January 29 – February 1, 2013
Crossley Gallery, Ringling College of Art + Design
Closing Reception February 1 from 6-9PM
“What We Saw Made Present,” is an exhibition of works by Fine Arts seniors Tracy Keenan, Jazz Leeb, and Blair Whiteford created over the past couple of months. The work is connected by their shared interest in the non-physical properties of objects, artifacts, and figures which are made present in the work.
Tracy Keenan
“I am interested in the nonstop displacement of the object. My work is suspicious of context and its potential to misrepresent the object yet embraces the potential of deterioration, ultimately endorsing the failing surety of physical things in an increasingly immaterial world.”
Jazz Leeb
“My process is one of exploration. Through the amalgamation of symbolic and material values, I want to convey ideas of escape, survival and the internal struggle for constant transformation. Through a combination of literal process, illusory use of light and theatrical presentation, I employ materials, such as reflective space blankets and translucent plastics, that explore the boundary between the transcendental and the tangible. This work stands to be a gateway to discovery in a world where new information and understanding are hidden in plain sight, and critical connections are obscured.”
Blair Whiteford
“I am interested in the way that a body interacts with its surroundings. The images that I create depict bodies and spaces that are constantly being altered by a hypothetical understanding of the space that the figures are experiencing. While creating my recent body of work I have been particularly interested in the space that exists in between non-objective abstraction and representation, allowing the two to transform into one another throughout the paintings.
I begin with the physical, this meaning; all of my pictures are essentially representational. I then assign my personal response to the image, and explore the relationship between the figure, its surroundings, and the resulting levels of abstraction.
I use my personal experiences of people and situations as my primary subject matter. I choose a subject based on how strong my awareness of an event/individual/ object is. I believe that in making a painting of a ʻthingʼ I must first have an extensive awareness of all properties that the subject consists of.
I draw heavily from the idea of ʻthe body without organʼ or rather, the experiential body, in which the body exists in state, between abstraction and representation (we do not see or understand the organs that exist within us, so we to an extent do not fully believe that they exist). In this system of logic, the body can be fragmented, abstracted and pulled apart as an idea, and ignores the biological realities of the human body.”
The exhibition will be on view Tuesday, January 29 through Friday, February 1 with a closing reception on Friday, February 1 from 6 to 9PM.
2698 Bradenton Rd, Sarasota, FL
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