Announcing “A New Sincerity,” Spring 2021 Installation
We were blessed to celebrate the opening of A New Sincerity, an end-of-year celebration of the talent and hard work of the multi-media arts and media student at the Evergreen State College.
A New Sincerity is on display through July 19th in the Goldberg Building on the corner of 4th and Capitol, this collection of work is a celebration of authentic moments, explored and imagined, remembered and reconsidered. From the artists: Our bodies, our fears, our childhood dreams, our false idols and true loves, all of the moments that make us who we are. It is the result of an extraordinary program for media and visual art students at the Evergreen State College, who invested deeply in each other as people and as artists.”
Featuring the multi-media work of Alithea O’Dell, Chloe Pierson, Donna Michelle Seder, Elisa Brown, Ines Rodriguez, Emma Ritchie, Payton Reid, Sally Traxler-Lavengood, Landon Jones and Jessie Knorr.
Curator: Alithea O’Dell
Media Curator: Sierra Grove
This Storefronts Project was made possible by grants from National Endowment for the Arts and ArtsWA.
Photos of A New Sincerity
Meet the Artist:
Elisa Brown
Project:
UNTITLED
Elisa Brown
Elisa Brown, Untitled
Statement: A common thread throughout my work is a devotion to the human body as an expressive subject. Human forms and faces are inherently communicative and holding them at the core of my visual language allows me to bridge the chasm between artist and audience. This full-scale portrait was an exercise in color theory and proportions, which I created using a set of five chalk pastels on butcher paper.
Bio: Elisa Brown was born in Ann Arbor, MI in 1992 and currently resides in Olympia, WA where she is studying visual arts at the Evergreen State College. Elisa is balancing an in-depth exploration of oil painting and the abject while working as a technical assistant in the campus wood shop. Elisa is primarily a self-taught artist, though she is now taking full advantage of the opportunities afforded to her as a student to expand her practice and gain proficiency in a variety of media. Elisa works with fiber, wood, and 2D media to create pieces with a focus on exploring the construction of identity, a topic on which she fancies herself a podcast savant. Elisa travelled the country extensively in her early 20s, surviving on odd jobs, farm work, and paid medical studies. In 2015 she completed a six-month long thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, and in 2016 she backpacked across Europe before moving to Washington to attend college. She and her partner share a home in Olympia and hope to make their way to a warmer climate after completing their studies.
Meet the Artists:
LANDON JONES & JESSIE KNORR
Project:
SPIRIT REVIVAL
Spirit Revival
Statement:
Revolution starts with your imagination.
Who were you before the world told you who to be?
How do we heal the parts that keep us from dreaming?
Bio: Landon and Jessie are multidisciplinary artists that have been aiding the magical rebellion together since 2009. They both grew up in rural Montana, going against the grain and never adhering to prescribed normality. They were going through seasons of loneliness and self-doubt when they both serendipitously began working for a local green witch (herbalist gardener). Their connection then flourished in mud and sun as they learned the art of growing. Their kindred connection that started as a seed has now grown into a life-long friendship. Together they have made music, birthed the Free Spirit Zine, danced on parking garage rooftops, and celebrated imagination through craft and installation.
Jessie Blurb: Jessie Knorr is an artist working across disciplines to explore ways of healing and building community through art. A common theme in her work is creating spaces where art and craft come together in conversation. She has recently been working on publishing the second edition of the Free Spirit Zine. This zine circulates hidden creativity and showcases over thirty artists from different backgrounds. Her collaborative installation, Spirit Revival, will be on display through July 19th.
Landon Blurb: Landon Jones is a multimedia artist, poet, and musician who plays across mediums in hopes of creating joy and healing growth. He believes art is for everyone and that it can help heal us all. He describes himself as a “thrifty scavenger” and prefers creating art with non-precious or recycled materials. Some of Landon's biggest influences are nature, collaboration, children, and the child inside his heart.
Meet the Artist:
DONA MICHELLE SEDER
Project:
NEMACOLIN
Dona Michelle Seder
Nemacolin
Statement: Active research in the current happenings of reality television, specifically the Bachelor franchise, conducts my latest work. Bachelor Nation is my muse. After viewing The Bachelor and all of its spin-offs for 10 years, I have begun to see reality television in a different way. I now watch with a critical eye not only from a cultural perspective, but also from a statistical one.
