Going Strong: Kathryn Refi

Did you know the OPP blog has been featuring exceptional, living artists since 2011? We are committed to looking at the full trajectory of each Featured Artist's work, as represented on their websites. As an artist myself, I don't think of individual artworks or projects in a vacuum. I'm more interested in how one work leads to another and what drives artists to keep making. So it's exciting to revisit artists interviewed in the first few years of the blog and find out what's changed and what's stayed the same in their practices. Today's artist is Kathryn Refi (@kathrynrefi).

Finger Flowers, 2019. Hand-cut archival inkjet prints. Overall dimensions variable. Each flower is 17 3/4 x 17 3/4 inches.

OtherPeoplesPixels: What's new in your studio, practice or work since you were interviewed back in 2013?

Kathryn Refi: Probably the single greatest change since 2013 is that I moved from Athens, Georgia to New York City. I've been living in Brooklyn since the summer of 2014. It's hard to know all of the specific ways this shift has affected the changes in the content of my work, but it seems inevitable that it has.

All My Edges (in 2cm Squares, in the Shape of a Circle), 2018. Archival inkjet collage on polyester film. 59 1/2 x 49 3/4 inches.

My work had been centered on images and patterns I experienced in my environment and now it is derived from photographic images of my actual body. Before I was trying to negotiate the way my body was interacting with the outside world, while now the entire visual content of the work is my own physical body. I am very surprised that photographic imagery has become the starting point in my process. I think that some of this has to be the subconscious influence of the work of a couple of important friends I have made here in NYC: Jennifer Grimyser and Kate Stone. I think their beautiful work has crept into my brain, where I am processing it and using it as an ingredient in the cooking up of my own images. 

Untitled, 2019. Cut and woven photographs. 64 1/2 x 19 inches.

All of my work starts with life-size inkjet prints of digital images of parts of or all of my body. I am cutting up and rearranging the prints to create new images of myself, patterns, and wall-sized weavings. It is empowering to be in control of the image of my body and manipulate it however I am compelled to. I am enjoying seeing the way my body mutates into new shapes and images as I reorganize its components. A lot of play and visual discovery is happening in my studio. There is still a systematic approach to all of the work, which is a definite through line to what I was making previously. Repetition of form, with an underlying grid structure, continues to be a motif. 

Untitled, 2019. hand-cut inkjet prints. 57 x 38 inches.

I am excited to continue exploring in my studio. I never would have guessed that I would be making the images that I am now and so can't wait to see what I'll be creating in another seven years.

Some recent pattern studies. 2020. Woven inkjet prints. 12 x 12 inches each.

Going Strong for 7 Years: Libby Barbee

Did you know the OPP blog has been featuring exceptional, living artists since 2011? We are committed to looking at the full trajectory of each Featured Artist's work, as represented on their websites. As an artist myself, I don't think of individual artworks or projects in a vacuum. I'm more interested in how one work leads to another and what drives artists to keep making. So it's exciting to revisit artists interviewed in the first few years of the blog and find out what's changed and what's stayed the same in their practices. Today's artist is Libby Barbee (@libby.barbee).

The Commutation of Distances, 2018. Print on panel. 24" w x 66"-72" h

OtherPeoplesPixels: What's new in your studio, practice or work since you were interviewed back in 2012?

Libby Barbee: Wow! So much is new—and yet, nothing at all. I am still creating work that is broadly centered around the relationship between nature and culture, and often specifically focused on American frontier myth. However, though the themes I’m investigating have stayed the same, my approach to making artwork has changed a lot. Back in 2012, I was doing studio work full-time and most of what I was making was very time intensive. A large part of my practice was focused on intricate collages that took me months in the studio to complete.

The World Finally Gives Way, 2016. Cut paper and collage. 36"h x 48"w

Since then, I have had two babies and a very full second career. Making art is non-negotiable, so my practice has had to adapt and become more flexible. These days, I work a lot faster and in a much more focused manner. I do a lot of work from my computer, which frees me to work a little more nomadically. I have been working with digital prints that I can compose wherever I am, whether that is at the kitchen table while my children are napping or between classes at the University where I am teaching.

Astral America, 2016. Installation (digital prints mounted on plywood, sand, cacti, backpacking gear)

I have been surprised to find that though I have a lot less time to spend in the studio, I have been much more productive and have had a ton of cool opportunities come my way. The last year especially was a whirlwind of art-making. I collaborated with fellow Denver artist Bill Nelson to complete a participatory art piece titled The Sound Mirror Project. The project was really different than anything that I had done before and has left me wanting to do more participatory work.

