Artlink 17th Annual Juried Exhibition

17th Annual Juried Exhibition EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

Artlink Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to linking artists, business and the public to better understand, appreciate and support a thriving arts community in downtown Phoenix. Artlink supports a variety of communitybased art events, including complimentary Trolley Tours during the monthly First Friday Art Walk, one of the country’s largest self-guided gallery tour; Downtown Arts Tours, specially selected guided gallery tours; a year-round Pop Up Gallery Program featuring exhibitions in non-traditional spaces; the annual Juried Exhibition; the annual Art d’Core Gala, and the annual Art Detour self-guided tour, featuring open studios, pop-up galleries, family-friendly art experiences and more.

Artlink’s year-round activities are supported by Downtown Phoenix, Inc., City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture, CityScape, APS, Arizona Commission on the Arts, Phoenix Art Museum, The Arizona Republic, Phoenix Convention Center, Dunn Transportation, The Torosian Foundation, Valley Metro, City of Phoenix Aviation Department, Support Sky Harbor Coalition, Arizona Center, Invexi Web Development, Simply Adam Mann, Roosevelt Row CDC, and the Grand Avenue Members Association.

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Artlink’s 17th Annual Juried Exhibition Artlink Phoenix’s 17th Annual Juried Exhibition presents the work of 17 exceptional Arizonan artists. A panel of three jurors from the Phoenix art community reviewed the submissions and selected the pieces for the exhibition. This year the panel included Chief Conservator of the ASU Art Museum, Dana M Tepper; Owner of Bentley Gallery, Bentley Calverly; and Local Artist, Sculptor, and Owner of Tuomisto Bell Studio Foundry, John Tuomisto-Bell.

The 17 artists featured in this show are Julie Anand & Damon Sauer, Chris Boyd, Carlos Encinas, Page Filson, Valerie Hunt, Sam W. J. Johnson, Ann Langlois, Ann Lillqvist, Harold Lohner, Dan Nearing, Jill Roig, Chris Scott, Lacey Shelton, Lucretia Torva, A.O. Tucker, and Joan Waters.

Artlink is pleased to see that each year the number of submissions to this exhibition has grown. The Annual Artlink Juried Exhibition provides an important showcase for local artists and contributes to the ongoing conversation between emerging and established artists. We are very thankful to the jurors and all of the impressive artists who applied.

Enjoy the show!

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Julie Anand & Damon Sauer Ground Truth: Corona Landmarks, in its broadest sense, investigates an individual’s position on earth in the contemporary context of vast networks of information. We explore this situation by visualizing the expanding pervasiveness of satellite technology in relation to an historically significant set of satellite calibration targets. This system of approximately two hundred fifty-six calibration targets within the Sonoran Desert were created as part of a secret surveillance program in the mid-1960’s. The sixty-foot diameter concrete forms are located one per mile within a sixteen square-mile grid, designed as an array of ground truth markers.

“Ground truth” is a term used in remote-sensing to describe an object that can be directly measured to calibrate image data with features on the ground. We are intrigued by the way that these markers of space have become markers of time, representing a poignant moment in geopolitical and technologic social history.

The joint CIA/Air Force classified project known as Corona produced the world’s first successful mapping effort from space. Nearly fifty years later, this grid of enormous landmarks goes virtually unnoticed. We are exploring and photographically preserving each of the calibration markers, including locations where the forms have been removed. We also map the contemporary placement of orbits and satellites at the moment of photographing onto the skies of each vertical landscape.

The desire to see from above is a basic predatory instinctual advantage.

The technologic drive for military intelligence signified by this field of photographic signs has produced technologies that have led to two extremes of access: both deeply covert remote warfare capability and also open civilian surveillance, as we scan the Earth’s surface from our desktops. We explore the remains of Corona architecture now as it demarks an anthropologic moment in the desire to connect sky with earth.

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Calibration Mark AC48 with Satellites Archival Inkjet Print 24” x 30” $1,500

Calibration Mark AE48 with Satellites Archival Inkjet Print 24” x 30” $1,500

Calibration Mark AF48 with Satellites Archival Inkjet Print 24” x 30” $1,500 5

Chris Boyd The incessant desire to acquire more and more material goods, along with our willingness to place technological advances over humanistic ones, are two aspects of white America that have influenced my work. For the past few years I have been working to find more substance and meaning to incorporate into my work through the application of ethnoautobiography.

