Last fall UNC grad Carolyn Janssen created three billboards featuring digitally manipulated worlds filled with marauding Amazons, in environments that were both strange and appealing. This spring we’ve opted to do something entirely new: we invited college students to submit images and ideas for billboards. And what a response we received! After sorting through all the entries, we chose three artists: Sydney Cobb (Alamance Community College), Isaiah Johnson (St. Augustine’s College), and Cindy Kohnen (Meredith College).

Cobb’s billboard, Fireflies, refers to a favorite Southern pastime. “This piece portrays a childhood memory of catching mystical fireflies in one of my grandma’s mason jars,” Cobb says. “I always loved opening the jar and watching them fly away.” Cobb notes that our current exhibition, El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa, provided inspiration. “My piece is a free-flowing and natural piece, much like his artwork.”

Johnson’s winning entry, One Brick, One Seed, is a photographic manifesto about the linked urban and natural landscapes. “I didn’t want to be literal with nature and all the beautiful aspects of it, but to show the evolution of today’s world through one brick and one seed,” Johnson says. “This piece was inspired by the beginning of life itself, the buildings we live in, and the hands that built them. From that first hammer or screw, their constructions offer limitless inspiration. The components of this piece are the forest and the cityscape. The trees were placed above the buildings to highlight the line between two different worlds that are also closely related.”

Kohnen’s Cycles presents, in her words, “the different stages of life after death.” Kohnen explains, “I chose the white and pink petals to show the beauty in life but paired these elements with dirt to convey the sense of a fallen petal to the ground. As spring turns to fall, leaves also observe the remaining life in nature’s dying elements. The third [segment] shows the reincarnation of the dead petals and leaves through the image of live mushrooms and their roots. The repetition of the circular formation created with grass embraces earth’s life cycle. I used color throughout this series to depict and stages of human life, starting with birth, softness, and purity, and ending with wisdom, age, and decomposition.”

Congratulations to our three winners, and thanks to all our participants! Be sure to explore our Museum Park to view these billboards, and come back in the fall to experience a new round of Park Pictures.

This work, made possible by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, is part of an ongoing series of outdoor art projects, Art Has No Boundaries, commissioned by the NCMA to encourage visitors to actively explore the Museum Park.

Images and captions:

Top: Sydney Cobb, Fireflies, 2011, digital print on vinyl, © 2011 Sydney Cobb

Cindy Kohnen, Cycles, 2011, digital print on vinyl, © 2011 Cindy Kohnen

Isaiah Johnson, One Brick, One Seed, 2011, digital print on vinyl, © 2011 Isaiah Johnson

It’s that time of year again, dear readers! With the change of the seasons comes a new edition of our billboards project, Park Pictures. We’ve been promoting Park Pictures here on Untitled for more than two years now, and we’re still going strong! As you may recall, our Pictures are three “billboards” installed along the paved walking trails, commissioned by the Museum to encourage visitors to explore the art available in the Museum Park. These billboards change regularly to feature new works by different artists, both from North Carolina and elsewhere.

Last spring Anthony Goicolea created three billboards in conjunction with his solo exhibition Alter Ego: A Decade of Work by Anthony Goicolea. This time around we’ve commissioned three works by California-based artist Carolyn Janssen, who completed her master of fine arts degree at UNC–Chapel Hill in spring 2011. Janssen’s works are digitally crafted worlds created by the expert superposition of images from Janssen’s own daily environment, including multiple representations of herself. This consistent layering allows the artist an element of control as she focuses on the process itself. “I used individual objects in the same way I would use a single brushstroke,” Janssen notes, “building each scene mark by mark.” Janssen’s knowledge of art shines through in her works, which are reminiscent of traditional landscape painting as well as the complex scenes of Bosch and Breughel. The images also refer to video game worlds and science fiction tableaux, which keep Janssen’s works rooted in pop culture.

The subject matter of Janssen’s billboards pertains to an imaginary dystopic society populated solely by Amazon-esque women who, the artist notes, “question and commandeer the landscape, engaging in narratives and mini-dramas, in which they build, fight, kill, and rest. At times calm, at times acting in apprehension to a present or past disaster, the figures reflect on a landscape broken, uncertain, and strange.”

