{"id":452,"date":"2019-04-05T03:54:38","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T03:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/?p=452"},"modified":"2019-04-05T03:59:43","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T03:59:43","slug":"defining-a-mixed-bag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/2019\/04\/05\/defining-a-mixed-bag\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Your Own Mixed Bag."},"content":{"rendered":"
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By A’Niecia DeFour<\/p>\n

The recent exhibit at the Dedo Maranville Art Gallery at Valdosta State University was intriguing and full of life. The exhibition is titled \u201cMixed Bag: An Assortment of Contemporary Craft\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Max
Max Adrian, The Buddy Community<\/em>, Faux Fur, pleather, leather, spandex, misc. materials, chains, hardware<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u2019s sculptural piece entitled, \u201cThe Buddy Community,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\"Max
Max Adrian, Scrap Alphabet<\/em>, Vinyl, pleather, leather, thread, faux fur, athletic mesh, chains, hardware<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another piece that stood out was Adrian\u2019s, \u201cScrap Alphabet,\u201d 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"Xia
Xia Zhang, Thoroughness of your Seediness<\/span><\/em>, Video<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Xia Zhang was another artist featured in this exhibit. Her video installation, titled \u201cThoroughness of your Seediness,\u201d features a visually satisfying bird\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cMixed Bag: An Assortment of Contemporary Craft.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u201cMixed Bag: An Assortment of Contemporary Craft\u201d which is a perfect description for the show itself. The show consisted of mixed media contemporary crafts by five different artists from … Continue reading Exploring Your Own Mixed Bag.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[87,90,86,24,45,94],"class_list":["post-452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mixed_bag","tag-contemporary-art","tag-max-adrian","tag-mixed-bag","tag-mixed-media","tag-valdosta-state-university","tag-xia-zhang"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":511,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions\/511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}