired to think of his/her home and needs. This participatory event begins with Gabaccia processing up to the altar with a candle on her head in homage to La Bruha—her favorite folk song and dance from Veracruz that she performed as a child. The procession is followed by a ceremony she composed to activate the elements of the altar.

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Special thanks to Adriana Stephan, Vanessa Castro, Jong Yon Choi, Eve Survilo, Devin Tamiazzo, Tim Reed, Henry Hickman, Dorothy

Lam, Mary & Joseph Anderson, and the Barney & Friends community.

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Check out The Outer Room online: http://lizlorenz.tumblr.com/theouterroom

!For inquiries or submissions: liz.m.lorenz@gmail.com

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Artworks © Artists of the Outer Room All Rights Reserved

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Photographs © Dorothy Lam; Liz Lorenz Writing © Liz Lorenz