Bachelor Nation is a reflection of mainstream American culture, and this has never been more apparent than it is right now. Not only am I drawing parallels to our quarantine bubble and the extreme isolation the contestants endure each season, but I am also studying the ways systemic racism has endured and festered within the franchise, only being addressed in a serious way due to George Floyd’s killing last summer - resulting in the first Black bachelor.
Season 25 is especially relevant in our climate of holding people in power (white men) accountable. The host of the show since 2002, Chris Harrison, recently made racist comments and defended a contestant’s racist past in an interview with the franchise’s first Black bachelorette Rachel Lindsey setting a whirlwind of support for BIPOC contestants from past contestants and forcing ABC to possibly replace Chris Harrison.
Playfully highlighting the fantasy of reality TV, I depict the on-going season of “The Bachelor” set at Nemacolin Woodland Resort, as a chateau in the clouds. Embracing humor as a strategy, contestants are shrouded in judgement and gossip. I look into Bachelor Nation not only with parody and derision, but also with empathy and compassion for the subjects that are the puppets of a larger narrative.
Bio: Donna Michelle Seder (also known as Shelly) grew up in Swan Valley, MT and lives in Olympia, WA. Shelly balances a career as a graphic designer while pursuing a studio practice in painting and mixed media. In her practice she has used a variety of mediums including drawing, painting, wax and embroidery thread, and plastic beads. Shelly’s current work is informed by the fantasy of reality tv, the issues surrounding it, and the humanizing of featured contestants. This series consists of one oil painting per episode of The Bachelor season 25.
Shelly has been playing pop music for 16 years, going by her alter ego pop star name and persona, Donna. Donna sings for the pop project, XOHNO. XOHNO has released two full length albums and created a handful of music videos.
Her life was upgraded when her daughter, Golden Casio, was born at 2.5 lbs in 2017. This tiny human brought out Shelly’s courage and confidence and has inspired much of her artistic work. She is currently earning her BA at The Evergreen State College, class of 2022.
Meet the Artist:
ALITHEA O’DELL
Project:
HERE IS WHAT I LEFT BEHIND
Alithea O’Dell
Here is What I Left Behind
Statement: This paper sculpture is a narrative relating to failure and success. A personal piece, I utilized my many misprints, test prints, and other “flawed” work created over the last three and a half years of learning various letterpress printing and printmaking processes. 600 tiny failures, stitched together and draped across an expanse, each one a moment of learning, experimentation, progress, and delight.
Bio: Alithea O’Dell is a multidisciplinary artist from Olympia, Washington. She is currently a student at the Evergreen State College, pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts focusing on letterpress printing and printmaking, with an expected graduation date of June 2021. Her work centers on ideas of sentimentality and authenticity, using text and images to create work that fosters community and offers affirmation of shared histories.
Meet the Artist:
Chloe Pierson
Project:
NEW ECONOMY
Chloe Pierson
New Economy
Statement: I am an artist working principally in photo, video and other lens-based media. I specialize in analog photo as well as 16mm film. My practice examines notions of identity, post-modern American idealism, mass media and anxiety, often twisted through a lens of absurdity. I am informed by personal reactions to current events and pressures, as well as the abject art movement and maximalism. However, since I value exploration, I like to branch out and evolve my work regularly.
I often pursue new projects with the goal of learning new styles and art forms, which allows greater specialization and integration of separate media. This leads to a diverse body of work connected thematically.
With my basis being in photography, my sense of composition and light is informed by the photographic approach. I enjoy the challenge of telling a story through a still image. My focus on film photography and experimental techniques aides this, allowing for a wide range of textures and tones depending on the desired feel.
Bio: Chloe Pierson is an Olympia-based artist working in lens-based art, including photography, cinematography, and stop-motion animation. Her work is often focused on dissecting notions of identity, especially lack of identity, and identifying with objects and concepts other than the self. Other topics include mass media, politics and the body, especially commodification of the physical self. These subjects are seen through a lens of playfulness and absurdity, allowing digestion of heavy topics in unassuming and sometimes abject imagery. Chloe is currently finishing her BA with a focus in photography and video art at The Evergreen State College, culminating in her current goal of completing a 16mm capstone music video. She specializes in analog and has worked in film development, custom scanning and other photo services. Chloe will be pursuing a graduate degree in photo, video and related media at the School of Visual Arts beginning Fall 2021.