This work, made possible by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, is part of an ongoing series of outdoor art projects, Art Has No Boundaries, commissioned by the NCMA to encourage visitors to actively explore the Museum Park.

In commemoration of the anniversary, numerous galleries and art centers have come together as part of a citywide event, titled “Remembering 9/11: The 10th Anniversary.” All told, more than 50 institutions are partaking in exhibitions, readings, and performances dedicated to honoring those lost in the terrorist attacks. Now that a decade has passed, it seems that some artists now feel that their wounds—personal, physical or psychic—have healed enough to revisit, leading to a proliferation of works.

The Brooklyn Museum is presenting Ten Years Later: Ground Zero Remembered, an exhibition featuring works by two artists, Michael Richards and Christoph Draeger. The inclusion of Richards is especially notable for NC Museum of Art visitors, who may be familiar with Tar Baby vs. Saint Sebastian, currently located in our Modern and Contemporary Galleries. During his tragically short career, Michael Richards frequently addressed issues of social injustice, creating stunning sculptures that criticize oppression. Tar Baby vs. Saint Sebastian commemorates the Tuskegee Airmen, African American pilots whose heroic contributions to World War II were recognized only in the past few decades. The sculpture itself, cast from the artist’s own body, represents a gold-painted airman penetrated on all sides by small airplanes, reminiscent of the arrows shot at St. Sebastian, an early Christian martyr and saint. The title of the work, with its double reference to the saint and a southern folktale of entrapment, pays tribute to the Tuskegee pilots—and to all who suffer intolerance and unfairness.

The back story of the sculpture, though, is a haunting one, and is quite pertinent to the anniversary of 9/11. The work itself, in effect a self-portrait, now seems an eerie foretelling of the artist’s death. Richards was a victim of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001—his studio was on the ninety-second floor of Tower One. Tar Baby vs. Saint Sebastian, too, was feared lost in the wreckage, as it was not found in the remains of the artist’s studio, or at his home. It was only revealed later to be stored in a relative’s garage outside of New York City. Now housed at the NCMA on long-term loan, the work is a commemoration of the artist’s life and talents and a memorial, of sorts, for September 11. Stop by over the weekend and include this as a must-see on your list.

Image: Michael Richards, Tar Baby vs. St. Sebastian, 1999, body cast in resin and fiberglass, painted, and supported by steel shaft, with airplanes cast in resin and fiberglass, painted, and attached by steel bolts, On loan from the estate of the artist

Last fall, Raleigh artist Nancy S. Baker shook things up by riffing on three popular paintings from the NCMA’s American collection. This spring, we highlight three photographic works by Brooklyn artist Anthony Goicolea. Goicolea’s billboards coordinate nicely with the solo exhibition of his works, Alter Ego: A Decade of Work by Anthony Goicolea, which will be on view in the East Building through July 24. The artist has long been interested in fabricating images of new, fantastical spaces that are familiar yet strange, enticing yet unsettling. The photographs the artist chose for Park Pictures stem from a series examining issues of environmental destruction, globalization, and the influence of humanity on the world at large. In addition to being inspired by the world around him, Goicolea also takes cues from art history. As he notes, “I’m influenced by the tradition of the sublime in 19th-century American landscape paintings,” much as Nancy Baker had been in our previous billboard series. Goicolea continues, “My series of photographs treat their environments as hyper-exaggerated frontiers … providing physical evidence and visual proof of an ongoing past narrative.”

Guardian features a snowy scene, completely populated by dogs that dwell amid the ruins of a colorful town. As such, it contrasts starkly with the verdant, lush surroundings of the Museum Park in springtime. Guardian can be seen in a different context in Alter Ego. Similarly, Ocean and Ghost Ship reveal water-based scenes that contrast with the types of landscapes in the Museum Park itself. Overall, the artist noted that his rationale for choosing images for Park Pictures was simple: “I thought it would be interesting to present a landscape within a landscape.” The novelty of the Park Pictures project was certainly an enticement for the artist. “I have never had any outdoor work presented before, but it has always been a bit of a fantasy of mine! I love the idea, and I am excited to see the billboards actualized.”

Anthony Goicolea, Guardian, 2008, digital print on vinyl. Photo credit: twbuckner via the NCMA Flickr group.

