Jones Ranch Egypt is an ongoing process engaging historic European cataloging traditions and mid-twentieth century western agitprop. Holmes explores their relationship with mark-making, their Western / cowboy roots, and the African sculptural / spiritual traditions of their ancestors. Each image is based (however loosely) on a symbolic African sculpture and a piece of American Western art. In the incorporation of the two, Holmes depicts an imaginary West highlighting the dual stolen history. The often obfuscated role that people of color have played in the development of western expansion, and the colossal act of theft that is the institutional African artifacts collection industry. In iconic depictions of the West, we find a cultural erasure of black and brown bodies presented in the “Cowboy”. 20th-century Cowboy culture serves as a soft propaganda about American individuality, sparingly distributed to the 25% African American workforce (or the 35% Latino) that made up most cowboys at the end of the 19th century. In comparison, the collection and display of tribal artifacts by private and institutional collections mirror this. From an egocentric hegemonic lens both the creation and display of African sculpture and masks is a curious note in art history excluding them from what should be considered some of the most dynamic and meaningful object-making in all of humanity’s creative endeavors. To amalgamate the two, it’s to build a libratory narrative around foregone trajectories in human history.
June 2024:
July 2024: Montaysia Yuneek Sims
My work is rooted in expanding Western figurative traditions through paintings and drawings that engage both the physical and spiritual, the past and the present. Influenced by my lineage, I look to conjure my dreams and hopes on the canvas and contemplate how my ancestors and community exist within them.
My ancestors are people I do not know formally, but bequeathed with their stories, blood, and hearts, I contemplate their existences through a contemporary lens within a different realm. By employing abstraction and figuration, I look to create dynamic fields lined with recognizable symbols and them, along with others that inspire me to see them in a different space. This considered I approach painting as a way of storytelling, a way of thinking about the present with the past; birthing new worlds. In my piece “community building”, I explore the subject within a dense realm, showcasing recognizable motifs and forms in a vivid dream-like space. On my canvases, colors collide and form relationships that create conversations within themselves, filled with colors that inspire play, imagination, and fluidity.
At its core, my work involves both individual and collective involvement, exploring times in a different dimension in a contemporary setting. Currently, I am focused on the creation of mixed-media paper pieces that expand on this practice.
My practice traverses the mystery, awkwardness, survival, and ultimate expansion of queer desire and futurity. A background in foundry craft and paleontology inspires an interest for geologic-scale transformations as an act of queer place-making. I have used casting techniques to excavate an imagined queer fossil record, create monuments to lost histories, capture moments of radical remaking, and document the volcanic movement of imminent forces towards change. Experiences as a foundry craftsperson and metalworker allow me to navigate between structure and experimentation within a queer context, exploring the possibilities of a separated difference. Engaging with disturbed landscapes and discarded materials, I relate this to queer abandonment and the subsequently-earned intuition to seek love and renewal in ruin.
eri king is an interdisciplinary artist working across various mediums, including installation, sculpture, textiles, painting, drawing, video, sound, and performance. She draws inspiration from the overlooked and repetitive aspects and rituals in our daily lives, aiming to amplify their visibility and perceived significance. Her work explores the intricate connections between disparate subjects and cultural narratives, unpacking the associations and perspectives linked to established American traditions.
king employs symbols and cultural references to delve into the contradictions and connections between binary oppositions and non-duality. Everyday materials such as plastic, manufactured products, food, discarded clothing, trash, household items, and traditional media serve as her tools to examine their symbolic and cultural power. She transforms her pieces using meticulous analog processes that simulate machines, often produced by hand, to explore concepts of value, energy, and desire. Her compositions investigate the communication strategies of mass media and capitalism, along with their global implications for everyday life, with the aim of illuminating the familiar and the bizarre through deconstruction, imagination, fabrication, and stylization to reach a poetic and ecstatic truth.
king received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and Art History at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2011 and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting at Hunter College in 2018. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She is half of the collaborative art duo, eridan with NY-based artist Daniel Greer.
Direct experience with the landscape is the cornerstone of my artistic practice. I primarily paint en plein air with oil to capture my initial experience on location. Sometimes, I will use watercolor or gouache, depending on how much I want to carry that day. No matter what materials I use, the marks and colors captured outside inform my more extensive work back in the studio.
The desert has an ineffable quality, and painting is the only way to transcribe my experiences. My current work focuses on the Mojave Desert, with a recent focus on the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. Observational study through painting, or sometimes just simply watching the environment around me, generates questions and a further desire to understand the environment I paint. The more time I spend outside, the more I research the landscape, the plants, and the area's history. My studio work incorporates the location's essence and an additional layer of process informed through further readings about the area. It's an ongoing exercise of observing, learning, and painting. Ultimately, my work seeks to transmit my love and wonder for the land I paint.
November 2024: Jessica Oreck
December 2024: Group Show TBA