Chloe Pierson (@flickerfeathers) is a photo, video and related media artist with a focus on body politics, absurdity, American exceptionalism, and finding identity. Her work often combines various formats including installation, analog photography, 16mm film, digital photography, collage, and digital manipulation. New Economy is an examination of commercialism of the body and mind under American capitalism and its transformation in the wake of COVID-19.
Meet the Artist:
Payton Reid
Project:
TOOTHACHE
Payton Reid
Statement: My work focuses on my experience as a woman who has struggled with mental health issues and my relationship with womanhood from my teenage years to adulthood. I have been expressing these concepts in paintings, films, and writing throughout my college career.
Much of my inspiration comes from women in horror films such as Jennifer’s Body where female characters are given control over their fate in a genre where they are typically portrayed as helpless. I am passionate about subverting the male gaze and reclaiming stereotypes that have been demonized or discredited. To me, femininity means unbridled rage, sadness, beauty, and unapologetic healing.
In more recent years, I adopted the pantomime stock character of Pierrot, the sad clown, to become a vessel for these ideas. Exploring the gruesome nature of coming-of-age, the trauma of girlhood, and the intensity of female friendships through my reworking of this character has allowed me to interpret my own experiences in a way that feels authentic to me.
I am currently working on bringing my characters to life through experimental short films.
Bio:
“I heard a woman becomes herself
the first time she speaks
without permission
then, every word out of her mouth
a riot”
Denice Frohman
Payton Reid is a filmmaker and painter currently living in Olympia, Washington. Her work focuses on relationships with womanhood, mental health, and femininity outside of gendered stereotypes and social constructs. To explore these ideas, she often uses the familiar image of a sad clown as these characters are traditionally men who are allowed to express emotions without shame. Payton is currently exploring experimental filmmaking as a way to create a culmination of these ideas. Her short film Toothache will be completed in the spring of 2021. She is studying media at The Evergreen State College where she will complete a Bachelor’s degree.
Blurb for Media: Payton Reid is a multimedia artist focusing on experimental filmmaking and painting.
Her work focuses on relationships with womanhood, mental health, and femininity outside of gendered stereotypes and social constructs. To explore these ideas, she often uses the familiar image of a sad clown as these characters are traditionally men who are allowed to express emotions without shame. Her short film, Toothache, is a culmination of these ideas and will be completed in June 2021.
Meet the Artist:
Ines Rodriguez
Projects:
HOUSE ON THE LEFT, COME CLOSER, STATION 98327, BEWARE OF SHADOWY FIGURES ON AISLE 7
Ines Rodriguez
New Economy
Statement: Anemoia - n. nostalgia for a time you’ve never known.
Growing up as a military child, I knew that being comfortable was temporary. Moving from place to place across the United States challenged my idea of home and belonging; inhabiting completely different cities, communities, and places of being. As a result, I had to evolve, eventually being comfortable with an unknown community.
However, one thing that has not changed is the liminal American suburbia. Copy and paste landscapes connected by cul-de-sacs, roundabouts, and white picket fences. Each space of travel connects to the strangely familiar yet somewhat unknowable ways of feeling. By repeatedly surrounding myself with these vague landscapes, my art explores and wonders at the idea of the strange and uncanny.
I have experienced the dual consciousness and connection of having multiple “homes,” not only in the United States but also my native and ancestral land that is Puerto Rico. Born in the U.S., I have always had the perspective of not fully belonging, due to the cultural disconnect. A territorial land but not a state. A space of inclusion, but not belonging with. It is the liminal spaces of ambiguity and familiarity. Due to this experience and discovery, I feel attached to the strangely familiar as well as the idea of belonging within my art.
Painted on canvas and wooden panels, my artwork tackles those themes, encapsulating the bizarre world of forgotten spaces and nostalgia. Like a portrait, each landscape has their own distinct characters, creating a space with shared emotion and experiences. With this, my process for creative work focuses on color, form, and perspective of which reflects the abject and the surreal nature of said spaces. Throughout my work, I want to challenge the viewer in ways of seeing, asking the question “Have I been there before?” within the unknowable and the strangely familiar landscapes we may inhabit. As we try to find a place of being, where do we belong?