MLRA 69: Upper Arkansas Valley Rolling Plains, 2018. Cut paper and ink.120"h x 36" w

Over the spring and summer, I worked on a piece commissioned by the Gates Family Foundation that used cut paper and prints to visualize data about the effects of agriculture and grazing on soil ecology. In the process, I was able to spend time working with a USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service Rangeland Specialist, from whom I learned so much about sustainable grazing and agriculture. I am convinced that the sciences urgently need artists to make environmental knowledge understandable and compelling, and to help propel movement towards sustainability. I hope to have more opportunities to work with scientists and ecologists in the near future.

Shapeshifters, 2018. Installation. 22'w x 12'h

I also had the opportunity in the fall to do a large installation at Facebook’s corporate offices in downtown Denver as part of the FB AIR (Facebook Artist in Residence) Program. The piece was installed the same week that my son was born, so things got a little nutty, but it was a really cool project and resulted in work that I am very proud of.

Taming This Most Unruly Nature, 2018. Print on panel. 2' x 2', 3' x 3', and 4' x 4' panels.

In addition to my studio practice, I have the amazing fortune to be able to work with artists in other aspects of my work life. In one corner of my life, I manage grant programs for artists at RedLine Contemporary Art Center in Denver. The Arts in Society program that I run provides $500,000 per year to support cross-sector work in the arts in CO. I have been endlessly inspired by artists who are using their art to make impacts in areas such as health, science and community welfare. In another corner of my life, I teach studio classes at local universities. I love working with young artists, and students are constantly giving me new ideas and fueling my curiosity. 

Going Strong for 7 Years: Andrew Scott Ross

Did you know the OPP blog just turned seven-years-old at the end of August 2018? In honor of our birthday and the artists we feature, we'll be sharing some blasts from the past throughout the year. In this post and throughout 2019, we'll share new work from Featured Artists interviewed in the first year of the blog. Today's artist is Andrew Scott Ross.

Ruins My Image (detail), 2018. Paper copies.

OPP: What's new in your practice, Andrew Scott Ross?

Andrew Scott Ross: I have dedicated the past seven years to the making of an encyclopedic museum—or more specifically a museum Omnia Temporaria—where all things, even the museum itself, is temporary. It’s an institution without a fixed location, and exists only as a collection of works; there are drawings, sculptures, videos, and installations. Many of these pieces mimic a diorama or traditional display of artifacts but are never considered complete. They transform each time they are presented and change in both form and intention.

Century Zoo IX, 2017. Weatherspoon Museum. Mud, paper, charcoal, paint, wood.

A good example is Century Zoo. This installation, produced when OPP first interviewed me in 2011, began with observational sketches within Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Greek and Roman Wing. I returned to the studio with all of these drawings, cut out parts, layered them, and covered them with ink, charcoal, and mud. Over the past seven years, I have exhibited this work eleven times, but have not once returned to the MET’s collection or observed their reproductions, denying myself the opportunity to reorient these representations to reflect the original forms.  

Century Zoo VII (installed at Gallery Protocol), 2016. Mud, Paper, Charcoal, Paint, Wood. Dimensions Variable.

Finally, the drawings of Attica pottery, Kouroi figurines, and marble busts are hardly recognizable, worn down by my studio process. The remaining forms and the way they are displayed in my installations only represent my fantasy of the originals. They are a collection of images corrupted by my imagination and the historical scholarship around this work that first influenced me. This evolving installation now represents my antiquities wing.

Dry Erase, 2017. Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. Styrofoam, Dry Erase Paint, Dry Erase Markers.

In 2014, I started playing with sterile materials found at Office Depot, like rubber bands, sticky notes, and bulletin boards. I wanted to combine these familiar products with distant prehistoric motifs that are beyond the grasp of our traditional systems of visual analysis. These experiments eventually morphed into Dry Erase: a sculptural work made of artificial boulders encased in whiteboard paint. These objects are arranged in formations that resemble Paleolithic rock art sites and are continually affected by the drawings made on their surfaces. I make all additional drawings and erasures on-site in the gallery, so the act of making and unmaking the work relates directly to the exhibition environment.

Ruins My Image (Installation View at the Hunter Museum of American Art), 2018.

I started Ruins My Image last year, and its first variation is currently on display at the Hunter Museum of American Art. This is an expanding group of drawings that originated from a single reproduction of prehistoric San rock art from the Matopo Hills of Zimbabwe. It all started from a small, beautiful, 3000-year-old yellow, ochre painting depicting an injured human. In my studio, it became the sole source of inspiration for the past last year. The results translated into an installation, which functions as a map of citations, a visual bibliography that charts where and why I have distorted the original prehistoric representation.

Songs (Abstract Cricket Boxes), 2014.

