ON VIEW January 17 - 30, 2017
OPENING RECEPTION January 20th 6-9pm
FB RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/154916408617446/
Featuring selected works from Natalie Baxter & Jamie Weir
TRASH TALK, a two person exhibition featuring work from Natalie Baxter (New York) and Jamia Weir (Los Angeles) examines societal baggage through the transformation of debris and negative comments from strangers on the internet.
Baxter pulls text from comments she received in an article published about her work on Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze.com to create quilted banners that depict phrases which question her role as a woman, her sexuality and her sanity. Weir explores consumer culture and female (dis)empowerment by creating fragmented bodies and expressive characters from discarded plastic bags and other waste materials.
Baxter and Weir use traditional fiber art processes taught to them by their foremothers, in very modern and non-traditional ways. Both artists began some of these works while on an artist residency, where the two met in January of 2017.
BIOS
Natalie Baxter (b. 1985, Kentucky) received her MFA from the University of Kentucky in 2012 and her BA in Fine Art from the University of the South in Sewanee, TN in 2007. Her work has been exhibited recently at Mulherin Gallery and Sears-Peyton Gallery in New York, Purdue University, Yale University, Spring/Break art fair, Aa Collections in Vienna, Schaufenster Gallery in Berlin and has been featured in The New York Times, Vice, Hyperallergic, Huffington Post, and The Guardian. Baxter has been an artist in residence at The Wassaic Project, a fellowship recipient at the Vermont Studio Center and a Queens Arts Fund grant recipient. She currently lives and works in New York City.
Jamia Weir (b. 1981, Connecticut) is a multi-disciplinary artist-teacher who often playfully explores the chaos of waste and recyclable materials, both in her own work and with her K-4 artist-students. Jamia received a Masters of Art Education from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2014. Her thesis work about Arts Integration and Eco-Art Education was published in 2016 in the national journal Art Education, in an article entitled “The Way the Light Hits a Web,” consequently quoted in the U.S. Department of Education’s quarterly newsletter. She obtained a Fund For Teachers fellowship to attend The International Center For the Arts in Montecastello di Vibio in Umbria, Italy also in 2016. In January of 2017, Jamia became an artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center, returning to the location of her undergraduate work. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.