June 2021: Diane Appaix Castro - Week 3

Diane Appaix Castro (she/her, @diappaix_art) is a 27 year old French and Spanish sculptor and installation artist who was born in Paris, France and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts from age four. Her work is strongly informed by her experience as an immigrant living at the intersection of three different cultures. Her works deal with the concepts of existence, humanity, presence - finding new ways to declare how we are in the world and leaving the door for possibilities elsewhere.

---

I’ve been reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut where time travel is possible for the main character. He jumps back and forth through his own life. He encounters an alien species which presents him with an interesting thought that when someone dies it does not mean that they stop existing, they simply exist in the past. This idea really spoke to me as I had been spending most of this week thinking about time and how although we use it and can see it happening, it’s also something changeable and collapsible and stretchable.

I took a quick trip to New York to visit my sister and while I was in the airport at 10 am, I saw a few people drinking beers in one of the airport bars. My first instinct was to be like… a little early, no? But then I started to realize that these people could very well be in a completely different time zone than I was. Maybe they were hours ahead or behind me, but simply sat in an airport that was technically on CST. This made me think about how airports are time dead zones. Everybody is coming in and out of them, all from various places and going to various places, all on their own time. So why not have a coffee at “10pm” and a beer at “10am” ? Anything goes in an airport. 

Something else happened this week where I collapsed time, through food. I had some friends over for dinner and prepared handmade pasta with pesto, tomato, and mushrooms, Palomas, and a peach crumble. (Did I mention that for me making art and cooking are at an even tie?) These dishes and drink were some that I had enjoyed with other people, at completely different times. I wanted to give my friends an experience of the foods that had been good memories for me. Pasta and palomas with my sister and friends in New York, and crumbles for months that I would prepare for my partner, mother, and stepdad at the beginning of the pandemic. Although my friends didn’t realize that I was doing this perhaps, collapsing these memories into a single evening, they were inadvertently being transported, even teleported, to them through food in a simultaneous manner.

I wonder if there’s a way, through experiential art, to do something like this as well.

June 2021: Diane Appaix Castro - Week 2

Diane Appaix Castro (she/her, @diappaix_art) is a 27 year old French and Spanish sculptor and installation artist who was born in Paris, France and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts from age four. Her work is strongly informed by her experience as an immigrant living at the intersection of three different cultures. Her works deal with the concepts of existence, humanity, presence - finding new ways to declare how we are in the world and leaving the door for possibilities elsewhere.

---

I’d like to talk a little more about the Ganzfeld experiment this week as I focused primarily on my project related to it. The Ganzfeld experiment was introduced to experimental psychology in the first half of the 20th century and has since been used as a pseudoscientific technique to test for ESP and telepathy. Although these are interesting aspects of the experiment, I am more interested in what the participant’s experience is like.

After explaining the experiment to an undergrad student at Tulane, she told me she wanted to try it herself a few weeks ago. I felt uncomfortable letting her do it on her own, so I offered to supervise. We set her up in a comfortable position, I placed halved ping pong balls over each of her eyes, headphones over her ears that played white noise, and projected a red light over her face. The experiment lasted 30 minutes. I filmed the whole thing.

When the 30 minutes were up, I turned the noise down slowly so as not to shock her, then turned the red light off. She smiled, and threw the headphones and ping pong balls off her head and said, “can we do that again some time?” She explained that there were times when she felt like she was spinning or could hear me talking, although I stayed completely silent. She also said that she saw things, shapes and movement.

This experiment is essentially a sensory-deprivation chamber that anyone with a bed, ping pong balls, and red light can recreate at home. What’s interesting is what the mind does when your senses are removed from you. My version of this experiment is to be your mind. I want to give you the auditory and visual “hallucinations” as a way to control the narrative and see what happens when multiple people experience the exact same thing. The Ganzfeld experiment only offers a platform for your mind to wander, but I wonder if it’s possible for me use this as an opportunity to give you information that cannot be deciphered.

By using the large sphere I’m hoping to better take over the participants periphery and use the sphere’s already echoey properties to obscure the sound. From my experience, it can feel as though the lights are both coming at you and from you, sometimes at the same time.

Most of the works I’ve been doing in my time at the MFA program have been about trying to break down our human-centric perspective. I believe that we have a deep desire to answer all of our questions but that not all of them can be answered, and that the uncertainty is the answer, and maybe even a healthy thing. It’s not because we have 5 senses and a brain that that is the best way to perceive the world and universe. For all we know, there are things around us that exist that we will never have the right equipment to perceive. This current project is another attempt to bring this idea forward. I’d love for the participant to leave the experience without a directly answered question, but a satisfaction with the unknown.