Exploring the white American self along with white culture and society juxtaposed with an indigenous perspective I have been inclined to create distorted urban landscapes full of empty architectural structures. Recently I have begun contemplating the state of the socially constructed reality that we have come to know and accept as being fixed, or permanent along with the presence and evolution of self. My interest in transformative social change emerged out of my desire to create artwork that is driven more by concepts than imagery. As I continue to explore my work, I began realize the significance and potential of creativity and imagination in terms of restructuring the world around us. My work is a reflection of psychological concepts pertaining to Socially Engaged Imagination, and the process of reconceptualizing the white American self.

Chris Boyd, Ph.D. is the founder and CEO of VelNonArt, a Tempe, AZ based nonprofit organization that creatively works to transform youth and communities through art by means of Socially Engaged Imagination. velnonart.org

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Something kinda like the Omega Point… but Not Oil on Canvas 70” x 52” $3,000

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Carlos Encinas This current theme of paintings is Midcentury. I am interested in the history and pop culture from the 1950s and 60s. I am inspired by my personal experiences growing up in Tucson in midcentury. The paintings are oil based One Shot sign paints and household paint painted on salvaged hollow core doors and found objects.

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JackieNJohn Oil Enamels on Salvaged Wood Door 25” x 30” $1,500

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Page Filson Every evening, I walk with my dogs to the field next to our house. We walk past mesquite, cactus and the charred remnants of unwanted brush in our burn pile. On the trail - red dirt, sticks and rocks.

Recently I started gathering these elements to incorporate into my work.

When I begin painting, I don’t set out to create a literal representation of the world but rather evoke the essence or feeling of light, mist, and other natural forces.

My process begins with initially building up the canvas with mortar and then scraping, washing, adding and subtracting materials until a narrative word or feeling begins to take shape organically, cumulating in a finished piece.

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Silverfall Acrylic, Mortar, Metal Leaf, Sticks, Charcoal, Powdered Pigment 24” x 30” $600

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Valerie Hunt This painting is inspired by Dr. Seuss.

The process of painting with plastic paint (acrylic) captivates me. I experiment to discover new and innovative ways of using acrylic paint. I also explore different ways of creating texture, which can extend up to 1/2� off of the surface of the canvas. Textures are created by the addition of glass beads, crumb rubber, black lava, sand, wood shavings, dried leaves, extra heavy gel mediums, modeling paste, pieces of vinyl, paper, shredded rubber tire, crushed polycarbonate and paint squirted directly from the tube onto the canvas. As for color, the ground is usually a low value key (dark) with intense colors as the figures, with matte playing against glossy surfaces.

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D.S. Diptych Acrylic and Mixed Media on Two Canvases 46” x 92” $1,200

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Sam Johnson My art is colorful.

I paint for the release.

These are my small contributions to the world.

Let your imagination play in these color fields.

My work is a result of meditative soul exploration.

I try not to think too much and patiently let the painting reveal itself.

Art is all around waiting to be uncovered.

I enjoy the struggle of uncovering myself.

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Ski Hi Acrylic 11” x 14” $275

Snowman Acrylic 11” x 14” $275 15

Ann Langlois Where the paint takes you, follow...

Painting is a passion that seems to fulfill a deep need to create something driven by visual, mental, and emotional sensation. It’s a process I find equally satisfying and challenging since it encompasses all my senses as I uncover a piece of work.

My paintings' beginnings and endings are always a mystery to me as they’re sort of an unfolding intuitive exploration. They may start as one concept and may end as an entirely different creature. I'm always amazed at this process as it unfolds. To me, my paintings are an excavation, a revelation via discovering something …perhaps some visual memory, or some evidence of something familiar, some beautiful accident or a piece of found art, or a thread of something organic in nature.

I’m inspired by things like decaying buildings, a peeling wall, aged patina, erosion, moss, found objects, metal, worn wood, ravaged stone, the sky, a storm, the perfect shade of this or that color. Some of my paintings unfold quickly, while others may take weeks and months of tweaking and digging and wondering and playing.

I'm drawn to abstract / non-objective works because of their ability to evoke feelings and emotions that aren't necessarily meant to be understood or directly tied to something specific or direct. Rather, an abstract painting's evocative capabilities are truly subjective to each person's lens. I find the unique, experiential nature of abstract paintings fascinating, mysterious, and gratifying.

In my paintings, I work with Oil + Cold Wax, Acrylics, and Mixed Media.

