Three NCLAC members are currently in the first annual Louisiana Purchase National Biennial Juried Exhibition; Ashley Feagin, Joli Livaudais Grisham, and Joshua Chambers. The exhibition was juried by Barbara Bloemik, the current Executive Director at Anderson Ranch Arts Center. Along with an opening reception held tonight, March 15, Ms. Bloemik will be doing a lecture at 5:00pm at the School of Art, on Tech's Campus. NCLAC would like to extend their congratulations to Ashley, Joli, and Joshua. Look below to learn more about each on these talented artists and their work.
Ashley Feagin
BIOGRAPHY
Ashley Feagin was pursuing a degree in Sociology when the photographic medium, rather than surveys, became her tool to document and investigate the human response to social extremities, economical constraints, sexual impulses, spiritual insight, and regional dynamics. The camera has given Feagin a social buffer for which she can observe and explore these ideas.
Feagin’s work recently was selected to be published in Vermont Photography Workplace’s book “Redefining the Self Portrait”. Her work will be part of a traveling group exhibition in 2011; “Spinning Yarns: Photographic Storytellers”. Feagin received her BA in Photography from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana in 2009 and is pursuing her MFA at Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, Louisiana.
To learn more about Ashley visit her website at http://ashleyfeagin.com/home.html
ARTIST STATEMENT
I used to baptize my baby dolls.
My friends and I pretended to baptize each other in the pool.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Buried with Him in baptism. Risen to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus.” There was a rhythm to those words, like a coronation of cleanliness. By the time I was 10 years old I had already been “officially” baptized several times myself. I received a certificate of baptism from my church in the mail. I remember staring at it’s ornate gold embossed design with wonder. I had reached purity.
As individuals we have both public and private persona and the chasm between these two parts varies from person to person. Our public image is polished and clean and worthy of observation. Either conscious or subconscious, we promote this image and in the severest cases eradicating the private image all together.There is something very private about our personal obsessions with how we are perceived, and is perhaps the most revealing aspect of our lives.
The tableau I have created in this series represents one character’s obsession with how they are perceived. The neurotic tendencies illustrated in the images emphasize the nature in which the character has shaped her life around pursuit of the ideal image. These narratives in conjunction with restraining the the color pallet to predominantly white allows the viewer to question whose portrait is actually being taken; the character or her habits.
Joli Livaudais Grisham
BIOGRAPHY
Joli Livaudais Grisham served a four-year tour in the U.S. Army and received her BA and MS in Experimental Psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington before establishing herself as a freelance commercial photographer in Dallas, Texas. Family ties brought her to Monroe, Louisiana, where she opened Livaudais Studio, a photography studio and fine art gallery. Grisham also cofounded and is currently serving a second term as secretary of the Downtown Arts Alliance, a not-for-profit collection of artists and galleries that host the bimonthly Monroe Downtown Gallery Crawl. Grisham is an MFA candidate at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana. Her fine art incorporates her interest in psychology and explores the relationships between people and the constructs we use to interpret the world around us, and has been exhibited in juried shows at the Masur Museum in Louisiana and the Tilt Gallery in New Mexico.
To learn more about Joli visit her website at http://www.joli-grisham.com/
ARTIST STATEMENT
I once read that everything in the universe is made from the same kinds of particles, and the only difference between material and spirit is how swiftly those basic components are vibrating. Quantum physicists have demonstrated that particles near each other synchronize, and so paired will move as one even when separated. Isolation and stillness are an illusion. All things are intrinsically linked together in ways mysterious and strange, and seeming differences are really just variations on a theme.
When I was young, my mother taught me that God is love and that violence and destruction are constructs of man. Yet when I look around me at the marvelously balanced creation of the universe, I see a system founded in the deaths of the weak and unfortunate. The wheel of creation, maintenance and destruction grinds endlessly, a ravening machine, terrifyingly pure in its lack of concern or gentleness. Yet, it is also beautiful, orderly, a profoundly synchronized web of vibrating particles. Meditations are my conceptual explorations on the mysteries of the machine--the deeper spiritual truth that connects us on the wheel of life and unifies reality.
Byzantine painters used a set of visual symbols to reveal the divine in the mundane. One of the most important of these was the use of gold. Gold gave the work a feeling of material preciousness, while also creating a source of otherworldly luminosity and warmth. They also used ultramarine blue, a rare and expensive pigment, to signify spiritual purity. I print my images in tones of blue and suspend them over 23K gold leaf using resin. By applying these symbolic spiritual elements to a photograph, a process intrinsically rooted in reality, both are interpreted in a new way. The work is experienced as concept and as a physical object, mirroring the duality of spirit and earth.
Joshua Chambers
BIOGRAPHY
Joshua Chambers received his Master of Fine Arts from Louisiana Tech University. His printmaking and paintings have been featured in national and international exhibitions in the United States and Europe. His work has been published in New American Paintings, Creative Quarterly, Studio Visit Magazine, and The Red Clay Survey. He also has work in the permanent collections of the Lessedra Gallery in Bulgaria, and Osage Gallery in the Gilcrease Museum of the Americas. He is currently the Curator of Education and Public Programs at the Masur Museum in Monroe, Louisiana. Joshua lives in Ruston, Louisiana with his wife Leigh Anne, and their daughter Sophia.
To learn more about Joshua visit his website at http://www.joshuachambers.com/
ARTIST STATEMENT
The stories I create are presented through cryptic tableaus inspired by my personal life. The viewer is to use his or her own perceptions of the symbols to extrapolate underlining themes and create an entertaining narrative. I encode the visual experience of private moments through the use of symbolic figures placed in ethereal landscape enacting indefinite scenarios. I want the viewer to have an active role in establishing the chronology and meaning of each story. In both painting and printmaking drawing plays a key role in the outcome of the artwork. I prefer the immediacy of painting with acrylic, and drawing with ink.