WENDY GIVEN
April 1 – May 7, 2016
Opening Reception, Thursday, January 7, 7 – 10 pm
Conversation with the Artists Saturday, April 2nd, 2PM
Whitespace
Wendy Given and Ryan Pierce present Nocturne, at Whitespace Gallery from April 1st through May 7th, 2016.
In Nocturne, the second exhibition in a series of collaborative two-person shows, the Portland, Oregon based artists present new sculptures, paintings, drawings and photographs drawn from the intersection of their creative visions: the nocturnal, the nonhuman, and the wildness that resides in each of us.
For this exhibition, Given presents vivid, uncanny photographs, drawings and sculptures that resonate in the dark, unstable ground between consciousness and collective memory. Her practice stems from a profound interest guided by the natural world, folklore, myth and magic—magic as a term meant to conjure the notion of the interconnectedness of all life forces. Nature is prescribed as a foundation of verity, power, and mystery in the work—both intelligible and arcane. While Given’s subject matter dwells on primeval belief systems, the resulting work is distinctively contemporary—reflective of modern culture’s mode of assimilating and processing myth.
Pierce exhibits mixed-media sculpture and paintings inspired by his visit to a mask museum in Zacatecas, Mexico. As a continuation of his series Terra Incognita, Pierce looks to the historical parallels between the search for knowledge and the conquest of land and people. In the styles of botanical illustration, surrealism, and folk art, his objects and images evoke the confluence of the Age of Discovery with present and near-future uncertainty about climate change, speaking to a simmering dread that we are desecrating the natural world just as we come to know it.
Nocturne was devised while Given and Pierce spent two weeks camping together as hosts of Signal Fire’s Outpost Residency this past Summer. Given and Pierce both convey an intense yearning to honor and utilize our inherent awareness through their respective visual crafts—to regain unspoken understanding and to be conscientious of the fact that we are all, and always will be (as humans), integral to and dependent on the natural world.
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
Nocturne Installation View
Two-Person Exhibition with Ryan Pierce
Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
April 2016
A. styx, 2016
Death's-head hawkmoth, red silk, antique French casket in acrylic cube
6 x 6 x 6 inches
Corvus, 2014
Taxidermic Carrion Crow, silver, moonstones, quartz crystals, meteorites and dragon vein agates
44 x 19 x 7 inches
Paradis (detail), 2014
Mixed media on paper
30 x 45 inches
Paradis (detail), 2014
Mixed media on paper
30 x 45 inches
Paradis (detail), 2014
Mixed media on paper
30 x 45 inches
Of the Garden: Scindere (Detail), 2014
Wood, iron and deer antler
59 x 24 x 12 inches
Serpens No. 5, 2014
Clay, glass eyes and Northern Flicker feather
2 x 34 x 9 inches
© 2021 WENDY GIVEN. All rights reserved.