June 2021: Diane Appaix Castro - Week 1

Diane Appaix Castro (she/her, @diappaix_art) is a 27 year old French and Spanish sculptor and installation artist who was born in Paris, France and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts from age four. Her work is strongly informed by her experience as an immigrant living at the intersection of three different cultures. Her works deal with the concepts of existence, humanity, presence - finding new ways to declare how we are in the world and leaving the door for possibilities elsewhere.

---

For the first week of the residency, I’d like to share a few snippets of projects I’ve been working on and explain a bit about my process.

The first of these is a projection project which aims to override the senses of hearing and vision in an attempt to render them insufficient at deciphering information. For this, I am using an audio-visualizer to convert an audio made of many recordings from the last 5 years into a visual experience where the participant must wear a large sphere over their head. The visuals are then projected onto it and the participant sees this from inside the sphere in a way which takes over their periphery. This project is partially inspired by James Turrell and the Ganzfeld psychology experiment.

This project is far from being completed; there is a lot I need to learn still about this process and it’s presenting many challenges but this battle with my art is how I prefer to work. I like that I’m not the only one making decisions, the work is also contributing back, demanding more time or effort on my part. A professor recently told me that since my work requires the participant to submit to it, it is only fair that I also do, because otherwise it would be cruel.

These sorts of challenging projects, however, always leave me needing something more concrete to do and this normally means making furniture or other similar things for my home. This week I made a frame for a couch and a day bed. This was an opportunity for me to make something functional and learn more about welding, something that I’m very new to.

The images and video are of a test I ran this week of the projection project, and some shots of the welded frames.

June 2021: Welcome Diane Appaix Castro!

Southern Heat Exchange is excited to welcome Diane Appaix Castro as our June Artist in Residence!

Diane Appaix Castro (she/her) is a 27 year old French and Spanish sculptor and installation artist who was born in Paris, France and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts from age four. She received a BFA from The New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University and is currently studying at Tulane University from which she will receive her MFA in sculpture in May, 2022.

Her work is strongly informed by her experience as an immigrant living at the intersection of three different cultures.

Her works deal with the concepts of existence, humanity, presence - finding new ways to declare how we are in the world and leaving the door for possibilities elsewhere.

Her most recent works involve isolating the senses through immersive and experiential installations which force the participant to submit to the experience. Other current work deals with the displacement of a being from its environment, and how it decays and reveals its inner workings through this process.

Additionally, Diane curates and manages an art gallery called Studio Appaix from her home.

For more information about her work, see the following links:

Appaix-Castro Artist Website

Appaix-Castro IG

Studio Appaix Gallery Website

Studio Appaix Gallery IG

May 2021: Theodora Eliezer

Theodora Eliezer is a New Orleans-based multimedia artist and futurist. Their practice is characterized by interconnected narratives in installation, lens-based media, digital and physical artifacts, and related critical theory. Much of their work explores non-linear time, panpsychism, and feminist considerations of the body, identity, aesthetics, and technoethics. Influenced by Masahiro Mori and Carlo Rovelli, their recent work is concerned with the future rights of sentient machines and the intersection of magick and quantum theory.

---

One of my core motivations as an artist is my interest in how art and media program the future, and how artists and storytellers have the ability to shift consensus reality through their work. As an extension of this line of thinking, all of my work includes elements of media theory, personal narrative, and interrogations of memory as a form of mythology. In my series Soft Decay I use the personal/collective mythology of childhood nostalgia to reclaim decomposition from the realm of the abject, repositioning it as a technology of care and nurturing.

My recent projects also include Patty Cake, which was made in response to the danger of physical proximity during the pandemic, exploring how trauma restructures the brain and our perception of potential risk. Filmed in early May 2020, Patty Cake is a 20 minute long video depicting me and my best friend playing a game of patty cake. The video is accompanied by an archive of risk assessment and disclosure documents related to engaging in non-essential touch during phase one of the quarantine. On a more subtle level, Patty Cake is also about the loss of community and intimacy in femme and queer spaces, using art as an archival practice that writes our identities and experiences into future discourse about Covid 19.

