Formatted as three solo exhibitions, optique, explores the diversity of visual exploration from a lens by Perter Campus, Julia Oldham, and Suzanne Opton.
In his recent digital video work, Campus abstracts imagery from landscapes and interiors into painterly geometric scenes by using sophisticated digital techniques. Two of his latest explorations will be on display.
Julia Oldham’s newest video work is a 4-channel journey into the cosmos. In How To Escape a Black Hole, a wall-sized floating head leads her viewers into a light trance and then toward a black hole at the center of the galaxy. Along the way, her spirit animal Astrolotl creates an environment of relaxation geared toward those who experience ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or a euphoric and tingling experience in the head and back caused by various sensory stimuli). Drawing from YouTube tropes of self-hypnosis, meditation and ASMR videos, Oldham builds an experiential piece that blends internet-based new age and self-help culture with a physics lesson in a virtual planetarium.
Suzanne Opton will be displaying photographs and a video from her series Pharmacy. This body of work was captured at an Ayurvedic hospital and medicine factory in South India.
Peter Campus is a seminal artist in the canons of new media and video art. After receiving a Bachelor of Science in Experimental Psychology from Ohio State University in 1960, he studied at The City College Film Institute and participated in the experimental workshops at Boston’s famous WGBH-TV. In 1976, Campus was awarded the National Endowment for the Art Fellowship. His work has been exhibited extensively with solo shows at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, MI; The Power Plant, Toronto; Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany; Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The High Museum, GA; and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Campus is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, NY; Parrish Art Museum, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Walker Art Center, MN; Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC; and Tate Modern, London.
His pioneering career encompasses a wide range of media, including early video art, photography and digital video. A catalogue raisonné for the artist is forthcoming. He lives and works in New York where he is represented by Cristin Tierney Gallery.
Julia Oldham finds the potential for romance everywhere. She weaves love stories out of the complexities of physics and math, the mating dances of insects, and chance encounters with wild animals in the forest. Casting herself in the role of lover, wanderer and scientist, she creates a mythology of the heart with her videos, drawings and songs.
Oldham was raised by a physicist, an avid gardener and a pack of dogs in rural Maryland, and her childhood was filled with adventures in the woods, bee stings, drawings, and science experiments. Oldham studied art history at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and then received her MFA from the University of Chicago. She spends her time in New York and Oregon.
Oldham’s work has been screened/exhibited at Art in General in New York, NY; MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, NY; PPOW in New York, NY; The Drawing Center in New York, NY; The Bronx Museum of Art in the Bronx, NY; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, IL; Espaço3 in Lisbon, Portugal; the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA; the Dia Foundation at the Hispanic Society in New York, NY; the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC; and Nunnery Gallery in London, UK. Her work has been supported by Artadia, the Fund for Art and Dialogue, New York, NY; Artist in the Marketplace at the Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx, NY; Art in General, New York, NY; the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York, NY; Outpost Artist Resources in Ridgewood, NY; Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, Clermont, KY; the Oregon Arts Comission in Portland, OR; and the City of Chicago Departent of Cultural Affairs, Chicago, IL.
Suzanne Opton is the recipient of a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship. Her soldier portraits, icons of the aftermath of the current wars, have been presented as billboards in eight American cities, and have sparked a passionate debate about issues of art and soldiering. The conversation continues on the blog at SoldiersFace.com
Suzanne’s work lives on the edge between documentary and conceptual. She often asks a simple performance from her subjects as a means of illustrating their circumstances.
Suzanne photographs are included in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, NY; Cleveland Museum, OH; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Library of Congress,D.C.; Musee de l’Eysee, Switzerland; Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX; Nelson-Atkins Museum, MO; and Portland Art Museum, OR. She has received grants from the NEA, NYFA, and Vermont Council on the Arts. Suzanne teaches at the International Center of Photography in New York City.
May 5 – June 4, 2016
First Thursday Opening Reception | May 5, 2016 | 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m.