The Artists’ Journey
Searle & Reid Hodges Galleries
October 29 – November 23, 2024
Every adventure has a story to share.  The artists in this exhibition have shared complex narratives about locations, events, and people. Many of the artists combined materials in distinct ways in order to encourage viewers to examine their own attachments to specific materials or places. Some artworks reference an exact moment, while others allude to a state of being in an unexpected place. There are compositions that tell a story of celebration and others that memorialize those who have passed on. There are several mysterious and curious narratives that can be found through the placement of objects into surfaces which had a previous purpose and are now part of a new visual experience. The variety of techniques made jurying the work difficult but I was most impressed with those that pushed their selections of particular objects like feathers, texts, and jewelry into exciting combinations. Many of the artists processed the materials to suggest symbolic associations in how they constructed focal points and visual pathways. Visual metaphors have been used throughout the artworks to move colors and textures of objects into formal structures.
Michael Wyshock, Juror
1st Place
Angel In The City, Victoria Kudryavtseva
This piece was selected as first place because of the references to the journey of technology of the human species as well as suggesting hope amongst the threats of industries by the celestial being who is watching over us carefully. Â The balance of architecture and light achieved a complex formal structure that allowed the composition to be examined in multiple ways.
2nd Place
Turbulence, Heather Lalanne
This artwork was selected because of how feathers become marks and also create dynamic fluid strikes in the surface. These elements allow the viewer a place to float and drift from one place to another in this intimate surface, instigating the mind to think about moments of place and transitions.
3rd Place
Collage Of Carol’s Creation, Carol Anne Peteani
This artwork was chosen because of how the surface reflects and moves light and how recognizable objects appear first but through their collected mass the familiarity is lost. The history of where these objects existed before, (such as the watch referencing a time that has passed but is now frozen within these decorative elements) suggests many journeys shared together.
Merit
Comeback, Edward Baldado
This painting deserves recognition because of its scale, energetic colors and textures all contributing to the pose of the figure in a moment of celebration after a lifelong journey of dedication to train, compete and win.
Honorable Mention
Asian Sojurn, Elise Manieri
The mixed media collage was chosen because of how its sections of words, elements of nature, and paint marks merge into new combinations of shapes with other patterns; evolving a poetic shift from reality into a dreamstate where an imaginative journey builds itself.
Honorable Mention
Shelliquary – 2 Relics, Pamela Jones
This sculpture was selected because of how it formats collections of objects into meticulously organized sections within a container; creating a sacred place in which the items can increasingly charge one another to prepare for the journey ahead.
Honorable Mention
More Than Just A Number, Ellen Simon
This fabric artwork has a captivating documentation of sadness but also strength in the unexpected form of a gentle quilt. The strong symbolism of each stitched object related to the occupations of individuals (such as keys, hangars, and stethoscopes) are juxtaposed against the numbers on each arm to remind us to never forget history no matter how difficult the journey may be.
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