Like so many people, this past year I spent a lot of time alone contemplating my identity, the nature of reality, and non-linear time. Since last summer my practice has been undergoing a transformation, and in September of last year I began my current long-term project: writing three books called The Valley of the Green Glass Door. These three books look like matching vintage chess manuals from the 1800s, but they are actually interlocking instructions for how to bend time. This project is influenced by game theory, New Orleans culture and lore, quantum physics, Hermetic alchemy, and the mystery cults of Ancient Greece. The Valley of the Green Glass Door is a container that holds riddles and adventures for the reader to discover, and my process for creating this work is guided by the occult principle that the power of the unseen cannot be transmitted through explanation, and that to fully understand magick one must embark upon an initiatory journey of direct experiences. Below is a preliminary sketch that I drew for book one of The Valley of the Green Glass Door, depicting the idea that if we empty the contents of our hearts we will find a hidden doorway within:

During the SHE residency this month I’ll be working on my books and further developing my research methodologies and ideas about the intersections of applied magick and quantum theory, the purpose of cultivating non-linear ways of knowing, and ritual as community care. I’m excited to have you along for the ride, so if you want to talk about non-linear time, ghosts, New Orleans lore, or anything else, you can find me here!

May 2021: Welcome Theodora Eliezer

SHE’s Digital Residency series returns this May with artist Theodora Eliezer! (@theodora.eliezer) We are excited about their work in particular as a way to return to connection after a transformative year. Drop in here for weekly process updates from their rich studio practice. Welcome Theodora!

Theodora Eliezer is a New Orleans-based multimedia artist and futurist. Their practice is characterized by interconnected narratives in installation, lens-based media, digital and physical artifacts, and related critical theory. Much of their work explores non-linear time, panpsychism, and feminist considerations of the body, identity, aesthetics, and technoethics. Influenced by Masahiro Mori and Carlo Rovelli, their recent work is concerned with the future rights of sentient machines and the intersection of magick and quantum theory.

Eliezer’s ongoing Soft Decay series (pictured below) explores the function of fungi as an organic internet and the extended intelligence of the natural world.

From Eliezer’s Soft Decay series // Vintage soft toy tiger, Pleurotus ostreatus mushrooms

Studio views, Theodora Eliezer

Studio views, Theodora Eliezer

December 2020: Jessica Bizer - week 4

For my final week of the residency, I'd like to share some images from my studio. While I’ve been working on my video installation, I've also begun to gradually re-enter my painting practice.

Painting was the primary focus of my work until a few years ago, when I began exploring digital and video work. The transition was both organic and practical. I was already spending a lot of time taking photos of my paintings and manipulating them on my phone and computer. However, at that time, I was using the technology simply as a tool to work out ideas, rather than as a medium. But as I began spending more time in digital space, I became increasingly curious about the potential for it to become a more intentional part of my practice.

My shift away from painting was also based on real-world concerns. I'm a mom of two little kids (ages 6 and 9), and wanted to find a way to make art was a more sustainable fit for my family life. I found myself wishing for a tiny mobile studio I could stash in my purse, something I could bust out as needed. My phone and laptop were perfect for the job.

I never expected to take such a long departure from painting. I was even a little uncomfortable once I realized that side of my work was shifting into a secondary role. However, the break has had so many benefits. My time away from painting has allowed me to reconnect with it from a new perspective. Among other things, I've noticed an increased fluidity between the digital and analog areas of my practice. I love how the mediums energize each other. I can't wait to explore more of this territory.

“Get There”

“Go With It”

December 2020: Jessica Bizer - week 3

This week I projected abstract animations over my palm frond installation. I'm so excited about the results!

I like to think about this piece as a portal that simultaneously creates connections to and departures from the world around us. The fantastical elements of this installation, the glowing graphics and bright colors, immediately transports audiences into an extravagant digitally altered environment. This attachment to a dreamspace is advanced by the presence of the pastel palm fronds, which deepen the piece's connection to ideas about paradise and tropical abundance.

However, despite its fanciful qualities, the installation is firmly anchored in the everyday environment. The palm fronds give the piece a physical link to the New Orleans landscape, immersing viewers in a space that is literal as well as imaginary. Additionally, my installation is intended to deepen audiences' connection to the grounds of the Aquarium Gallery. The yard there is unbelievably sprawling and wild. My piece creates a pathway for viewers to interact with this special space.

December 2020: Jessica Bizer - Week 2

I've been working on an installation in the backyard of the Aquarium Gallery, the space where I have my studio. The piece is centered around palm fronds that I spray painted pastel colors. I enjoy the way it looks now, but it is intended to be a surface for projections. I think its just about ready for this next step.