Bio: Working in both painting and multi-media practices like collage and sculpture, artist Ines Rodriguez bonds different mediums creating transformative works of art. By balancing both painting as well as sculpture, Ines combines new and obsolete materials from her environment. Her work discusses the idea of home and belonging in the suburban military climate that is the U.S. With this, her paintings contain said materials in ways of abstraction and surrealism reflecting landscapes of nostalgia and memory. She experiments with saturated colors and unique forms, giving landscapes character whilst encapsulating the bizarre world of forgotten spaces. Born in Fort Hood, TX and now residing in DuPont, WA, Ines is working towards her BA at The Evergreen State College and is developing her own creative process as a visual artist.
Website: https://neonsalsa.carrd.co/
Social media handles:
Insta: @neon_salsa
Twitter: @ines_senia
Tumblr: neonchipz
Blurb for Media: Ines Rodriguez (@neon_salsa) is a multimedia artist working in painting, collage, and digital design. Her current painting series Dreamscape focuses on the bizarre world of liminal spaces, landscapes that are strangely familiar yet somewhat unknowable. She implements saturated and monochromatic tones to create bizarre compositions from memory. Her work is allowing the viewer to subconsciously confront the deep dark spaces within themselves and their memories. Ines works from her home in DuPont, WA.
Meet the Artist:
Sally Traxler-Lavengood
Projects:
SOME THING BLUE
Sally Traxler-Lavengood
Something Blue
Statement: This piece depicts an image from a BLM bicycle march in Chicago's North Shore in the summer of 2020 which was organized as a response to an incident in which a white woman verbally and physically harassed Otis Campbell (pictured) while he and his friends were on a bike ride. The woman, who was later arrested and charged with a hate crime, stopped them at a public beach to insist they “go back to where they came from” because they were not allowed in her neighborhood. The incident escalated and the woman was arrested.
There are infinite ways to personalize our protests and create communities of those that share in our joys and grief. While this incident was resolved justly, it is one of only a handful of examples of the law protecting POC.
The title of this piece is meant to serve as a reminder of the forced marriage our society has had with law enforcement and police since its inception. The rampant history of racial and income based violence reflects the true purpose of law enforcement: maintaining oppression to serve the needs of the wealthy.
Black Lives Matter.
But Blue is only the color of things.
“All your Black friends get judged every day. This happened. Now is the time to stand up against it.”
LUMENS
Statement: Lumen prints are made by placing printed photographs on silver gelatin photographic paper and exposing them to the sun. This piece is based on a series of Lumen prints of old photographs taken at various points in my life. The things and people in our lives that hold the most weight loom the largest in our memory and define who we are. But the unreliability of our memories create skewed perceptions of those experiences. That means that large swaths of our reality are invented or edited by our brains.
A lumen print of a photo taken in my childhood basement was the reference for the blurry central image in this painting. The figures guarding the memory are two of the group members in the central image as they appear today.
Bio: Sally Traxler-Lavengood was born and raised in Chicago, IL and currently lives and works in Olympia, WA where she attends The Evergreen State College for 2D and 3D fine art studies. The interdisciplinary studies offered by Evergreen have allowed her to study all manner of subjects from acupuncture to geology while also strengthening her artistic practices. She has been creating since she can remember thanks to many influential artists who have made sure art remains at the forefront of her life.
Sally’s focus is on oil painting and wood carving but loves working with multiple mediums simultaneously. She thrives amongst chaos and finds that she is most inspired when multitasking on several artistic endeavors at once. She focuses on elevating world-builders: those whose work makes the communal world a better place and those who have helped build her personal world. She uses figurative work and elements of Magical Realism to tell the stories of her subjects.
Most recently, Sally has been spending her time on commissioned based work around Seattle including a public mural, as well as completing her senior capstone project. She also works at the on-campus woodshop and recently finished a residency at the Blue Sky center in New Cuyama, CA. Once graduated, she plans to travel to several artist residency programs, both domestic and international, to broaden her experience with people, places, and art.
@salmakingstuff