This work, made possible by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, is part of an ongoing series of outdoor art projects, Art Has No Boundaries, commissioned by the NCMA to encourage visitors to actively explore the Museum Park.

The latest installation features work by Raleigh artist Nancy S. Baker. You may be familiar with Baker’s work; her painting The Betrayal is part of the Museum’s permanent collection and is on view on Level A in East Building.

Nancy’s billboards are fun and funky, an interesting take on existing works. “Borrowing from three exalted artists from the NCMA’s American collection, mingling highbrow and lowbrow taste, I offer up three reinvented and reconfigured tableaus of the American tradition of landscape painting,” Baker says.

Her willing (or unwilling) subjects? Bierstadt’s Bridal Veil Falls, Mignot’s Landscape in Ecuador, and Inness’s Under the Greenwood. But viewers might not recognize them—the paintings have been bisected and then digitally reflected back onto themselves, as if by a funhouse mirror or a kaleidoscope. Suddenly something familiar becomes something new, strange, and even a bit disturbing. Surrounding the altered landscapes is a border of jewels, flowers, staring eyes, and other strange elements, acting, as Baker puts it, as “a Looney Tunes memento mori, in stark contrast to the dreamy realism of the [original] paintings.”

Baker links this memento mori theme with the title of her billboard series: Home Sweet Home. As she notes, “The title, appropriated from John Howard Payne’s ubiquitous poem, reminds us that ‘Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.’ However, the idea of home in [works such as] Mignot’s Landscape in Ecuador has become an historical rendering of a world now on the verge of self-destruction. Through no fault of Mignot, this unreliable narrative of fecund nature is testimony to our desire for fantasy. Like the oeuvre of Norman Rockwell, art can be the greatest and most convincing propaganda.” Baker’s works allow us to ponder important questions of reality vs. fiction, and how that distinction—or lack thereof—affects the natural world today.

This work, made possible by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, is part of an ongoing series of outdoor art projects, Art Has No Boundaries, commissioned by the NCMA to encourage visitors to actively explore the Museum Park.

Our Bierstadt has a history in contemporary art! Check out this post from 2008, which links the painting to an artist at the Brooklyn Museum–Ed.

“I feel like some of the pieces look like they are ready to return to the earth, while others seem to be growing from it,” the artist notes. “Sometimes I see [the larger elements in the work] as lichen or fungus, or even decaying leaves. The small pieces relate to growing roots or decomposing plant matter.”

The many forms that compose Cycle differ in appearance because of the various techniques used to create them: the two types of clay have been combined in both fired and raw forms, with a number of patinas providing a range of colors and textures in the final product. The connection between Brown’s chosen medium—clay—and the environment is not accidental. “When I am immersed in clay, I feel like I am connected to the earth,” Brown says. “I utilize the clay in an organic, flowing, natural manner. In my work I use deep, dark, and bold texture to reflect nature, giving my pieces life.”

Brown’s installation won first prize at the Caldwell Arts Council’s 25th annual Sculpture Celebration, one of the longest-running sculpture events in the Southeast, which was held in September in Lenoir, N.C. Museum Director Larry Wheeler presided over the competition, choosing Brown for the top honor—a prize that offered the opportunity to install the work at the NCMA.

Though Cycle itself is not going to decay and return to dust like its organic representations, visitors are urged to see the work soon, as it is on view for only a limited time. Cycle will be deinstalled on December 3, 2010.

André Leon Gray, The Choice is Yours, 2010, digital print on vinyl, 5 x 12 ft., Commissioned by the NCMA, funded by the John Rex Endowment through the Physical Activity and Nutrition Branch of the N.C. Division of Public Health

Spring and summer are a great time to visit the Museum Park and discover the latest installation of the Park Pictures project. As you may remember, Park Pictures comprises three “billboards” installed along the paved House Creek Greenway. It is the second project in a continuing series of site-specific art entitled Art Has No Boundaries, commissioned by the Museum to encourage visitors to explore the art available in the Museum Park. The billboards change on a continual basis to feature new works by different artists.

While the last billboards featured one artist, the new set showcases three, one on each billboard. All of the artists—Stacy-Lynn Waddell, André Leon Gray, and Harrison Haynes—provide the viewer with a unique vision and interpretation. They were given freedom to design their own images without limits to a theme or guidelines, with one exception: artists were asked that their designs somehow relate to the natural environment or the park landscape.

