Tag: Max Adrian

Exploring Your Own Mixed Bag.

By A’Niecia DeFour

The recent exhibit at the Dedo Maranville Art Gallery at Valdosta State University was intriguing and full of life. The exhibition is titled “Mixed Bag: An Assortment of Contemporary Craft” which is a perfect description for the show itself. The show consisted of mixed media contemporary crafts by five different artists from across the US: Max Adrian, Emily Culver, Elyse-Krista Mische, M. Paige Ward, and Xia Zhang. Each piece in the exhibit dealt with different aspects of personal identity such as sexuality, religion, and culture.

The set-up of the exhibit appeared to be fairly spaced out, as if they did not have enough pieces featured or large enough pieces to fill the space allotted. This could also be partly to blame on the arrangement as well. Each piece demanded to be observed by the viewer so much that each created a space of their own. Each piece takes the viewer into an individual space because of the amount of energy that radiates from the works.

Max Adrian, The Buddy Community, Faux Fur, pleather, leather, spandex, misc. materials, chains, hardware
Max Adrian, The Buddy Community, Faux Fur, pleather, leather, spandex, misc. materials, chains, hardware

The work of Max Adrian was a crowd favorite in the exhibit. His work features pleather, fur, chains, and spandex, which gives his work a sexual energy. Adrian’s sculptural piece entitled, “The Buddy Community,” can be interpreted as a representation of the sexual community behind BDSM. This soft sculptural collection features 12 plush, animal-like figurines. Each figure is clothed in furs and leathers and black and pink are continuously used to add unity among each form. Flashes of electric blue, red, and neon yellow on other forms add life to this piece. Some forms have animal ears and tails while others are missing these features. Each form does have two small holes in its head, where a nose would usually be placed. Coming out of some of these nostril-like holes are chains hooked to a ring which resembles a septum piercing. Adrian created these forms without faces, giving the viewer the opportunity to project themselves onto these forms and explore their own sexual identity.

Max Adrian, Scrap Alphabet, Vinyl, pleather, leather, thread, faux fur, athletic mesh, chains, hardware
Max Adrian, Scrap Alphabet, Vinyl, pleather, leather, thread, faux fur, athletic mesh, chains, hardware

Another piece that stood out was Adrian’s, “Scrap Alphabet,” wall piece. This piece has scraps of pleather, thread, faux fur, and athletic mesh pressed between clear, square vinyl. There are twelve sets of ten vinyl squares linked together by a single ring on each end in vertical and even rows. Adrian created 120 individual compositions out of these scraps of fabric and unified them using a limited color palette of red, pink, black, white and yellow. Adrian placed the yellow scraps of fabric through the piece, allowing the viewer’s eyes to move throughout the artwork. Each individual composition has a different personality and mood. One of the compositions features yellow scraps radiating out of a black square center, resembling a cheery sunflower or sun. Another square has black and pink string tangled inside of it, evoking chaos. Overall, this piece forces the viewer to form their own meanings and emotions based on the scrap compositions floating within each square.

Xia Zhang, Thoroughness of your Seediness, Video
Xia Zhang, Thoroughness of your Seediness, Video

Xia Zhang was another artist featured in this exhibit. Her video installation, titled “Thoroughness of your Seediness,” features a visually satisfying bird’s eye view of the artist cutting up a pomegranate and stitching it back together with black thread. There are red juices bleeding from this fruit and seeds pop out of it as she slices it into thin layers. This video seems to be a symbol of heartbreak and healing. Zhang is shown threading the needle and tying the knot in preparation to put her heart, the pomegranate, back together. This video is long enough for some viewers to grow bored or impatient. This can be also seen as a symbol of an individual taking their time to heal their heart regardless of feeling rushed by others. Healing has no time limit.

The feature that made this exhibit the most enjoyable was the playful exploration of mediums. Throughout each piece, there were various mediums seen in crafts such as fabrics and stitching and each artist used them to create piece that explore emotions and self-identity. This exhibit relates both to the artist and the viewer giving the opportunity to explore their own sense of identity and truly gives definition to the exhibit title “Mixed Bag: An Assortment of Contemporary Craft.”

A’Niecia De Four is an Art Education major at Valdosta State University. She is originally from Dallas, Texas but has spent most of her life living in Georgia. She enjoys creates work based around womanism and the objectification of the female form.