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Bisection Oil + Cold Wax 24” x 24” $375

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Ann Lillqvist Making pictures is my way to deal with longing. Maybe I try to grab something that is unreachable or not supposed to be reached. My art gives me consolation and makes me more present in the mystery of being human.

I see you and the world trough my pictures and if I knew how to heal everything and the world, I would. As a child I spent my summers in Northern Norway far away from civilization, with only my fantasy as company I made up stories sprung from nature. Maybe it is the unreachable childhood that I try to catch or just have a continued sense of.

My favorite materials are oil on panels, but I like the idea to just take what I have around me and make the best of it. The oil paint gives me various options to work on panels, sometimes I put a thick layer of paint and sometimes the contrary, I dilute the oil paint to the point it almost looks like watercolor.

Printmaking on the other hand requires a more planned approach. It’s interesting how these two different mediums affect each other. I think I got another approach to painting since I started with printmaking.

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Girls with Pipes Photopolymer 13.5” x 25” $550 (Edition of total 20) 19

Harold Lohner I’m a printmaker who rarely makes editions, working through variations in series, in artist’s books, or in multiple-print installations. Using faces and figure shapes, I layer pattern and color to create visually exciting monoprints that suggest dual concepts of individuality versus anonymity, absence versus presence, and concealing versus revealing.

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A.I.R.8 Monoprint 30” x 22” $700 Framed

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Dan Nearing Candy is good for you. Everybody knows that.

Hi, I’m Dan and I have been painting since I was six years old. Friends say I’ve stuck with the same color pallette. I guess I like things bright.

The arts were always with me through grade school, high school and I continued my artistic studies through my college years at Central Michigan University. I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art. [Annually voted by CNN as “America’s Most Worthless Degree”.] I did okay with mine, working commercially between Boston and New York for over twenty-five years. I don’t starve well.

People often ask me: “Why candy?” My answer is: “ Why not? People like candy. My brother can’t get enough of the stuff. My mother can’t figure it out. *sigh* My candy paintings are an homage to the men and women who designed those classic candy wrappers. There’s a real art to marketing candy, and those folks have my utmost respect. They really do.

As you may guess, Warhol had a HUGE influence on my style as did Georgia O’Keefe.

Warhol took the banal and turned it into fine art. O’Keefe made small things large, so they would be noticed. I do both.

Mr. Nearing has recently relocated to Phoenix, after running away from the world of East coast advertising. (We recommend approaching him cautiously.) Mr. Nearing also likes candy. See more of his work at: www.itjustgetsweirder.com

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Impaled Dubble Bubble with Tootsie Rolls Oil on Canvas on Board 20” x 24” $1,000

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Jill Roig My love affair with clay began in my teenage years and has continued quietly over the past two decades. It has remained a constant source of inspiration in my life. I’ve studied, learned, and simply been humbled by the unique challenge of clay. Studying at Tyler Park Center for the Arts, Sedona Art Center, Mesa Arts Center and Shemer Art Center and Museum has been an important part of my life’s path, and I’ve been blessed by instructors who saw my raw, vivid, unfiltered creativity and pushed me along.

I love to abandon the rules and just play, otherwise known as giving life to the abstract! There is nothing I like more than tuning out the world, throwing on some tunes, and just creating my canvas of clay. In this crazy world of increasing responsibility, the studio has become my haven where I can play with the earth. I can get dirty. I can create. It’s kinda like being a kid again. There is much zen inspiration in the intersection of pottery with meditation and spirituality. What continually strikes me is the literal and figurative transmutation of mud into beautiful pieces of modern art!

Over the past five years, I’ve been working on my signature style – glassinfused pottery. As someone with a penchant for the abstract, I’m excited by the challenge of merging glass art with ceramic art. That’s my sweet spot. It’s the raw exposed clay sitting right next to the melted glass. The clay and the glass dance together. To me, that’s what life is all about – the dance, the dance of life.

My glass-infused ceramic art was most recently on display at the Shemer Art Center and Museum for the August-September 2015 juried exhibition.

The opening reception was filled with energy, enthusiasm, raw creativity and collaboration. It was there that I felt most at home, with the other artists, sharing space, discussing ideas and building the Phoenix art community.

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Lost at Sea Clay and Glass 17” x 15” x 2” $375

Nature’s Shell Clay and Glass 12” x 11” x 1” $325 25

Chris Scott I have one great passion that lives deep within my loins like a flaming golden hawk, to be able to translate my artistic vision onto a canvas. This passion was ignited in me in early 2009 when I was given a set of oil paints and I first put pigment to canvas.