Harrison Haynes, with Untitled (Two Hands), explores the timeless concept of our link to the natural world through a photograph featuring a man-made still life. “I’m interested in the modern human impulse to re-connect with nature,” he says, “And in this piece I want to address the potential for artificiality in fulfilling that impulse.”

In The Choice is Yours, André Leon Gray tackles a similar topic with an environmental slant. Gray’s large-scale image reproduces three mason jars used in canning or preserving food, with each holding a truly valuable treasure. The jars, Gray notes, “become a metaphorical solution to mankind’s neglect of his environment: preserve it or lose it.”

Stacy-Lynn Waddell’s work Look/See is comprised entirely of a mirrored vinyl covering, which reflects the world around it in a blurred, distorted manner. What exactly are we seeing in it? As Waddell explains, “By creating a sight of distorted reflection, I argue that we collectively grapple with determining the difference between perception and reality.”

The Art Has No Boundaries series is part of the Active Community and Neighborhood grant program funded by the John Rex Endowment through the Physical Activity and Nutrition Branch of the N.C. Division of Public Health.

An exciting new project is coming to the NCMA in the Museum Park this spring. Fun for kids and adults alike, Trailmarkers are 12 metal plaques located along the trails through the Park, each with a unique illustration featuring animals and plants native to North Carolina. These illustrations were designed as reliefs so that visitors may create a rubbing of the image by running a crayon across a piece of paper situated over the plaque. What a fun way to create your own work of art while exercising and enjoying the natural world around you!

The NCMA commissioned graphic designer Tim Purus to create all 12 Trailmarker designs. I spoke with Tim regarding the details of this still-in-the-works project.

JD: The Trailmarkers are a fun and different project that gets our visitors involved in making their own art—a rubbing of your designs, as inspired by the natural world. What drew you most to working on this project?

TP: When I visited the park, I really enjoyed the Cloud Chamber and Whisper Bench’s interactivity. The opportunity to create pieces that involve the viewer beyond simply looking was intriguing and sounded like fun.

JD: Explain your artistic process for the creation of the Trailmarkers.

TP: Initially, I sketch whatever pops into my head. I pour out pages and pages, then sift through the sketches for the ones that have potential. At that point, I begin doing research on the subjects I’ve chosen. I collect lots of pictures so I know my subject like a sculptor might. I am compelled to understand their forms. Next, I composite the elements and refine the compositions. Then, surrounded by all my reference material, I ink the drawing with my favorite Japanese fountain brush pen. Finally, I scan the illustrations and do a little tweaking in Photoshop.

JD: How did you determine which types of animals and plants you would represent on the Trailmarker plaques?

TP: Early in the project, we discussed using the flora and fauna indigenous to the area. That led to some very specific choices, like the Carolina lily and honey bee, which are the official state wildflower and insect. The lilies (ilium michauxii) look like flying jellyfish! The Eastern Box Turtle (terrapene carolina) which is the official state reptile. It is also quite interesting to draw; the shell is striking, a clash of repetitious geometry and painterly organic marks.

Texture was another criterion for choosing the elements within the designs. Originally, I conceived of drawings as abstract textures. Then I visited the site with my friend’s children and I realized it needed to be fun as well, so I put a character in each piece. We found a “cherry” scented centipede on that visit, and in honor of that moment a centipede is represented.

Nature is infinitely inspirational to me. I am reminded of a quote by Karl Blossfeldt, whom I admire a lot: ”The best constructions for industrial design had already been anticipated in nature.”

JD: What is your favorite design, and why?

TP: Honestly I don’t have one. I enjoyed doing all of them.

JD: What was the most difficult part of this project?

TP: The most difficult part of the project was keeping it to 12 images. There are so many great things to draw that are indigenous to North Carolina. The easiest part was working with everyone at NCMA. It has been a great experience!

JD: You are currently involved in creating the prototype of a rubbing kit that will be sold in our Museum Store. What has that process been like?

TP: We are trying to anticipate what will work for children and adults. We’ve experimented with different papers and crayons. Simple and sensible is the goal.

JD: What do you hope that visitors would do/take away from your work, besides the rubbing process?

