Category: News

‘Bear the Sway,’ a solo exhibition of new works on paper from The Lost Colony Project at South Seattle Community College  in Seattle, Washington. January 11 – February 17, 2012 Bear the Sway, a new body of work by Lauren Adams, relates to the artist’s recent investigations into the ‘Lost Colony’ and Elizabethan colonialism.  This series of works on paper is inspired by the watercolors of John White from the 1580’s, which feature native Algonquins and Secotans (located then in present-day North Carolina) performing rituals, planting crops, preparing food, and displaying their clothing, and also the formal portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and the explorers and voyagers (Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, etc.) who formed her colonial advisorship. Bear the Sway is an exploratory series of paintings and drawings on paper and panel that lift, excise, and appropriate the found figures and clothing forms from the historical documents. The result is another facet of The Lost Colony Project, which visually collages the abstracted elements, creating charged absurdities that reflect the legacy of historical inequity in a contemporary visual language. The basic tenet of this project is to resolve an understanding of the historical situations at work, and to interrogate the narratives and images, searching for a clearer display of the colonial power dynamics. Bear the Sway is also about the history of imagery as a site for political displays of power, which the artist utilizes as a directive when making her own imagery and objects. Seeking to transform the ‘given history’ into a new narrative, one that hopefully provides further agency to the appropriated narratives. In the The Lost Colony Project, the artist is exploring the relationship between costume, class, and social power.]]>

By Sea II, a new project by R. Brooke Priddy in collaboration with Lauren Adams for the ‘Out of Fashion’ exhibition at the South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC. Adams designed the pattern for the floating figure, based upon the 19^th century Great Hunt Wallpaper found in the historic Hanes Home at SECCA. The pattern was silk-screened onto spandex in Asheville, NC. November 3, 2011 – March 10, 2012 ]]>

[caption id="attachment_162" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="All My Possessions for a Moment of Time, paint, 2011, 35' x 15'"][/caption] All My Possessions for a Moment of Time revives a portrait painting of Queen Elizabeth I, entitled THE ARMADA PORTRAIT (three original versions from the 1500’s, most notably by George Gower), which documents in an allegorical and symbolic context one of the most well-known stories from the Elizabethan Era.  Nestled within the appropriated lace collar of Queen Elizabeth, the silhouettes of Algonquins (as presented in Theodore de Bry and Thomas Hariots “A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia “, 1588) stretch into another kind of lace-like pattern, forming an all-over impression that reads quite differently to the viewer depending upon their distance from the painting.  Drawing upon strategies of pattern and ornament, and the malleable possibilities of form and shape, this piece is part of an ongoing inquiry in an exploratory series of paintings and drawings that lift, excise, and appropriate the found figures and clothing forms from the historical documents, hopefully creating charged absurdities that reflect the legacy of historical inequity in a contemporary visual language. The title is inspired by a poem written by Queen Elizabeth I. See the video of the live on-air interview with Lauren here: WXII Television Interview [caption id="attachment_165" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Chinoiserie"][/caption] Chinoiserie (Domestic Tableau) explores the latent anti-union attitude in the American South (As of 2003, only 3.1 percent of North Carolina’s workers were members of unions, the lowest representation in the United States), despite the very real and positive influences that labor advocates and unions brought to the working and middle classes in the 20th century. This artwork also celebrates the people (many of whom were women) who were the torches of social justice in textile mills, and tells the other side of the story when exploring the pastoral southern landscape, imagining ‘what could have been’ in America but what also ‘might can be’ in the global social justice movement. Inspired by visual culture of the Great Hunt wallpaper in the historic Hanes Home at SECCA, Chinoiserie (which literally means “Chinese thing”) was popularized concurrently in the West with toile and other exotic figurative patterns. Imagining what these Chinoiserie patterns would look like, infused with American textile worker history, this is a visual reminder of the positive effects that ordinary worker’s protests have had on the landscape of labor, politics, economics, and social equality (and also a reaction to the recent Occupy Wall Street protests). The purpose of Chinoiserie (Domestic Tableau) is to explore the linked histories of American and Asian factory labor, and to question what lessons we have learned as the United States has moved into a post-industrial capitalist economy and Asian countries struggle with the politics of industrial factory labor developments. I am particularly interested in the American attitudes about this shift of production to Asian countries – attitudes that are often ill-informed about the policies of our own government, which is unduly influenced by corporations and capitalist ideologies,to provide increasingly cheaper goods to the American public, despite the resulting vacuum of job opportunities in the United States and it’s effect on the national economic ecosystem. This also plays into American fears (xenophobic, to be truthful) that the rise of the ‘Asian Tiger’ will bring about the collapse of the American empire. It is well-known that human rights violations in Asia are a threat to freedom and justice worldwide. Worker’s protests in China are shut down with a ferocity equaling early labor disputes in the United States. And it’s primarily the cheap labor of Chinese sweatshop workers who fill the shelves of discount stores in the United States (such as the millions of American flags for sale stamped with ‘MADE in CHINA’). As Jiang Xueqin writes in the February 2011 issue of The Diplomat, “Because the American family each ‘owes’ an average of more than $10,000 to China, this co-dependency is a perverse economic situation as well: if either the Chinese migrant worker decides to stop making things or the American consumer decides to stop buying things, then the global economy risks collapsing. The relationship is thus unhappy, tense, and above all unstable.” Chinoiserie (Domestic Tableau) also takes advantage of the desire for manufactured goods promoted within the capitalist system. The aesthetics of the installation participate in the centuries-long craze for exotic items, referencing the exchange of goods and culture in the colonial and post-colonial era. The project also visualizes the co-dependency between the United States and Asia, inextricably linked via global economies yet also vulnerable to one another’s histories. Here’s to hoping we are also united in the possibilities of the future.]]>