More Than Meets the Eye

By Arin Guyette

 

Valdosta State University’s Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery has recently brought in a new show: Mixed Bag: An Assortment of Contemporary Craft. This exhibition is composed of five artists (Max Adrian, Emily Culver, Elyse-Krista Mische, M. Paide Ward, and Xia Zhang) who bring together different perspectives of contemporary art from across the country. Artists today often explore the concepts of sexuality, gender, religion, race, and death and this exhibition brings those challenges to the public of Valdosta, Georgia.

After walking in through the front, you’ll find the gallery to your left behind two glass doors. The overall space is small, and if you’re not paying attention, you may just bump into Mische’s piece The Great Divide. A white, pyramid-like shape with human silhouettes across from one another. One laying down and the other rising upwards, likely calling back to religion- specifically Christianity (as there is a cross at the top of the piece).

Zhang’s work Thoroughness in Your Seediness is in a dark corner with the identification card moved to a completely different spot. It’s a bit disorienting. Thoroughness in Your Seediness is a video of someone cutting up a pomegranate and sewing the pieces back together. The crunch of the knife against the fruit is a little unsettling and the lack of any outside noise makes it border on ASMR (or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response). Though most ASMR videos are meant to relax the viewer, certain sounds may trigger an unpleasant chill or irritation of the ears. I’m not sure what to make of this work, however, I feel a deeper meaning present by the choice of medium. I found myself asking a friend what they made of it and they said, “Maybe it’s about control and reconstruction”. The fact this person chooses to cut up the fruit but sews it back together in their own way can symbolize the willful destruction of something to bring it back more personalized than before. In relation to Zhang’s statements about race and genders in their art, I can’t say that this piece’s message is clear.

One of the 8 frames from Zhang's Madame X. The focus is on a Chinese woman who says "I feel something in heart."
Xia Zhang, “Madame X”, February 25, 2019, Porcelain, cotton, gold thread, wood, wire, glaze

Contrasting with Thoroughness in Your Seediness, along the first wall to the left is Zhang’s Madame X. The set of 8 frames is evenly spaced and well lit. The small subtitles for each image insist that you get up close and move with the piece. Zhang’s focus here is on race and gender, which becomes evident through the text. The fourth image (from left to right) shows a man grabbing a woman by her arm and saying, “You come to my room, then there won’t be any trouble.” In five, six, and seven we notice the Chinese women using bad English, which contrasts with all the men’s lines and enforces the foreign dialect. Created with porcelain, cotton, gold thread, wood, wire, and glaze, each image appears as a sleek, yellow box that juts out from the wall. Each box is somewhat crooked with dents and bends as if it was crafted quickly or half-hearted. However, the glaze on each frame shows Zhang’s solidified dedication to their shape. The subtitles are emphasized with the gold thread while the images appear printed on standard copy paper.

Ward's "How Firm a Foundation IV". It is a curved wood casing sitting on top of a concrete pillow.
M. Paige Ward, “How Firm a Foundation IV”, Cast concrete, cedar, found wood, copper plated nails

Most of the work off the wall belongs to Ward and their How Firm a Foundation series. Created from cast concrete, cedar, found wood, and copper nails, Ward plays with the word “firm” by casting the pillows with concrete. Nestled above each of the concrete casts are curved wood panels, lined with thin strips of wood and held together by the copper nails. Ward creates the illusion of the wood’s weight through the realistic curvature and bends in her cast pillows. With each piece, the size of the pillow, height, and type of the wood change, but everything else remains the same. The concrete pillows represent Ward’s longing for stability and the curved wood may very well represent the artist or the audience of the world she wishes to stabilize.

Within the space, there are several pedestals positioned around the room and a large tiled artwork on the floor in the far back (Culver’s What She Saw When She Walked In). This setup is a common approach to so the overall feel is lacking and a little creepy. Overall, this show is meant to evoke thought and spur conversation. It is some of the newest works out there so that speaks to the appeal. However, the current setup of the pieces with the odd placement and lackluster lighting choices somewhat detracts from that power.

 

Bio: Arin is a junior Bachelor of Arts major who is studying animation and graphics design at Valdosta State University. They are scheduled to graduate in 2020 and wish to work with television, movies, and gaming.