TP: Mostly I hope it’s a fun activity on a nice afternoon walk through the museum park. In addition, I hope that the drawings inspire people to draw, that the images of nature get people to take a closer look at what’s around them, and that the process of rubbing inspires them to think about creating images in different ways.

Follow us as we update you on the progress of the Trailmarkers—and be sure to join us in the Museum Park later this spring to experience the Trailmarkers for yourself!

This project is part of the Active Community and Neighborhood grant program funded by the John Rex Endowment through the Physical Activity and Nutrition Branch of the N.C. Division of Public Health. Illustrations by Tim Purus.

In April, when you visit the NCMA’s new restaurant, you won’t have to take a break from the art—instead, you’ll be dining amongst it. Artist Patrick Dougherty is creating an installation specifically for the restaurant that brings the outdoors in with unique sculptural forms created from young tree saplings. Using branches and boughs from surrounding areas, Dougherty coaxes, bends, and gently prods them into amazing oversize forms. This new work is a series of towering spirals, curling across an entire wall of the restaurant, supported by a grid system attached to the wall underneath. He’s worked on it for the past couple weeks with the help of three assistants–once it’s complete, it’s sure to enthrall diners and visitors alike.

Dougherty’s signature style came to him through what he has called a “stick conversion.” In a recent catalogue, Patrick Dougherty, Dougherty described his epiphany: driving along a country road, he came upon a grove of saplings and exclaimed, “I could use these!” He found that the saplings were both plentiful and renewable (by trimming saplings close to the ground and keeping the root undisturbed, the saplings can continue to grow back repeatedly). In his sculpture, Dougherty explores the material properties of the sticks—their inherent bend, give, and movement when they are still young and fresh—to create graceful curves and waves, manipulating them without causing breakage.

The naturalistic style of Dougherty’s work provides an interesting counterpoint to the interior of West Building. The new building, with its crisp, contemporary lines, is a perfect canvas for Dougherty’s swirling sticks, inspiring a dialogue between man and nature, indoor and outdoor, natural and artificial materials, and linear versus nonlinear. Seemingly at odds, viewers will find that these pairings are wonderfully symbiotic, each highlighting some of the best elements in the other.

The essence of Dougherty’s materials brings up a logical (and frequently-asked) question: how long will it last? Is it a permanent installation? The answer: yes! Though his outdoor installations are usually meant to last only as long as the twigs themselves—about two to three years on average—this installation is seen as a permanent one with an indefinite life span. “Mine is the art of the ephemeral,” he has said about his outdoor works; the creation for the restaurant, however, is meant to be enjoyed long-term and will enliven the space for years to come.

During the past two decades of his career, Dougherty has garnered international acclaim and has created nearly 200 large on-site temporary installations in 14 different countries, including Japan, Denmark and Austria. Viewers may recognize Dougherty’s style from a previous installation in the Museum Park called Trail Heads, constructed in 2005 (or from his work at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham). For more information on his work, check out his website at:  www.stickwork.net.

Jeff Whetstone, Signs, 2009, digital print on vinyl, 5 x 12 ft., Commissioned by the NCMA, funded by the John Rex Endowment through the Physical Activity and Nutrition Branch of the N.C. Division of Public Health

While fall brings the closure of the Museum building, the beautiful weather beckons you to explore the sprawling Museum Park. The most recent addition to the collection in the Park is the billboard project Park Pictures. It is the second project in a continuing series of site-specific works of art entitled Art Has No Boundaries, commissioned by the Museum to encourage visitors to explore the outside part of the Museum. The billboards will change on a continual basis to feature the work of many different artists.

The inaugural artist, Jeff Whetstone, a Durham-based photographer, has long explored the interrelationships between humans and the natural landscape. His installation, Signs, is a three-billboard series that focuses on the bare branches of a winter landscape in such an intensely close manner that the image itself becomes almost abstract. He highlight this effect by photographing in black-and-white enabling him to remove some of the original meaning or intention behind the natural setting and insert his own interpretation. Whetstone often seeks words or messages among the gnarled vines and branches as if they are placed there through celestial intervention. He even highlighted words by hand with reflective tape to emphasize his findings.

“I have taken on the role of the visionary who seeks divine messages applied to the material of our world… the landscape has become a drapery onto which my fears and desires are projected,” Whetstone says.