Upcoming solo project at Conner Contemporary in Washington, D.C. A *GOGO ART PROJECTS SPECIAL INSTALLATION SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER, 2011 Opening September 10 My recent work has focused on the ‘Lost Colony’ of Elizabethan era colonialism, particularly the formal portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and the explorers and voyagers. The relationship between the costumes, clothing, and material culture of the Elizabethan era to the political and metaphorical outcomes of capitalism and colonialism provide rich artistic fodder in my practice. I am inspired by the watercolors of John White from the 1580’s, which feature native Algonquins and Secotans (located then in present‐day North Carolina) performing rituals, planting crops, preparing food, and displaying their clothing, and also the Elizabethan privateers and colonists (Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, etc.) who formed her colonial advisorship. Within the Elizabethan portraits, by painters such as Nicholas Hilliard and Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, what we see on display is an attentiveness to crafting a public persona, political agenda, and the attendant clues to specific aspects of propaganda in image‐making. The iconography of empire is visible in the globes, crowns, swords and coumns, and also, I would argue, within the patterns of the clothing itself. Contemporary fashion designers such as Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood have mined some of this very material in their recent collections. Plunder, for Conner Contemporary in 2011, utilizes the courtyard space to exhibit several lines of fabric banners inspired by nautical textile forms. The flags feature decorative paintings appropriated from the clothing on Queen Elizabeth I in her many royal portraits. The paintings are made as works on paper, then digitally scanned and commercially printed with weather‐resistant inks onto fabric.  I am interested in how pirate culture was not only the rogue sailors and privateers who plundered other ships for transatlantic trade goods, but also the colonizers who ‘plundered’ North America with the queen’s blessing.  This title is meant to point directly at my critical and artistic view of the colonial era, as evinced in my own plundering of the queen’s decorative patterning.  Acting as subversive pirate flags, the project will come full circle when versions of the flags are installed in a port in Plymouth, England (where many Elizabethan ships set sail) and on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, where the Lost Colony was based. In Plunder, I have already begun to explore the relationship between costume, class, and economic power.]]>

Saturday, September 17, 2011   2-4pm At the Luminary Center for the Arts, a panel discussion on the process and practice of installation art featuring the artists who have shown in the Installation Space in the past year: Lauren Frances Adams, Jill Downen, Lindsay Stouffer, John Early, Ann-Maree Walker, and Brett Williams.]]>

Conversation Pieces September 23, 2011 Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN Eleven artists have been invited to participate in this first ever event as part of the 2011 Conference for Pre-Tenure Women: Lauren Frances Adams, Victoria Bradbury, Alison Carey, Laura Drake, Leah Gauthier, Beate Geissler + Oliver Sann, Maura Jasper, Irena Knezevic,  Min Kim Park, Maura Schaffer, Christine Wuenschel, and Sigrid K. Zahner. Download the catalogue here: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/vpa/etb/events/conversation_pieces.html Curator: Shannon McMullen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Visual and Performing Arts, College of Liberal Arts]]>

http://austudiovisits.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/welcome-lauren-adams/ Lecture and talk show interview on Wednesday, September 21, 2011 Studio Visits is a weekly live lecture and talk show at Alfred University which brings artists and thinkers to the Holmes stage each Wednesday morning at 9 am. First, the guest presents their work in a lecture format and then intermission! When the audience returns, the stage is transformed into a talk show set. The sculpture graduate students (and sometimes others) act as interviewers and bring the guest back to the stage. The interviews use lively games, unusual questions, and surprise call-in guests to give the live audience a new perspective about the artist and their work! Studio Visits is recorded live and the segments are available on this blog and on Vimeo. http://alfredfoundations.com/category/studio-visit-show/ Studio Visits is a project of the Foundation and Sculpture Graduate Programs of the School of Art and Design at Alfred University. It’s headed by professors M. Michelle Illuminato and Brett Hunter. Alfred University is located in Alfred, New York (where it is very cold in the winter).]]>

Frustra, after Whitney’s “Choice of Emblemes” from 1586, are a series of printed vinyl flags documented on Rodanthe near Cape Hatteras in 2011. The site is believed to be where the Lost Colonists migrated to with the Croatoan natives after they left Fort Raleigh in the 1580’s.]]>

Temporary Art Review is a platform for contemporary art criticism that focuses on alternative spaces and critical exchange among disparate locales. Temporary is a national network, highlighting both practical and theoretical discourse through exhibition reviews, interviews, essays and features on artist-run spaces and projects. Founded in 2011 by Sarrita Hunn and James McAnally, with regular contributors Lauren F. Adams, Mairie Heilich, Carol Anne McChrystal, Francesca Wilmott, editor Clara Van Zanten, and regional editor Sasha Delai.]]>

HOUSE COAT is a site-specific installation that will take place in Spring 2011 in St. Louis, MO, and will involve the creation of a fitted spandex garment for a two-story, row-house organized by Cosign Projects and curated and assisted by Lauren Frances Adams. Andrea Carey of LA LA Land is helping Leeza Meksin organize the logistics of this public art installation, while the artist’s sister and filmmaker, Anya Meksin, will be video recording the installation process. The official opening will be on March 18, 2011 @ Cosign Projects. http://www.cosignprojects.net]]>