I AM NOT A MACHINE - NY CIVA Affliate Show and Auction
Friday, December 12, 2008 – Friday, January 16, 2009
Opening reception for the artists: Friday, December 12, from 6 to 8pm
CIVA is pleased to announce I Am Not a Machine, a group show featuring work by Wayne Adams, Jonathan Cowan, Brent Everett Dickinson, Murray Dwertman, Jay Henderson, Greg King, Ira Lippke, Jimmy Miracle, Lisa Renz, Jenn Romaniszak, and John Silvis.
I Am Not a Machine features work by NY based contemporary artists who profess the Christian faith. With the exception of Wayne Adams, Greg King, Ira Lippke, and John Silvis, this is the first time these artists have been exhibited with CIVA. While the works are not overtly Christian in content, the artists explore their faith through their work. I Am Not a Machine provides a snapshot of how these artists use various media and content in an act of worship, and some works clearly reference and display the artist’s primary focus more than others. Several correlating themes exist: finding the beauty in nature and everyday surroundings, taking time to explore things in new ways, and recontextualizing the familiar and making it familiar again. The moon, the forest, your toy car, a hello kitty glove…
Drawing from the beauty and design of creation, several of the artists explore the relationship between the viewer and nature. Murray Dwertman manipulates the natural world in his video entitled, Sanders Kill Falls, in order to create a powerful visual experience projected at 7 feet by 12 feet. Also using forest imagery, Ira Lippke taps into classic art history by creating an angelic and surrealistic scene. With only a few photos of his childhood, he recreates his upbringing one year at a time by memory. Creating a more ritualistic environment, Jimmy Miracle delicately organizes found materials and natural forms in Ascension. Brent Everett Dickinson simplifies nature for the viewer by creating a diagram of powerful forces through his bold use of color and line.
Focusing on the process and means to create a work is important to the artists. Greg King filmed each day with a Super 8 camera for one year to create Rotating Mirror. The film consists of 12 chapters which correspond to a calendar year. Through photography and memorializing the object, Jenn Romaniszak’s Orphans and Widows series reflects her ongoing practice of documentation; she rescues a forgotten, discarded glove and embellishes it with care. Lisa Renz’s printmaking specialty manifests in Warm embraces for the lonely. She reveals a melancholic charm in the portrayal of a weatherworn water tower, using smoke, watercolor, graphite, pen, and pastel. John Silvis uses obsolescent methods (Polaroid camera) to document miniature toy cars against the skyline, creating the sense that things are not always what they seem.
Several artists continue to push the limit of our perceptions. While Jay Henderson primarily creates complex structures and biomorphic forms through plastic and hot glue sculptures, A Symbol for Sight and Reality: Pattern, Decoration, Modernity and Modular Structures architecturally displays his vision in two dimensions. Wayne Adam’s aluminum foil figure highlights the fragility of humanity and makes light of our complexity. Creating possibly some of the more confrontational works with untraditional materials, Jon Cowan fearlessly uses body imagery to depict his visceral experience with God through his Christian faith, superseding dogma and stereotypical experiences associated with contemporary Christianity.
Christians in the Visual Arts exists to explore and nurture the relationship between the visual arts and the Christian faith. Founded in 1979, CIVA first met to consider the place of the Christian artist in the church and in the world-at-large. The success of this initial gathering led CIVA to establish a vision for activities which are now making an impact in a variety of ways.
Please contact office@civa.org for further information. All works are available at www.civa.org/store/nyad.
MORE NEWS
New Executive Director – Message from the President
New CD from CIVA—Seeing the Savior
CIVA 2008 Leadership Retreat Report
opportunities
Graphic Design and Animation at Dordt College
Graphic Design Position at Wheaton College
Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Photography at Houghton College
Art Faculty Position in Art Ed and Vis Com at Goshen College
Design Faculty Position at Biola University
membership information
Who belongs to CIVA? Fine artists and designers, educators and architects, art historians and art critics, photographers and filmmakers, gallery directors and museum curators, academics and pastors, and friends and patrons of the arts, all from a wide variety of denominational affiliations. With a growing membership based in North America, CIVA sends publications to over 6800 people in more than twenty countries.
FEATURED
Seeing the Savior CD
Give your church or pastor a gift of art this year. CIVA's new CD, Seeing the Savior, is now for sale and has 35 images from the life of Christ that your church can use for projects. The CD comes with suggested children's art projects, adult study questions, an essay on the images by Tricia Pongracz and an insightful essay to help congregations embrace the visual arts, From Looking to Seeing, by James Romaine. Just the right gift to your pastor, Sunday School teacher, or church! The cost for CIVA members is $15 and $20 for nonmembers plus shipping and handling. Contact the CIVA office for more information. Or go to http://www.civa.org/store/cpsscd.html to order online today!
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