Meanwhile, I've been messing with my work-in-progress photos of the piece, both on my computer and on my phone. This process functions like sketching for me, and its part of my practice whether I'm working on a painting, installation or video. When I play with an image in digital space, I get to instantly see expanded possibilities for my materials.

I especially benefit from technological happy accidents. I create conditions for these moments by purposefully "getting in over my head" in photo/ video editing software effects. Its a surprisingly forgiving space (as long as I back up my files).

Progress pics:

Digital sketches made from progress pics:

December 2020: Jessica Bizer - Week 1

I am interested in finding a sense of discovery within the overstimulating energy of the contemporary digital landscape, an infinitely layered space full of diverging and often contradictory narratives.

My work connects with this unique environment by radiating feelings of fluidity, absurdity and transformation. I use surprising interactions of color and disparate source material to channel the collision of the virtual and actual, and the fantastical and utilitarian. Ordered by the seamlessness of digital aesthetics, the resulting drama in my work communicates a feeling of playful disorientation and expansive possibility.

I create work centered on multi-media painting and immersive video installations. I live in New Orleans, where I am a founding member of the Good Children Gallery, an artist-run space. My recent work includes several collaborative projects with musicians including Quintron and Eve Maret, as well as designs for Adidas and the fashion label Altar. In October I worked with Reality Breaker, a mobile puppet van performance created by Milagros and Poncili Creación. My recent exhibitions include solo shows at the Good Children Gallery in New Orleans, and group shows at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Atlanta Contemporary, Satellite Art Fair in Miami and at Secret Project Robot in Brooklyn. My work has appeared in Nylon Magazine, Hyperallergic, and on National Public Radio's Studio 360. I have paintings in the collection of the Bennetton Corporation and the New Orleans Museum of Art. I am originally from St. Petersburg, FL and am a 2009 graduate of the University of New Orleans MFA program.

November 2020: Natori Green - Week 4

The holidays are such a good time to reflect on life, family and art for me. This year was so different from any other year where I would usually gather with family. This year for me has really strengthened bonds and released others that needed to be let go.

I have had a distraction this week in the form of being ill. I have felt uncomfortable all week which has been surprisingly refreshing in a sense that I had to slow down and collect my thoughts about things. I could only focus on what I could handle at each moment. I have really pushed myself this week to get stuff down despite my not feeling well. It has given me a need to commit to joy and be okay with imperfections. It can be so easy to have a setback, think everything is ruined and just give up. However looking at the bigger picture, not just the obstacles in front of me has been helpful.

The week really flew by. I focused on fashion illustration this week. Fashion will be used to expand my artistic practice into textile fabrics and garment making. I have a small stock pile of cold weather fabrics at home right now that I am going to sew. Combining sewing and painting is so wonderful to me. I recently thought about how it is my next progression in 3 dimension art. I am into creating wearable but unique fashion. Ever since I was little I was always into fashion and garment construction. It's great taking a yard or two or three of fabric to make modest fashion. Plants have also been a big inspiration and task for me this week. I have a growing collection of plants that Mother Nature has been generously getting water to this week. I usually do not have plants for long but lately my plants have been thriving.

Thanks for allowing me to share the past four weeks of my life. It has been great!

--

Natori Green www.natorigreen.com

November 2020: Natori Green - Week 3

This week has flown by quickly and I have so much to be thankful for as Thanksgiving approaches. I really enjoyed this week of just slowing down and appreciating my surroundings. A candid look at my studio space this week goes as followed: collages, sewing patterns, fabrics, and cuts of inspirational designs.

I would say the most interesting art project I did this week was make a collage. My collage features images of Children, parents, Black Lives Matter Imagery, and COVID-19 Face masks. The collage features playful vibrant issues but represents tough issues such as what is the place of parents in today’s society especially during COVID-19 when you are juggling multiple responsibilities at once. I think as an artist , it is especially important to not give into societal expectations of keeping art and parenting separate. A majority of my art is inspired by the way I push to be myself on being an unapologetic mom. I think often this month about a situation I witnessed in October where a mom was giving a presentation with her child in tow. The child was not having the best time at that moment of her giving her speech but she tried to push on. A person attending the presentation was not the most supportive of the mom in that time. This was disheartening to me because it was a female attendee not being support of another female trying to use her voice to speak about an subject important to her. It just made me think how I want to truly be an unapologetic mom who encourages other moms to involve their children in things and to make it a norm not an oddity. My case it means attending VIRTUAL events and enjoying the in person time I get to cherish with my daughter as this precedented year gets closer to an end. I can’t believe less then 7 weeks left this year.