Like the Art Institute of Chicago, my fictive museum has a Modern Wing. The newest related work is sculptural and each piece doubles as a habitat for living animals. I created two Plexiglas geometric sculptures that act as aquariums for cold-water fish in 2012, and later, I made a series of sculptures that house crickets—you can hear them chirp as soon as you approach the objects.

Read our first interview with Andrew.

Going Strong for 7 Years: Andrea Myers

Did you know the OPP blog just turned seven-years-old at the end of August 2018? In honor of our birthday and the artists we feature, we'll be sharing some blasts from the past throughout the year. In this post and throughout 2019, we'll share new work from Featured Artists interviewed in the first year of the blog. Today's artist is Andrea Myers.

What's new in your practice, Andrea Myers?

Andrea Myers: Looking back over almost a decade of my work, which sounds crazy to say, I have been busy with artist residencies, exhibitions, curating and teaching. I find as a continue to work in the artistic field, everything is a domino effect and is symbiotic. Opportunities grow from one experience to the next; the works I have been making are born from one another. Scale, scope and technique are things I intentionally or subconsciously push at in my work; I’m always seeking the next direction in my work. 

BurstBoom, 2015. Machine sewn fabric collage. 40 x 55"

I have had moments of collaboration and unique site-specific interventions. My work has been commissioned by public locations, corporate entities and private collectors. I have traveled to places I never thought I would go and also have done residencies where I am immersed in places for long periods of time. My teaching has grown from part time to full time, and as I have been teaching sculpture for almost ten years, I get excited to see how emerging artists are viewing the world through the lens of their making.

GreyzigGrayzag, 2017. Machine sewn fabric collage. 36" x 120"

I continue to learn and make; each new project or residency or teaching moment brings more learning curves and insights into my own creative practice. Through the evolution and change in my practice and myself over the last ten years, I remain engaged in saturated color, materiality explorations and looking to abstraction as a means of expression and visual experience.

Tangled Web, 2011. Detail of machine sewn fabric collage. 38" x 44"

In 2011-2012, I was one of five midwestern artists to receive the Efroymson Contemporary Art Fellowship recipients, which awards $20,000 grants to regional artists. Through this generous grant, I was able to afford more studio space, daycare for my daughter and other living expenses to help supplement my adjunct teaching at the time. The funding allowed me to feel able to take more risks in the works I was making and afforded me focused studio time, all helping to build momentum in my work.

Knotted Knaw, 2013. layered fabric, MDF, latex paint. 24" x 24" x 24"

I had taken some time off pursuing residencies because of having a child in 2010, and I started applying and attending residencies again in 2015. In the fall of 2015, I traveled to Daugavpils, Latvia to participate in the Fortress Man Textile Symposium at the Mark Rothko Art Centre. In the summer of 2016, I was chosen for the Work in Progress residency at the Textile Art Center in New York City. During the month long residency, I recreated a version of my studio space in the front window of the center and held public workshops, creating experimental textile collages.

Switchswatch, 2018. machine sewn fabric collage. 36" x 58"

In the summer of 2018, I was awarded the Dresden Artist Exchange by the Greater Columbus Arts Council, receiving a fully funded two- month residency in Dresden, Germany. I will be returning to Germany in 2019 to participate in a residency at coGalleries in Berlin, Germany. My residency experiences have nourished my studio practice, creating protected and concentrated time to make works and be inspired by new surroundings.

En Plein Air, 2017. Machine sewn fabric collages. 8' x 25'

Two larger recent commissions I have created have been for the Dayton Metro Main Library Branch, consisting of six textile wall-based works, entitled En Plein Air, inspired by Monet’s Waterlilies. In 2018, I was commissioned to make a large-scale immersive textile wall-based installation piece for the corporate offices of Facebook in Chicago. These projects have fueled larger scale works I am planning for the future.  A good amount of the works I make are commissioned, which I also balance with studio pursuits that are self-directed. I feel at this point in my artistic career, I have my chosen visual vocabulary established, and I am further exploring the possibilities within my own constructed language.

Rainbowedbend, 2018. Site specific machine sewn textile collage. Facebook, Chicago.

Currently, I am represented by Hammond Harkins Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, McCormick Gallery in Chicago, IL and GUT Gallery in Dallas, TX with upcoming exhibitions at Galerie Klaus Braun in Stuttgart, Germany, the Columbus Museum of Art and the Textile Museum of Hohenstein-Ernstthal, Germany

Read Andrea's OPP interview from 2010.

Going Strong for 7 Years: Justin Richel

Did you know the OPP blog turns seven-years-old at the end of August? In honor of our upcoming birthday and the artists we feature, we'll be sharing some blasts from the past. In this post and over the next few weeks, we'll share new work from Featured Artists interviewed in the first year of the blog. Today's artist is Justin Richel.

