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Shimmering Details: Lauren Regier

Lauren Regier is one of numerous artists (emerging and established) whose practice and development is tied to Rodman Hall. Unsurprisingly, I first met her there, when we had an enjoyable conversation about Shawn Serfas’ solo exhibition Inland. Her experience also acknowledges the unique educational value of Brock and Rodman: “Like many in the Niagara Region, I was introduced to visual arts through the children’s art classes at Rodman…What started me on a path of art-making was…a first-year art history class I took at Brock University. I was so excited by the notion that art could be a catalyst for change and discussion, not just politically speaking, but socially, culturally and even scientifically.”

Before exploring specifics of Regier’s practice, her most recent works, The Fantasy Fleur series, can be seen here. A selection are also currently on display at Malcolm Gear’s studio / gallery space in Welland. Oyster Mystique or Flower Biscuit betray a certain “scientific” looking, but the sensual metallic surface offers a grounding to the scenes Regier depicts, that stretch from seedling to decay, in this series. Dandelion Meadow has a delicacy that matches its subject, with clean details on shimmering metal.

Lauren’s words are more suitable than mine, here: “For the last ten months I’ve been researching the functions of botany & human/animal anatomy …The Fantasy Fleur series began as a bit of a breakaway from that particular project. Something that seems to run through much of my work is the notion of functionality. My research over the past year has allowed me to consider this idea not only in individual plant specimens, but also their functional role in an ecosystem and even how we as humans perceive some plants as more ‘valuable’ than others.

I approached the [Fleur] project with these ideas in mind…I was drawn to the intricate microstructures that make up the entire specimen, and the transitional evolution that occurs in their life cycle. The only thing that was important for me was that I avoid collecting samples from plants that were “untouched” by their environment.”

A recent exhibition at NAC (Twenty Three Days at Sea) illustrated how residencies – specific locales and time set aside to create / research – can be indispensible to artistic development and production. This is also true for Regier: “…the past year [was spent] developing a body of work…inspired by a residency in March on Malcolm Island, BC. It was a wonderful way to spend the last couple of months, being outdoors all morning and just rediscovering an environment to which I had become so accustomed. There’s also a bit of humour in the works, as I used overly lavish wallpaper names [Marilyn’s Teaparty] to title my own images. It was very refreshing to shift gears and be spontaneous and careless (in my own very controlled fashion).”   

“I’ve always been very interested in the integration between the industrial and natural world, so these images were commercially printed and titled with overly lavish names taken from floral wallpaper samples. Idealized beauty is something we typically see in the final stages of production, but before that point there are rough versions, broken or barely functioning prototypes that are crudely designed. Personally, I find that there’s a strange aura in hurried, makeshift creations so that’s typically the place where I want my work to end.                                                                                                                                              

The images are printed on a highly reflective surface so when the lighting hits the work properly (and when the viewer is standing in the right position) the plants become illuminated. This also breaks the viewer from receiving an “instant payoff” and hopefully entices them to interact with the work. If it’s hanging in a naturally lit room, the lighting will shift throughout the day and the illumination of the images will respond to its changing environment (similar to plants that bloom at specific times of the day).”

When I asked about a favourite artist, or artwork, right now, Regier offered two pieces by the famous installation / sculpture / interventionist / environmental artist Richard Serra, Tilted Arc and Shift. “Both pieces are inserted into vastly different environments and the disruption of these landscapes have very different results. I just find it fascinating that in Shift, the topography of the earth slowly changes with the wall, and in Tilted Arc the sculpture was ultimately rejected and removed (almost like a human body rejecting an organ transplant). Both pieces are bigger than their physical form because they’re interactive, and have changed overtime.” Arc is still a flashpoint for art in the public sphere, and its rough modernist aesthetic both appealed and annoyed.  It’s easy to draw a correlation between the play of environment / construction in Regier’s works and those of Serra, and even a superficial connection in terms of media (burnished industrial surfaces appearing in unexpected ways, or in unexpected tandems).

Regier says her work “usually starts with a question based on some sort of curiosity…like noticing a strange glimmer in a rocky shoreline. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I investigate by unearthing stones in order to find the spark that first caught my eye. When I find the initial answer, it typically only raises more questions. During this process I try to navigate a path of understanding; something that can be challenging because I usually don’t know what I’m actually gravitating towards. So I establish “decisions” in my work. These are pivotal answered questions that direct the evolution of a project. As for the materials that are used, it’s typically the idea that dictates the medium.”

All images are courtesy of the artist, and are part of the Fantasy Fleur series: more images of Lauren’s work can be seen at her site.

Regier’s Fantasy Fleur series was on display in Welland, at Malcolm Gear Studios, in early 2017. 