FYI: I sewed the top I am wearing in this picture on Friday, it took me about 3 hours which is the shortest time so far I have made a garment. It was a blast to make.

November 2020: Natori Green - Week 2

This week has been a world wind of emotions with the election of a new president and life in general right now with a global pandemic. Images, diversity and culture shape our world. Artists have a major role in society as the culture bearers.

I attended an undoing racism workshop and the NOLA 2020 neighborhood summit. Both virtual events gave me deeper insight into what it really means to engage with my community with a better understanding of policies and compassion. Exploring the issues of race, affordable housing and what it means to be apart of a community at large was a great experience for me this week. I felt so in tune with my community and it was inspiring. I also visited a memorial site for people killed by police which was very sobering at Cabrini Bridge in New Orleans.

With The closing of my group show “Sisters’ Solidarity” in early October. My artistic focus this month has been the fiber arts. I have been working sewing garments. Time management is important when you are creating an garment as it can be time consuming. Learning how to sew has given me a greater appreciation for clothing and broaden my horizon in terms of designers I admire.

The turtleneck I created is pretty simple in shape but had challenging parts such as sewing the sleeves on. The fabric I used is thrifted. I was fascinated by its neon green color and will challenge myself to add some sort of embellishment to the top to get out of my comfort zone of simple aesthetics. I am excited to see how the next week unfolds for me.

November 2020: Natori Green

November is here and we couldn’t be more excited to delve into the studio of artist Natori Green!

Bio: New Orleans based visual artist, Natori Green has a passionate interest in Painting, Illustration, and Graphic Design. She highlights the beauty and struggles of unappreciated minority groups through a variety of mediums in her work. Her practice includes reflective contemporary art that explores race and women's issues. She is a member of the Second Story Gallery inside of the New Orleans Healing Center and also attends the Material Institute where she is learning the art of Fashion Design. Since the pandemic shut down in March, Natori has been featured in four group exhibitions and has had to navigate our new normal while continuing to practice her artistic endeavors of painting, sewing and single mom life. This time has been one of great triumphs and challenges. She can be found online at her website www.natorigreen.com

Her most recent exhibition "Sisters' Solidarity" was a group exhibition featuring Amy Bryan, Alma Powell, and Melanie Reupke. Green organized the participation of local wellness organizations Project Peaceful Warrior and New Orleans Family Justice Center Art group Window between Worlds to offer visitors of the space a healing aspect of the exhibit to take with them as they view the artwork on display. The exhibition represented issues such as motherhood, mental health, and the Black Lives Matter Movement. All of these issues are topics Natori is passionate about advocating for in her art and life. Recently, she was a part of the Fall cohort of the City of New Orleans Civic Leadership Academy and well as the City of New Orleans Parent Leadership Training Institute. Drawing from her experience as a single mother, It was important for her to give her daughter a platform for expression as children are never too young to express themselves and be change leaders themselves. Wynter, Natori's daughter, also displayed two abstract paintings in the show. Attached below are some photos from her group exhibition "Sister's Solidarity".

Installation view of Sisters’ Solidarity at Second Story Gallery + Natori Green’s work (left)

Installation view of Natori Green’s work + Winter Diaz work in Sisters’ Solidarity

Installation view of Natori Green’s work in Sisters’ Solidarity

Installation view of Natori Green’s work in Sisters’ Solidarity

Natori Green

Listen to Black Women, 2020

Acrylic Paint and Hygloss sheet on canvas

16 x 20 inches

Wynter Diaz

Untitled #1, 2020

Acrylic Paint on canvas

8 x 8 inches

Wynter Diaz

Untitled #2, 2020

Acrylic Paint on canvas

8 x 8 inches

October 2020: Jodi Hays - Week 4

Jodi Hays (b. 1976, Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas, United States of America) is a painter whose work is partly influenced by a southern/rural vernacular. Her work has been exhibited internationally including at the Wiregrass Museum, Michael Price Contemporary (Boston) and The Brooks Museum (Memphis). In addition to her work as a painter, Jodi was a founding member of COOP curatorial collective.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“A tree is a resilient fighter. 

Likewise poets, single mothers, and teachers.”