Since then I have worked to improve my understanding of what makes a great painting and in this applied understanding create artwork that I can be happy with.

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Waiting Oil on Sheet Metal 8” x 18” $750

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Lacey Shelton “If you get simple beauty and naught else, you get about the best thing God invents."

Fra Lippo Lippi My work is inspired by nature, particularly birds and other delicate creatures, as well as things that are mechanical and shiny, such as typewriters, street signs,& bikes. I enjoy bringing these elements together by thoughtfully balancing them as the foreground subjects in a painting. The subjects appear to float and are showcased apart from their natural setting to simplify their formal beauty, along with communicating a conceptual theme. My abstract backgrounds allow the foreground subjects to breathe, in that they are not tightly rendered, nor realistic, but they set a stage for another kind of environment. Juxtaposing the realistic subjects with the abstract backgrounds gives the work a modern tone on a colorful, vivid plane. I paint primarily in oil, but also enjoy acrylic, watercolor, and printmaking.

The conceptual ideas behind my work range from whimsical to thought provoking and spiritual. Living life abundantly characterizes the underlying meaning behind my work. Birds & butterflies represent this element of abundant life to me because these simple beauties are around us all of the time; if we pay attention, these little gifts can turn into heavenly moments in time to really capture, contemplate, & savor.

Time stands still, the atmosphere changes, & gratitude floods your heart, when we behold, heaven reaching earth-- these are the moments I paint. I appreciate painting delicate things, sparrows and wrens, to highlight their sometimes overlooked beauty.

The wing of a butterfly, for example, in all is intricacies, fascinates me. Adding an element of life, a butterfly, a person, a bird, makes the painting come alive. My vision is to bring the viewer to this deeper sense of beauty all around, even in things seen everyday, & uncover true beauty within.

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Light Upon Oil on Canvas 30” x 30” $1,500

Your Word Come Alive Oil on Canvas 30” x 30” $1,500 29

Lucretia Torva The three R’s: Realism, Reflection and Refraction. These have been informing my art since my last year of my BFA. Glass, mirrors, mylar, metal, silk, brocade, leather, water and skin have all played a part in my search for that wonderful tease of distorted visual reality.

I have always created realistic art, sometimes more surreal, other times more straightforward. My desire is to prompt people to look at their own environment with more care and attention, to really SEE what is around them. We all experience our world through our senses. I believe that being very sensually attuned brings us to a greater spiritual awareness.

Deep spiritual experience aside, I also enjoy entertaining people. Art can be an escapist experience, pulling the viewer away from their everyday habits. This is a very important aspect of the experience of art. We all need to be jolted out of our complaisance, stimulated out of ordinariness….brought to life with a breath of fresh air. With my realism, Ioffer a different perspective or viewpoint.

Cars have been an important subject for the last 5-6 years. I use the subject of cars to tap into people’s emotions, sentiment and psyche. Cars represent some of the best in humans...their creativity and ingenuity! In addition, they are beautiful and attractive and entertaining. The reflections, shine and realism of the cars elicit “ooohs” and “aaaahs” from viewers.

The sparkle and smile on a face tells me I've done my job! A car is an iconic American experience representing freedom, individuality, cutting edge technology, competition, luxury, speed, brotherhood, camaraderie, family, unity, teamwork and on and on.

The water paintings are a great example of that distorted visual reality I seek. The water helps to create a fantasy, dream-like scene. The scenes push my choice of colors and the extent to which I am willing to distort something I am familiar with in everyday life.

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Pulling Strings Oil on Canvas 24” x 36” $2,100 Fin Win Oil on Canvas 48” x 24” $2,800

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A. O. Tucker My Art My goal is to create Fine Art Photographs that makes you say WOW! I feel a Fine Art Photograph is an image that is both inspiring and technically excellent. Not just one or the other.

For me a work of art is primarily the product of a person, not a machine.

For this reason, a photograph printed straight from the original capture is unsatisfying. Such an image represents the output of a machine rather than my expression.

I’m a self-Taught Artist that didn’t become serious about photography until I purchased my first DSLR, a Sony A55 in late 2011. Began showing my art in 2014.

My Life I’m a native Arizonan, growing up on a farm west of Phoenix. My adolescence life was one not for the faint of heart. Fortunately I lived through that and went on to graduate from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Science degree. Currently my wife/muse and I call Litchfield Park and Esteli Nicaragua home.

