About
I live and work in Reno, Nevada.
I am a figurative artist focusing entirely on the portrait, the pencil, and the public.
My work is about people, and my subjects are all people I know; friends, family and fellow artists and collaborators. The portraits are an interpretive and historical record of my life and my relationships. Additionally humor plays a very important roll in my work, and my portraits almost always contain some sort of visual joke, prop or oddity. In the art word humor is often overlooked and considered unsophisticated and crass. However I believe it is a powerful way of immediately connecting with your audience, of making an impression, inciting a reaction, whether a chuckle, a query, or a smile. My appreciation of humor bolsters my interest in the populous, and the low brow, with work that seems to be on the cusp of something, a line between farce and representation, technical mastery and playfulness.
I reinforce this back and forth with my choice of materials, namely colored pencils and craft paper. The parts of art history that have always interested me the most; the painting, craft, and tradition, when painted about come off as pretentious pastiche, simple mimicry. I realized that in order to talk about art in any sort self-satisfying way, I had to forgo the use of paint for humility, and a quite cheapness. This led me to the colored pencils and craft paper. The pencils are as prosaic and affordable as art materials get, and I take advantage of the craft paper’s certain and specific identity within art. It is seen as being cheap, impermanent, immature, solely the stuff of rough drafts, and finger-painting. However when used as the base for advanced technical skills, obsessive details, and careful composition it creates a rift. I am particularly interested in this incongruity, as it hints once again at a synthesis of styles, the academic realistic figuration with the cheap materiality of the low brow, and the psychological relevance of surrealism.
This is where the public comes in, not only as subject of the work but as home to the work as well. It is work of people and for people, costing pennies to make, yet weeks to create; it comes from my adoration of a vocabulary steeped in permanence, a vocabulary that I feel unable to access. Therefore I embrace and highlight paper’s threat of eventual disintegration by wheat pasting my work directly onto the street. By doing so I attempt to sidestep the gallery-centric elitism of the art world, by forcing an audience, and not asking permission or acceptance. The portraits in a sense are returned to where they came from: the people.
Education
2007-2010
Parsons School of Design. BFA program
High Honors
Deans List, accumulative GPA 3.93
2001- 2003
Hampshire College. BA program
Concentration in fine arts
Exhibitions
2012
“Living Walls Atlanta: Female Street Artists,” The Goatfarm, 1200 Foster Street Northwest Atlanta, GA 30318
“Wild At Heart: Keep Wildlife In The Wild,” Thinkspace Gallery, 6009 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232
“Picks of the harvest,” Thinkspace Gallery, 6009 Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232
“We look good on paper,” Sheppard Gallery, University of Reno
2011
“Fountain Art Fair- Art Basel,” Marketplace Gallery, Miami, FL
“Two: Xyandz Gallery’s 2-year anniversary exhibit”, XyandZ Gallery, 3258 Minnehaha Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55406
“Living Walls Albany,” Marketplace Gallery, 40 Broadway, Suite#23 Albany, NY 12202. In Situ, various pieces
“Living Walls Atlanta,” The Goatfarm, 1200 Foster Street Northwest
Atlanta, GA 30318
“Staches and Spokes,” 5th street, Santa Rosa, CA
“Street Art Saved My Life,” C.A.V.E. Gallery, Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Venice, CA 90291
“Town and Country,” 320 Studios, 320 West 37 St, New York, NY 10018
“Street Dreams: The Dumpster Biennale,” Magazine Gallery, Clubhouse LN, Adelaide, Australia
Single-Fare 2: Please swipe again,” Sloan Fine Art, 128 Rivington St, New York, NY 10002
2010
Wynwood art district, street art fair, Art Basel, In Situ, various pieces
“Single-Fare,” 224 Grand St, #3, Brooklyn, New York, NY 11211
“Crafting Female Power, The Body as the Stage”, curated by CupCakeGoth, Macri Park, 462 Union Ave, Williamsburg Brooklyn, New York, NY 11211
2009
Parsons Open Studios Group Exhibition (November)
“Senior Show,” Parsons Fine Arts Gallery, 25 East 13th St, New York, NY
“Salon,” Parsons Fine Arts Gallery, 25 East 13th St, New York, NY
2008
“Odd Couplings,” Parsons Fine Arts Gallery, 25 East 13th St, New York, NY
2005
“Group Exhibition,” Gallery TK, Main Street, Northampton, MA
Publications
2012
Reno Magazine artist feature by Geralda Miller (to come out in late July)
2011
Juxtapose magazine, http://www.juxtapoz.com/Current/back-talk-a-conversation-with-white-cocoa
Time Out NY, The new street-art class: These seven artists are doing their part to make NYC more beautiful, http://www.timeout.com/newyork/art/the-new-street-art-class?pageNumber=6
Awards
Parsons School of Design Dean scholarship for artistic excellence
Residencies
Living Walls: Albany, August 27- September 30 2011
Living Walls: Atlanta, August 9- 20, 2011
Related Professional Activities
2009-2010
Internship- Internship at Pierogi Gallery. Responsibilities include handling, installing, and documenting original artwork, maintaining digital files, working gallery shifts, and assisting artists.
2009
“100 Carpenters”. A sound art performance and instillation by Douglas Henderson. Responsibilities included performing in the piece, assisting the artist, and aiding in the construction and maintenance of the installation. The Boiler Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY.
2004
Artist’s Assistant for Photographer Katy Martin. Responsibilities included handling artwork, organizing and maintaining flat files, processing images in Photoshop, and making digital prints.
2000-2001
Student Docent Program at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. Responsibilities included leading tours and discussions, curating student exhibitions.