- CD Wright

Meridian, 24x18, oil on stretched fabric, 2020, Jodi Hays, To be shown in a project with Zieher Smith, date TBA

My work is rooted in abstraction and informed by landscape. I come from gardeners, teachers, believers, moon-lighting loggers, makers, healers, pharmacists and grocers--back when the kitchen and pharmacy were the same room. In many ways, I see my work as that “same room.” My studio is where ideas conflate, paintings rest and let me take a look at them over time, I read, I write. Thanks to the first month of quarantine (and a January 2020 visit to Eames Case Study House No. 8), I have a patio outside the studio door that greets the (now seldom) visitor.

Stumps and stacked work on paper circles (shown in Outskirts)

My Dad, skidding logs, Amity, Arkansas

Hilton Als’s advice to young writers is true for all of us. “Think before you speak. Read before you think. Do the work. Do not react. Shut up. Don’t react. Read. Do the work. Think. Do the work.” My studio for now is a full twenty-two-pace commute from my home’s back door. Sometimes I walk out the front for a longer walk that stretches around the fig tree, the flowers, my attempts to attract hummingbirds and goldfinch, the rock path, my neighbor’s steps, the janky chainlink and trampoline, some trash.

entering my backyard studio, spring 2020

and patio

Quarantine has furthered an already immersive practice. I am grateful to be an artist, not only for the kind of processing it involves, but for communities around ideas and hope. Though I have loved the “flattened” spaces of virtual fairs, studio visits, artist talks and lectures via online, I miss the shared experience of reckoning with a work of art in my body, in the world, with my community. Als again, “My voice was always there, but I didn’t know what the story was. Or I was afraid of what the story was... And when you grow into your voice and find your voice, there’s your joy.” (Slidell, West Memphis) His is a reminder that my work is my joy, the best long-term commitment.

Text and Script collection (kid writing, hat patch, recipe)

I have a few quaint collections; artist books, Arkansas memorabilia, heirloom plants, textiles and family ephemera. I file through them and see what kind of mark making language is in there, and also in my hand and facture, and seek out connections and habits. If the flourish of a giant and beautiful Ab-Ex paint stroke is permissible, then so is the drag of a red pen through a discreet, left-handed home cook’s scrawl. Though I am sympathetic to Modernism, I am empathetic to letting it all in. As Mary Weatherford says of Eva Hesse, “Content is infinite”. I am learning how this can be, which means I am teaching it as well in a course round at studioELL.org, reminding myself how to be a painter.

Reader (pop. 98), dye on paper and fabric, 48”x48”, 2020

Studio Shelf (spring 2020, with mask)

My next steps is to complete work for Teachable Moments, an exhibition at Stoveworks Museum. The work will combine ideas surrounding teaching, piles, shelves and detritus and a lot of what I have written here at Southern Heat Exchange. All other shows are backed up or cancelled, so I am open to suggestions.

VOTE reminder courtesy of Paul Collins, proof of a Goldfinch obsession courtesy me

Thank you, Catherine, April and the rest for the opportunity to write, to think, to do the work. I really, really, appreciate it. Should you want to follow along with my work and upcoming exhibitions you’ll find me @jodihayspainter or jodihays.com.

October 2020: Jodi Hays - Week 3

Jodi Hays (b. 1976, Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas, United States of America) is a painter whose work is partly influenced by a southern/rural vernacular. Her work has been exhibited internationally including at the Wiregrass Museum, Michael Price Contemporary (Boston) and The Brooks Museum (Memphis). In addition to her work as a painter, Jodi was a founding member of COOP curatorial collective.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

My practice is full bleed. I like to include and expand over the edges of assumed and historic definitions of the discipline of painting. In addition to conventional approaches and materials (stretchers, canvas, linen), I use textiles and found fabrics and materials. They have their own history and emotive content that can complexify.

Both/And, 8”x6”, acrylic on fabric, 2020, Shown at Lab Space NY (private collection)

Sayer, 8”x10”, acrylic on fabric, 2020

The textiles and fabric inclusion has been present in the work for years for the embedded language of the grid and associative content with the home. Kelli Wood recently wrote about a painting for New Art Examiner (“In Tennessee, Art Itself is Protest”)*:

...rectangles of diagrammatic cut canvas and linen painted in blues resemble an upside-down flag with the texture of denim. Hays is a native Arkansan like me, and South of Hope confronts women’s roles in traditional crafting and rural culture through the use of textile and the look of quilted jeans. Hays’ approximately, forever (2020) takes the formal abstraction of collage to its logical end. The grid is both a useful organizing tool and a system of oppression.