Justin at John Michael Kohler Art Center

OtherPeoplesPixels: What's new in your practice, since your interview in 2010?

Justin Richel: In 2013 I received an Arts/Industry Residency at Kohler Co. through the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which altered the way I would think and make work there after. Since that time I have focused my efforts on a sculptural practice, shifting from painting exclusively to a multidisciplinary practice that allows for both painting and sculpture and the mixing of the two.  

Endless Column (Toast), 2017-18. Urethane plastic, acrylic. 36 x 4 x 4 inches.

A series that I am currently working on is titled Tall Order this seres takes it’s overall aesthetic from early modernism and minimalist idealisms and subverts these with a bit of pop culture, humor and a maximalist approach to detail.

Zips, 2016 - 18. Bass Wood, Gouache, acrylic, sterling silver and 23k gold leaf.

Another series titled Zips takes it’s name from the famous zip paintings by Barnett Newman. An homage to the artist but also to the object that created the paintings. Constructed from carved wood, painted with gouache and gilded with gold, silver and copper leaf, they reference the object-ness of a paint brush yet lack its functionality, resulting in an object that resists definition. It is simultaneously a brush, a sculpture, a painting, a zip, a portrait of the artist and yet none of these things by classical definition.

The Artist, Alone In A Vacuum, Gestating The World Into Being, 2015. Gouache on board. 9 1/8" x 10.25"

In 2015 I received an artist residency on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine. This residency afforded me the necessary time to make a clean break from the paintings that I had been making during the previous 12 years. Monhegan is known for being an art colony among early modernist painters, undoubtedly for it’s rugged coast line, extreme weather and solitude. My paintings now incorporate the stigma and stereotypes surrounding the archetypal permutations of the artist and the creative process. I am particularly interested in portraying the ”shadow” of the artist, which metaphorically represents the darker underlying struggles that exist in the character of “Mankind.” In this work I draw from art history, mythology, pop culture and Jungian psychology. The paintings are composed almost exclusively from borrowed imagery combined and reconfigured to create new narrative structures that build on the past.

Endless Column, 2013. Slip cast vitreous China. 96" x 4 1/2" x 4 1/2"

In 2016, my partner Shannon Rankin and I moved from Maine to New Mexico. Shannon had received a residency from the RAiR Foundation which provided us with a house, studios and stipend for one year. We liked it so much that we decided to stay. 

I currently have some work in a show titled Parallax (A RAiR Connection Exhibition) at the Roswell Museum and Art Center in New Mexico. This three-person show features works by Emi Ozawa,  Maja Ruznic and myself, who are all partners of current or former RAiR grant recipients, and is on view through September 2, 2018. 

Going Strong for 7 Years: Adam Ekberg

Did you know the OPP blog turns seven-years-old at the end of August? In honor of our upcoming birthday and the artists we feature, we'll be sharing some blasts from the past. In this post and over the next few weeks, we'll share new work from Featured Artists interviewed in the first year of the blog. First up: Adam Ekberg!

Lawn Chair Catapult, 2017. Archival pigment print.

What's new in your practice, Adam Ekberg?

My new studio is in an old barn in New Jersey I restored over the last few years. In the barn is a small room with a chair and table near a window that looks out over a wooded area. This is where I go and make drawings of actions that I want to see occur in the world. After I make the sketches, I write notes about how to make a particular action exist at least long enough for me to photograph it. The studio walls are pinned with sketches, which only come down once the final photograph is made- the replacement of the sketch with a small print always feels like a small victory.

Beer Bottles, Banana, Cocktail Umbrellas, Disco Ball and Bic Lighter, 2017. Archival pigment print.

While my working process involves a lot of experimentation, I have become increasingly uncompromising in any deviation between the initial sketch and the final photograph. It is like a completely ridiculous game I have concocted with very specific parameters--you wouldn't believe what is entailed to catapult a lawn chair on the plains of the Midwest!

Roller Skates and Aerosol Containers, 2017. Archival pigment print.

Coming up this fall, I will have images on view in the Maine Center for Contemporary Art Biennial and in the upcoming exhibition Groundings at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. I am also at work on images for a large upcoming solo-exhibition so I am a bit of an art-monk at the moment. Recent solo-exhibitions include those at ClampArt, New York, De Soto Gallery, Los Angeles, Platform Gallery, Seattle and Capsule Gallery, Houston. My work is featured in the upcoming publication The Focal Press Companion to the Constructed Image in Contemporary Photography, and my monograph, The Life of Small Things, was published in late 2015.

Candles, Mirrors and Laser, 2014. Archival pigment print.

Read Adam's 2010 interview.