My Dream To photograph whatever excites me, and to be able to do it every day!

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Amber Waves Photography 24” x 36” $595

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Joan Waters According to quantum mechanics, what we see as ‘solid objects’ are actually comprised of particles, discrete packets of energy with wave-like properties.

This body of work explores the similarities in these wave-like, energy patterns that are found in many different types of living beings and situtations in nature. Ripples of water in a river, raindrops falling into puddles, growth rings of trees, vibrations, sound waves, and galaxies in outer space, are some of the forms suggested by these drawings of radiating lines and arcs. The process of making these pieces deliberately includes several elements of uncertainty and lack of conscious control, so that natural forces and patterns may become part of the evolution of each piece.

I begin each piece by making a bead with the mig welder on a flat sheet of industrial steel. As I make this welded ‘drawing’ my field of vision is limited to a very small area, restricted by the protective dark shade of the welding helmet, so that I am drawing using both my experience and instincts. As the welded marks accummulate, heat collects in the steel; the subsequent cooling and contraction helps determine the shape of the metal. As the welded patterns overlap and run off the edges of the steel, it creates the impression that the piece of steel doesn’t contain the waves of energy, as much as it functions as a window which allows us to view these energy patterns found in the ‘objects’ around us.

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Shields : Ripples Welded Steel with Patinas, Clear Powdercoating 50” x 64” x 5” overall (33 x 33 x 5, 25 x 25 x 4, 21 x 21 x 3) $3,200, $2,000, $1,500

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Juror Panel We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of our jurors for providing their invaluable expertise in the selection process for our 17th Annual Juried Exhibition!

Bentley Calverley is the owner of Bentley Gallery, Inc. since 1984. Bentley Gallery is synonymous with contemporary painting and sculpture in the Southwestern United States. The Phoenix art gallery represents mid-career and museum-collected artists from the U.S. and Europe. Throughout the history of the gallery, a diverse range of mediums have been represented, including painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, textiles, installation art, and video.

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John Tuomisto Bell is the owner and operator of the Tuomisto Bell Studio Foundry, a full service bronze casting foundry and working studio. He is also a working artist and sculptor and currently an MFA student, Grad Research Assistant in his 2nd year at Arizona State University. He received the Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum Artist Grant in 2011 and the Arizona Sculptor of the Year in 2003 Scottsdale Life Magazine Dana Mossman Tepper is art conservator at the Arizona State University Art Museum. While Dana oversees care of the entire collection, her conservation specialty is works of art on paper and photographs.

Dana holds degrees in biology and art history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and in art conservation from the Winterthur Museum - University of Delaware. She has previously worked in private practice and in museums, including the Princeton University Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her current research interest involves the use of scientific techniques to resolve curatorial questions of dating and attribution in the ASU Art Museum collection.

Dana is married to Steven J. Tepper, dean of the ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, and has two inquisitive children, Sally Landon and Sam, and two mischievous pooches, Tripper and Chewy.

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Acknowledgements

Located in the heart of the Grand Avenue arts district, Oasis on Grand is an adaptive reuse project of affordably priced live/work apartments. The “Oasis” is a commercially zoned property allowing for a true Live/Work environment. Many of the apartments have “front door retail exposure” to the public for studio/gallery uses.

The Phoenix Ale Brewery was established in June 2011 and has since grown to become the largest brewery in the city of Phoenix. Phoenix Ale offers a regular line-up of handcrafted unfiltered ales, including Camelback IPA, Watermelon Wheat, Biltmore Blonde, and Orange Peel IPA. They also produce a number of popular seasonal beers like Phoestivus Winter Ale. The Phoenix Ale Brewery and Taproom is centrally located, just three miles east of downtown Phoenix. It is light rail adjacent and bicycle-friendly.The taproom is open daily, serving a full selection of our beers and featuring food, TV’s, music, and games.

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Acknowledgements

Artlink Volunteers Emily Allender Rebecca Baken Allen Barker Tina Barker Crystal Burnett Sondra Carr Victor Gonzalez Christine Grant Courtney McCune Doreen Rommney Edward Taylor Lisa Tuaone Victoria Williams

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Artlink Inc. Board of Directors Catrina Kahler, President Sarah Levi, Vice President Jill Bernstein, Treasurer Dan Clevenger, Secretary Phil Jones Sally Russell Hillary Foose Stephanie Lieb Jerry Harper Brittany Butler Constance McBride Administrative Support Leslie Criger

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