South of Hope, 20”x16”, oil, ink and collaged linen on canvas, 2020, Private collection

I work with the grid and the expansive possibilities of painting. Though there are constraints, I like to peek around them. There is a lightness to the burden. Sometimes this move is through painted marks, and sometimes through the use of stripes and bars in textiles (gingham, seer sucker). I take a “sentiminimal” stance on the grid, refreshing it, hashing it, laboring it, letting it lay there.  I like the work to be, as CD Wright says, “vagrant in their identifications.” Regarding the grid (and many systems) I have an unstable allegiance.

Vagrant, 8.25” x 8”, paper, 2020

My daily works on paper** mirror my daily habit of reading. I consider them both to be painting-adjacent, fulfilling and dependable. Sometimes they lead my practice like a finger through a horse’ halter, gently swaying the largest beast through facture, a staple, handwriting, a pattern. It is about a kind of knowledge. And, as Toni Morrison reminds us “Knowledge, however mundane or utilitarian, plays about in linguistic images and forms cultural practice. Responding to culture--clarifying, explicating, valorizing, translating, transforming, criticizing--is what artists everywhere do…”***

* A group show, Breathless at The Red Arrow Gallery (curators Katie Shaw and Ashley Layendecker)A group show, Breathless at The Red Arrow Gallery (curators Katie Shaw and Ashley Layendecker)

** But really, anything goes

*** Writing in the Dark: On Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

October 2020: Jodi Hays - Week 2

Jodi Hays (b. 1976, Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas, United States of America) is a painter whose work is partly influenced by a southern/rural vernacular. Her work has been exhibited internationally including at the Wiregrass Museum, Michael Price Contemporary (Boston) and The Brooks Museum (Memphis). In addition to her work as a painter, Jodi was a founding member of COOP curatorial collective.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Week 2

Flannery O’Connor once said that “Southern identity is not really connected with mocking birds and beaten biscuits and white columns any more than it is with hookworm and bare feet and muddy clay roads.” In a recent Nashville Scene Adia Victoria talks with Kiese Laymon (Heavy) and writes “I see her as thoroughly and completely Southern. And to expect her to be anything other than that (racist) kind of minimizes the potency of white supremacy and its ability to shape hearts and minds.” 

Sunday, 16” x 12”, oil on fabric over panel, 2020, Jodi Hays

Readers and critics are reckoning with Flannery O’Connor (HIlton Als and Paul Elie, among others). I have been working through this too, related to Southern Whiteness, women, religion and racism. In 2016 Trump got 64% of the Deep Southern White Women vote. The reasons have rootedness in fear, faith, land and the persistent Lost Cause Narrative*. Some of the scallop iconography comes from ways to think about a mark, a painted gesture, and a way to stylize it. Lace, domestic textiles, the put-on “frills” of southern femininity, decoration--and the complicity of this design habit are in my thoughts as well. I am thinking about the beaten biscuits and the hookworm, the rice and the diamonds (words from CD Wright, my favorite poet ever and fellow Arkansan).

A girl’s dream, 56” x 70”, dye on calleged paper and cardboard, 2020, Jodi Hays

Beverly Buchanan wrote “I believe the entire world is descendant from shacks,” Some of my material exploration includes textiles, wood and reclaimed materials. This kind of material feels akin to “shack” more than “mansion”, which in my mind, connects to a more rural and careworn aesthetic.

Buchanan, Beverly. Shack Stories, Volume 1.

Found material/wood slats

Yours, 10” diameter, acrylic on fabric, 2020, Jodi Hays

Reckon, 15” x 9”, oil on sized fabric, 2020, Jodi Hays

Collage sketches in studio, 10.2020, Jodi Hays

I placed this Jack Halten Fahnestock Risograph print at my front door, purchased this summer at a fundraiser for The Black School. I have really appreciated their open source reading lists. Get your own and follow and support them, yet another wonderfully important thing to come from the South (and New Orleans). Keep reckoning, get out and VOTE.

* The complicated archetype of the Southern Belle (and its patriarchal counterpart, the Southern Gentleman) inform the South and our contemporary culture through Purity Culture and patriarchy (in Evangelical circles), and monuments/symbols (Daughters of the Confederacy marry all three, land faith and ladies, actually). The Southern Poverty Law Center has a map for all confederate memorials (often funded by church people, leaders in the south).

