October 2011
BOSTON, MA: Georgie Friedman
In my current body of work, I consider the psychological and physiological relationships individuals have to various uncontrollable natural forces. To highlight our tenuous interconnections to the various elements, I create environments for viewers by projecting footage onto existing architecture or created sculptural forms in ways that alter the elements’ usual physical or visual properties, scale or impact.
Visually, I aim to have perception and experience be the content of the piece, while reframing our typical viewing relationship to the sky, water or light. Structurally, I want to create spaces for people to navigate. I’m interested in staging interior and exterior elements such that they interrupt our typical perceptions of place or “landscape.” Though every piece has its own specific theme and emphasis, my overarching goal is to create new experiential spaces for viewers to inhabit.
Above the Clouds
a site-specific, four-channel video installation on windows
video: Flight II, Ascent Excerpt, 26 min loop approx. 15’ x 60’ x 20’ (H x W x D) 2011
Using footage from a high-altitude balloon (Flight Series, Flight II), the building becomes a unified space, filled with a rotating, swaying, abstract atmosphere.
Dark Swell
Two-channel video installation
seamless fabric, stainless steel, support wires
video: 15:30 min, looped
overall size (H x W x D): 9’ x 14’ x 12’, 2010
Abstracted video of ocean waves, at various frequencies, is projected onto the large form so it swirls around the viewer, while a pulsating audio-scape courses through the speakers.
Spiraling Water
Three-channel video installation with audio
seamless fabric, stainless steel, support wires
overall size (H x W x D): 8’ 3” x 10’ x 8’, 2009
Ceaseless water from a glacial waterfall is projected horizontally in order to dizzyingly shoot around the viewer on a looming, spiral form. Audio of the pounding water is directed into the center of the spiral, adding an auditory shift as viewers move within the spiral enclosure.
Seas and Skies, Installation Variation I
Single-channel video installation on rectangular structures
22 min, looped (no audio)
size variable, 2008
A video loop of created seascape-composites shows its artificiality as waves heave past their horizon line, clouds are cut off or birds appear from nowhere. The imagery gains volume and distorts around the structures, shifting from concrete to abstract, creating multiple experiences for viewers.
BEIJING, CHINA: Anya Antonovych-Metcalf
Beijing. The city both energized and exhausted me: people, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, buses, subways, more people, rickshaws, food carts, color, fashion, beautiful backlit ads in the subway, art (the good, the bad and the ugly), construction, old temples, new condos, parks (Tuanjiehu!), morning calisthenics, military guards, high speed trains, slow sleepers, vegetable markets, DaDong roast duck, dumplings, propaganda, on the one beautiful rainy day thousands of the most colorful umbrellas I’ve ever seen, and always – always – more people. These collages are a way of working through my confusion in a city of contradictions, contrasts, and happy (or unhappy) coexistences; of trying to understand a place in which economic freedom is rampant, political freedom is compromised, and artistic freedom is uncertain.
NEW YORK, NY: Sara Hubbs
I recently gave up my studio in Brooklyn to make art from home and prepare for the arrival of our first child. I have always considered “place” in my work as I have moved from growing up in the Sonoran desert and the suburban sprawl of Phoenix to dense cities along the East and West Coasts. At eight-months pregnant, my body has changed a lot, and as I experience the movements of my baby, I imagine “place” as something completely different for her. Insulated and contained, the womb only allows her abstractions; muffled sounds, partial lights, and erratic movements. The instinct to care for her in her little world translates into a strong desire to care for my own home, to clean-out and make comfortable, drawing me far from the fast and needy city. Yet, at the same time, I look for ways to maintain my social connections and friendships and for ways to make visible the ties between our child’s life and the place where my husband and I both grew up, and where our families live.
For this project I photographed decaying areas of New York City: paint peeling in the subways, layers of dirt and grime in the streets. I isolated one image from the series and recreated multiple wall hangings out of discarded household items and packing materials. Resembling a human profile, the old towels, t-shirts, and intimates as well as cardboard, stained carpet and joint compound, create a wallpaper-like, decorative pattern. Installed in our bedroom, the meaning and history of this image and of the discarded materials are recontextualized by the interiority and intimacy of the space. A sense of the tangible and the intangible becomes visible and the process of defining who we are and what we see, both concrete and ambiguous, takes shape.
Artist Bios:
Georgie Friedman is currently based in Boston, MA but has lived, worked and exhibited throughout the US. She received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University (’08) and her BA from UCSC (’96). Recent exhibitions include: Ripple Effect, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (2011-12); Above the Clouds (solo), concurrent installation at Carroll & Sons and Anthony Greaney, Boston, MA (’11); The 2010 DeCordova Biennial, Lincoln, MA (’10); The New Landscape, Canal View, NY, NY (’09), among others. She teaches a variety of Video Art and Photography classes at Boston College, SMFA and MassArt.
Anya Antonovych Metcalf grew up in Chicago. She received a B.A. in Literature from McGill University in Montreal, a Post Baccalaureate Certificate in Fine Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and is an MFA candidate in Painting at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Anya has exhibited nationally and internationally. She has worked closely with the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago and the Popop International Center for the Visual Arts in Nassau, Bahamas. She recently returned to the United States from residency with Red Gate in Beijing, China.
Sara Hubbs grew up in Phoenix, AZ and currently lives and works in New York City. She received an MFA from The George Washington University, Washington, DC as a Morris Louis Fellow and a BFA in painting from Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Her multi-media work has been shown in galleries and museums in New York, Arizona, Washington, DC, Delaware, Italy, Abu Dhabi, and Mexico City.