The CAC Annual Juried Show is the Contemporary Arts Center’s opportunity to expose artists working in contemporary visual arts to a wide audience. This exhibition is a prominent showcase in the Southern Nevada region and highlights the exceptional work of national and international emerging artists in all media.
I just wanted to thank you for your presence in Las Vegas and to affirm that I believe your gallery is an asset to the community. I brought my two children in for a self-guided tour yesterday, and we left most impressed. My eight-year-old daughter, whom I am homeschooling, enjoyed the exhibits and also took great pleasure in speaking with various people in the building. The lessons learned were many, but the discussion that followed was the greatest teacher: that these people she just met, these artists, may or may not be able to make a living at their art, and that has no bearing on the end result. Artists do art out of pure love, and if you have it in you, you need to feed it, and if you don’t, part of you dies. The smell of paint, the din of music played and artists working, all of this was entirely formative. Furthermore, the John Wayne Gacy exhibit stunned me into silence. I translated his story posted at the beginning of the exhibit for my daughter so she understood who
Gacy was, but the effect on me was indescribable. I stood and pondered how a man convicted of such heinous crimes could produce work that is so soft, so human, perhaps even childlike in its subject matter and its execution. The lesson for me was again, that I am not capable of judging people for the face that I see, and I was reminded again that the artist within reflects much of that which we cannot see from the outside. Again, I thank you.
Las Vegas Parton
Yes, the CAC is leasing the Gallery space back to Myles management for the exhibiting of the Gacy works. Yes, the CAC will be accepting proceeds as a donation if there are any. The Board decided to go forward with this PRIMARILY because we believe the show will raise important questions and discussions about the nature of art, AND IT HAS. AND IT WILL CONTINUE TO. This is part of our mission, to educate the public and create discussion about art. This has happened as evidenced here in this discussion and in many others.
Here’s the “GOOD” that is coming out of CAC leasing the space for the exhibition and accepting part of the proceeds from the sale of Gacys paintings:simply put, it will help us pay our bills….the CAC is a non profit, run primarily by volunteers, every month we are struggling to keep our doors open and bills paid. Our board members and volunteers spend many hours every week working for FREE to help keep CAC open. If anyone out there would like to raise some funds on an ongoing basis for CAC, please step forward, we need your help, not just now but ongoing.
No non profit is in a position to refuse funds, ever, but especially in these economic times. If some non profit is going to receive the proceeds, why shouldn’t it be CAC…we’re the ones taking the heat for allowing the works to be displayed in our space.
Anne Mulford CAC Board President
Best of Show
Philip Denker – “X”, pen & pencil on paper & matboard (24”x31”)
Artist Statement: My recent work is an attempt to resolve fundamental questions of design, form and function, while staying within subjective parameters that I set for myself. My investigation process is focused around the idea of creating a stylized representation of organic structures through patterns and configurations. The geometric patterns are not necessarily a specific mathematical formula, they evolve throughout each piece, and each piece becomes a springboard for the next.
1st Prize
Kim Fink – “The Weight Of”, digital serigraph (30”x120”x8”)
Artist Statement: Since arriving in the remote Northern Plains ten years ago, I learned to embrace the remoteness of the Dakotas, consciously focusing on the idea of conjoining an interpretation of my external world with that of my local experiences – reflecting place and emphasizing recording my personal life experiences. It is my goal to create a fusion of cultural realities that explore objective verses subjective visions and develop a synthesis between image and meaning.
2nd Prize
Matthew Couper – “Trickle Down Theory”, oil on canvas (58”x46”)
Artist Statement: Matthew Couper was born in New Zealand and recently immigrated to the USA, his practice over the past decade has appropriated western art history periods such as the Trecento, Quattrocento, and the Baroque. Couper uses the established narrative traditions of Spanish Colonial / Mexican retablos and exvotos to discuss the space between myth, religion and art politics. He recently stated that “like any good Johnny Cash, Nick Cave or Pixies song, you’ve got to have sex, death and religion fueling the fire” – ShareMag, Portugal (Spring Edition, 2011)
3rd Prize
Suzan Shutan – “Bird Myth”, wire & pom-poms (72”x64”x17”)
Artist Statement: I use found and manufactured materials because they can comment upon accumulation of cultural debris and become their own subjective universes as they build form into patterns of communicative behavior of life processes. When introduced to Algorithms, I began formulating my own systems of mapping, both fictitious and natural, using movement (traveling spores, pheromones, birds, ants, commuters, migration and habitation). My structures multiply into sweeping patterns that spatially interact with architecture and often invite touch to activate the work. I use color as an emptive quality, the joie de vive of life. It also represents my growing up in a household where lime green and carrot orange were our pulsating carpet colors.
Honorable Mention
Christine Pinney Karkow – “Landscape 10 (night)”, ultrachrome inkjet print, 30”x45”
Artist Statement: These images depict the ubiquitous landscapes of everywhere and at the same time of nowhere. The subjects are buildings and spaces that are unremarkable, perhaps not even worthy of being captured in an image. But maybe they are. Maybe in the midst of these mass produced, bland, repetitive spaces that have been created for the generation of profit there can still be some type of poetic essence, there may still be a unique narrative that could take place. But that is an open question and one that the production of these images is still searching to answer.
Honorable Mention
Joshua Levin, Ph.D. – “Budache”, mixed media assemblage, (35”x19”x19”)
Artist Statement: I conduct ritualized visual experiments that transform mundane objects and images of everyday life into portals of sacred awareness and insight. The recycled bits of cultural refuse that are woven throughout my work represent a direct encounter with the excesses of modern living. They are physical expressions of our anxieties, specifically consumption as a response to insecurity and desire. Paradoxically, this cultural debris also contains symbolic reference to our values and our diversity, as well as the stories we tell about who we are and why we are here. With each experiment, I engage these themes and contradictions, fashioning trash into visionary objects that synthesize, amuse, inspire, provoke and renew