October 2020: Jodi Hays - Week 1

Jodi Hays (b. 1976, Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas, United States of America) is a painter whose work is partly influenced by a southern/rural vernacular. Her work has been exhibited internationally including at the Wiregrass Museum, Michael Price Contemporary (Boston) and The Brooks Museum (Memphis). In addition to her work as a painter, Jodi was a founding member of COOP curatorial collective.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Beauty and wretchedness seem to need each other (Pema Chondron). Much has been written on this as 2020 rages on. I am grateful for my work, my studio and my garden as all have allowed for some balance, now and always.

In January of this year Art Forum covered my show at Browsing Room Gallery (Nashville, seen here in install shots). Emily Weiner (follow her work!) wrote:

“Hays makes compositions that refer to the landscapes of her past and present by joining together disparate American fringe aesthetics. Across all the works on view, the real sorcery is Hays’s tempering sentimentality with a shrewd formalism—a spell for an open-ended dialogue about materials and memory.”

Thank you Southern Heat Exchange for hosting me and my work! Thanks again for the Critic’s Pick Art Forum. I leave you this week with some images of my first fig, Outskirts image, collage works, a studio shot, a Whitney bathroom selfie (February 2020) and new work.

Stay safe out there and see you next week!

October 2020: Welcome Jodi Hays!

This month we are excited to host painter Jodi Hays as our Resident Artist.

Hays (b. 1976, Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas, United States of America) is a painter whose work is partly influenced by a southern/rural vernacular. Her work has been exhibited internationally including at the Wiregrass Museum, Michael Price Contemporary (Boston) and The Brooks Museum (Memphis). In addition to her work as a painter, Jodi was a founding member of COOP curatorial collective.

She is the recipient of grants from Sustainable Arts Foundation, Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. She is a 2019 Finalist for the Hopper Prize. Her works are included in collections of the J. Crew Company (New York), Nashville International Airport, National Parks of America, Gordon College (MA), the Tennessee State Museum, among others. Residencies include The Cooper Union School of Art and Vermont Studio Center. Her work is documented in six exhibition catalogues, and has been positively reviewed in Art Forum International, the Nashville Scene, Burnaway and Sharon Butler’s Two Coats of Paint. She is represented by Red Arrow Gallery (Tennessee) and Show and Tell (South Carolina).

Tend at Red Arrow Gallery, Nashville, TN

In her words:

“I think about how place and land inform a sense of what is possible, who we are, what we can become, and how we get there. I make work leaning into a gritty subconscious, using remnants like ghosts, considering an inclusive yet complicated path. The work functions like how a folded map relates to a pocket, holding potential to be a locative device, to consider consequences, and ask questions, including and beyond self-reflexivity.

My abstraction is partly influenced by the rural vernacular of the American South. Systems/grids become a scaffold for pictorial inclinations associated with an architecture; awnings, slats, fences, weathered boards and lumber. Textiles and reclaimed material and fabrics, associated with warmth, the body, pattern, domesticity and weave inform the work. Through this core iconography of the grid, stripes and repetition I am making a new world and asking the viewer to believe in it, like camouflage.”

Portrait by Sam Angel (@paperselfs)

Welcome Jodi! Check in each Friday in October for updates from her practice.

September 2020: Rosalie Smith - Week 3

Rosalie Smith (@rosalieglsmith) is a New Orleans based interdisciplinary artist who uses poetry, organic materials, and alternative archival documentation in her installations and 2-dimensional work. Her work pertains to grief, impermanence, and attachment. 

======================================================================================

I recently restarted "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron with a small group of artists, writers, and musicians. We have just begun week three. While the book focuses on artists who are very blocked, which I don't completely identify with in my present form, I am really enjoying the exercises. The book is helping me find independence in the pursuit of joy, and I'm feeling creatively free. I would recommend it to artists at any stage in their career. 

The Way asks that you write three pages of word dump every morning called the "morning pages," which I have done on and off for the past year and a half. I find that the pages give immediate purpose to my day when I am intentional about waking for them. 

I have oddly begun growing mushrooms as part of my newly invigorated creative practice. I have been learning to identify mushrooms since the beginning of quarantine, so learning to grow them has felt like a natural step.

---

I have completed this painting for my upcoming show at The Front. The canvas was water damaged when I acquired it, so I cut off the water damaged section and flipped it to expose the marks. The painting also contains heat transferred scans of bandages from a staff infection, a scan of my Covid Stimulus check, diary pages, and a drawing of the floor plan of the house I had to leave due to Covid.