 

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Amber Lee Williams / “Embracing Randomness”

When I attended the RHIZOME activities at MIWSFPA during the 2016 In the Soil Festival, I strayed from the designated areas, as I often do. I found myself in the studio space where Amber Lee Williams was “inviting participants to pose for a blind contour drawing [for] her interactive exhibit. Each drawing will be done individually and privately but the drawings will be connected through medium and drawing surface.” The rooms had the drawings arranged on the walls, and you sat / stood /acted among them as Amber rendered you in a similar manner.  I was trespassing during “down time” of her performance, but she was gracious enough to answer my questions then, and talked about both process and portraits. Blind contour, for those unfamiliar, is when an artist draws a subject without looking at the paper (often considered a “warm up exercise”, with the intent to loosen the hand and encourage creativity, but like any medium, can be different things in different “hands”).  

When I sat down to talk with Amber again, her work in Devolve: Creation/Movement/Fluidity at Niagara Artist Centre had just opened, in the Dennis Tourbin space. Her encaustic works are lovely in texture and tone and mark a further exploration and refinement of her use of this often difficult medium of wax and pigment.

We talked about her practice – which exists in a threefold manner – and the ideas that have informed her artwork over her artistic career. Her work is likely familiar to you if you live in the STC area, and seeing some of her photographs in a show nearly a year ago makes me pleased to feature Amber Lee Williams as the latest instalment in The Sound’s ongoing local artists series.

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As mentioned, Amber works in three different “areas” of art: encaustic painting, photography (a more recent practice), and the blind contours. These are very different and unique media, with distinctive history and baggage. None is the “favourite”, but wanting to work on them all together or have them influence each other, is an aspect of Williams’ art. But they’re “all different” and Williams says she can’t speak of them as one “entity”. I might posit that her practice is an umbrella and these are all under that arching cover.

A term she used often is “embracing randomness.” Williams spoke of process as “a vessel for the creativity of the act, and sometimes even in the selection of the works, to see what’s worked, and what has not.”

Her works in the NAC embody this: rich encaustic abstraction, the generous application of colour, the use of a blow torch, then repeating the wax and the pigment and the melting and seeing what colours come to the fore. There’s a slim vertical triptych, mostly black, mimicking wood grain or veins that “flow” like pencil marks through the wax. This blackish web “sits” on top of the oranges and off whites: there’s similar depth to others, at NAC, such as two small works on the back wall. Primarily whitish, the small dots and blots of colour in them make these encaustics resemble mould or colourful lichen. Another triptych have wax and colour like icing or fudge, slathered on a form and now cooled and hardened.

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Returning to Williams’ contours, another sentiment that informs her work takes shape: that the process is not so much about control, but about setting up a framework (some rules, a specific technique) to get to the end result.

This returns again to “embracing randomness”: Williams expressed a dislike for very “formal” drawing, with the pressure of intention in a “final result.” With blind contours, if she looked she’d want to make it “perfect”, remove and erase any marks that aren’t “good enough”, with over determination ruining potential creativity. She prefers “taking chances, embracing the questionable nature of the outcome, and the process that defines all” (there’s a similarity to William Griffiths’ ongoing painted process where a work is never truly “finished”).

encaustic8 encaustic10If she’s unhappy with a piece, it’s recycled, or discarded: “fearless creativity. Step up to the edge and take the chance of destroying the piece if there’s a chance you can make it better.”

The break from one process to another fosters continuous work (“encaustic painting day”, as it takes four or five hours, but contours are fast and more social. This was clear with In the Soil, as it became a social performative space, of the drawing with participants and collaborators).

Photography is perhaps the most technically formal of Williams’ work, with f stops / light readings, focal lengths and such. But in creating multiple replicated images, it has an element of experimentation where you can discard or repeat. When asked about her “most significant piece of the past year”, Amber indicated that being introduced to photography as an art form was notable. She’d always enjoyed taking pictures, but with the influence of a class taught by the fine artist Amy Friend (an excellent artist / educator) she’s begun exploring analog, film, lumen prints, pinhole and “hasn’t felt this obsession since discovering encaustic”. It’s a medium that she can see working with for some time. She mentioned  an artist whom she’s interested in right now, Joseph Parra: a young, Baltimore-based photographer who produces CMYK screen prints of photographs printed by hand, or photos that are sanded, cut, braided and that represent more than just the physical identity of the subject. This is similar to what Williams wants to do with her blind contours and photography. She also cited the necessity of it being tactile and that it has that immediate physical connection, both to her and viewers.

If you missed Devolve: Creation/Movement/Fluidity (all the images in this post are from that exhibition), Amber will be exhibiting more photographic works at NAC in November, and more of her work can be seen here.