6.10.24 - 6.21.24
Grant Hall Gallery
University of Las Vegas Nevada
A dialogue on the reinterpretation of self must be made counter to the required assimilation so often experienced by the children of immigrants. The work is self-subtle and victorious in execution and spirit. For a more spirited continuum of installation, Amandy Zuniga's Collective Thoughts brings the rough work of self-identifying, using images of violent nature as a proxy for internal upheavals that come with one's dismantling of overwhelming societal pressure. The piece is chaotic and engulfing to the viewer resembles in every way the more didactic aspects of the re-indigination process. From depiction to manifestation, Quindo Millers’ brilliant terrarium concrete sculpture Keep it Moving, grows long and lush as a living dialogue with the notion of displacement often hampers the minds of those that are colonized. It is important to state that the previous three works were in their own ways interpretations of nature, the earth, or organisms that reflect into the body and psyche of the artist and audience alike. Miller's work transcends interpretation giving us the tangible aspects of living things contained and controlled but somehow still growing freely. Using water, glass, grass, soil, and concrete to embody the resilience of the land and the individuals tied to it. An incredible collage of living things that directs itself as much as the artist singing resounding notes of freedom.
Lille Allens’ I don't know how to (feel/tell) time is a conjuring of sorts. The rhythm and flow of its composition directed by the artists' relationship to the poem. Its hues supple use of materials to build a resonant whole gives glimpses into the disparate fragments of self that must be called to form a hole in a world that to paraphrase Audrey Lord “we were never meant to survive” in. Montaysia Sims’ In search of takes this seeming fragmentation and portrays a home. Through bright and strident mark-making the artist offers a sanctuary for the ‘I’ in ‘I Am’ a place to secure the internal forces that wipe at the mind. With Laudable whimsy Sims builds a landing place for the eye that provides comfort and care amidst a tempest of difficult realities. Hue’s I am here for you consecrates’ the exhibition echoing the words of the poem and extending a promise. From the individual, I AM, to the collectivizing I am Here For You, is designed as a tunnel to envelop the viewer like a kind embrace from an eternal grandmother.
The insights and images of Son De Mi Ser come from a place of deep intuition. Curated with a cohesive eye, each work is relationally based on incredible source material.
In recent years the call to reincorporate and assess our collective histories has been loud and strong. Its presence is felt in all manner of mediums from digital dialogues to the simplest turns of phrase. We are in the midst of a renaissance in the consciousness of colonized peoples everywhere. You can find this reclamation in photos, paintings, podcasts, or in this context, a poem.
Activist Yesenia Moya-Garay’s poem I Am is (as most good poems are) brief and intense; specific enough to be deeply personal and broad enough to feel universal. The poem provides a healthy structure for internal exploration and perceptual reckoning—a stable tune with pace and rhythm rife for exploration.
Still, it must be noted it takes a special ear to hear a good tune and decide to distribute it to others, to invite collaboration. For that disseminate role, we find curator Sydney Galindo, the organizing force behind the exhibition Son De Mi Ser. Galindo shows great insight as an emerging curator in finding works and artists that coalesce well over time and culture all arranged elegantly around the central theme of Yesenia’s poem.
The subtle brilliance of the re-indignation movement is that it is simultaneously organized and individuated. A mass event that hinges on personal discovery, the development of aptitude towards inspecting and incorporating the remnants of a mass apocalypse played out over the last five hundred years at the hands of exterminating colonial powers. It has no single race, culture, or temporality, being applicable to a panoply of movements, faiths, aesthetics, and groups as a set of acts of personal and cultural preservation, a continuum of resistance gifted from ancestor to ancestor repaid by our current intentions.
In Son De Mi Ser we find a wealth of trans-generational exchanges. Margaux Herron’s Pocoyo is a stunning example of this phenomenon. An owl built of corn husks and rice grains methodically arranged to produce a bird symbolic in material and species relaying a connection to land an ancestry left hanging above the gallery, a cohesive reliquary of cultural tradition. Pocoyo finds the perfect complement in Clara Tang's Resilience textile re-formed as lily pads floating above the submerged onlooker.
Written by Brent Holmes
Keep it Moving
Concrete, glass, water, substrate, copper, steel, and lamp hardware
23” X 14” X 19"
Collective Thoughts
Cardboard paper, cyanotype prints, yarn, berries, tissue paper, string, glass, and organic material
Size variable
In search of
Synthetic polymer
72” X 42”
When I am in search of something more, I must remember I already have it at home.
POCOYO
Paper mache, rice, millet, foil, and corn husks dyed with onion skins
18” X 60” X 2”
I am here for you
Paper, colored pencils, vinyl
48” X 60”
This drawing comes from wanting to provide words of love and encouragement to those journeying on their path fully aware of the state of the world and within their heart. Each circle is like a ripple reminding oneself to breathe in and out and to contemplate how our actions may affect ourselves or another.
I don't know how to [feel / tell] time
Mixed Media
22” X 24”
This piece was made with found objects and sentimental objects given to the artist by loved ones. The artist would like to thank Oona Robertson, a talented fine furniture maker and cook, for framing this piece, rendering it complete.
Resilience
Trader Joe's bags, junk mail, acrylic paint, glue, and red satin cord
60” X 36” X 36”
My parents assimilated relatively well to American life. I was raised in English with few Chinese or Korean traditions. Often, I feel disconnected from my heritage. But my parents’ work ethic, their morals, their outlook on life, their strength - I feel those within me every day. Asian cultures view the lotus as a symbol of resilience. This piece features lotus leaves with their veins lined with red cords reaching downwards like roots. The leaves represent older generations, the red string younger generations. Parents cannot always pass down everything to their children, but their children often carry on their essence and preserve their roots in ways that are complex and powerful and last through many generations.