Our Stories

behind the scenes brings together the work of student, faculty and outside artists around a common theme. behind the scenes will be on view through the end of the 2024 Spring quarter.

Curated by School of Art + Art History + Design faculty Sangram Majumdar and Whitney Lynn. 
Meany Hall Lower Lobby
Through June 9, 2024

(The exhibition is only accessible when attending an event in Meany Hall.)

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LIST OF WORKS

Directed and Produced by Miguel Laureano with members of Mak Fai Kung Fu Dragon and Lion Dance Association

Wholehearted, 2024
HD video

Wholehearted follows Seattle’s premiere lion dance group during their busiest day in the lunar new year season. Welcoming their 50th Anniversary as an association, behind the scenes members of Mak Fai work, problem-solve, support and overcome challenges to pull off spectacular shows to celebrate the year of the Dragon.

 

Andrea Joyce Heimer

Growing Up I Felt Closed In And Pent Up On The Montana Plains, Which Were Often Yellow And Brown And Dry, Though My Parents Watered The Lawn All Summer And Just As The Grass Turned Emerald Green It Would Be Time For Snow Again. This And Other Things Made Me So Sad My Friends And I Tried To Build Other Worlds, Other Plains/Planes Of Existence, Like A Seance To Talk To Ghosts. We Tried To Get Away That Way. 2022

acrylic and oil pastel on panel, 40 x 60 inches

 

Andrea Joyce Heimer

Lone Woman Checking Her Reflection In A Reflecting Pool, 2024

acrylic/pencil on panel, 30 x 40 inches

 

Andrea Joyce Heimer

Women Laying Under Trees, 2021

marker/oil pastel on paper, 18 x 24 inches

 

Natalie Krick

Work Space, 2024

found tables, tools, books and ephemera

 

Natalie Krick

Revised Rejection Letters (From January 2023 - Present), ongoing

 

Kyle Staver

Beauty and the Beast, drawing series no.1–14,  2024

graphite on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches

 

Dominic Terlizzi

Sun Over the Sea Over the Person Over the Beach (study 1), 2020

18x18 inches

 

Dominic Terlizzi

Date Night, 2020

ink on paper 11x18 inches

 

Dominic Terlizzi

Butt Chin, 2020

ink on paper, 11x18 inches

 

Michael Hong

Hour Studies

“You need to study for at least one hour a day, everyday,” is what my mother always told me. Growing up in an immigrant household in the US, academic success and notions of exceptionalism were values that were boiled down into a quantifiable unit of measurement — one hour.

Hour Study is a series of forms that investigate the limitations of working with clay for a duration of one hour, sitting down to “study” for one hour. Despite the fact that the clay often collapses on itself not long into the hour, I continue to add on to the form to complete the session. The yellow paint is then used to highlight various moments that result in direct response to this process- something in between the lines of failures and discovery.

 

Michael Hong

1 Hour Collapse Study I, 2022

 stoneware, acrylic paints, drywall, 15 x 11 x 16 inches

 

Michael Hong

1 Hour Collapse Study II, 2022

 stoneware, acrylic paints, drywall, 20 x 10 x 13 inches

 

Michael Hong

1 Hour Collapse Study III, 2022

stoneware, acrylic paints, drywall, 20 x 10 x 13 inches

 

Michael Hong

1 Hour Collapse Study + Break I, 2022

stoneware, acrylic paints, drywall, styrofoam cup, chopsticks, 14 x 7 x 10 inches

 

Michael Hong

1 Hour Collapse Study + Break II, 2022

stoneware, acrylic paints, drywall, aluminum can, 14 x 7 x 10 inches

 

Victor Yañez-Lazcano

Line Out, 2024

audio spotlight, 4 hour 2-channel audio-loop, 16 x 8 inches

In the language of electronics the term "line out" refers to an analog electrical signal that connects to separate audio devices. In this sound installation, which utilizes various genres of world music, I embrace the term as a way to refer to a connection that working class immigrants have to their homelands — sounds that often fill commercial kitchens, ride-share services, empty institutional buildings and delivery vehicles.

 

Antonia Wright

I Scream, Therefore I Exist,  2011

HD video, 4 minutes and 2 seconds

Reinaldo Arenas wrote the line, ‘I scream, therefore I exist’ in his memoir, Before Night Falls. He was referring to his commitment to rage, write, think, live and point out injustice, even if costly. His line is especially poignant, as this devotion to truth cost him his freedom throughout his life. He was imprisoned for his writings, and eventually had to leave his country as a political exile. Arenas peppers the tortuous scenes in Cuba with paragraphs about his love for the ocean. While swimming in the sea he feels free, light, peaceful and happiest. The duality of these experiences painted in the book are a metaphor for life’s infinite simultaneous possibilities and the capacity of human condition.

The video is one of a series inspired by Arenas’ line, “When one screams underwater, those above cannot hear and are oblivious.” For the videos, I went into bodies of water and screamed under the surface of the water while simultaneously capturing the scenes above the water line. The video frame is bisected by the waterline — the sobering scream below and the unaware world above. The pieces metaphorically represent the freedoms and pleasures of life and its concurrent realities of injustices. I am interested in how people can have completely different realities existing at the same time.

 

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Andrea Joyce Heimer (b. 1981, Great Falls, Montana) lives in Ferndale, Washington. She received an MFA from the New Hampshire Institute of Art and has held teaching appointments at Oregon College of Art and Craft (Portland), Western Washington University (Bellingham), and Emily Carr University of Art and Design (Vancouver).​

Heimer’s painting and drawing practice investigates the subject of loneliness—largely informed by autobiographical stories such as her own adoption—in order to examine how humans experience feeling alone and its connection to how and why we make art. Her work has been covered in outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Art in America, New York Times, The New Yorker, New American Paintings, and Huffington Post.

Heimer is represented by Nino Mier Gallery in Los Angeles.

 

Dominic Terlizzi is a Brooklyn based artist, curator, and educator. Terlizzi’s studio work includes drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation, utilizing objects and textures to build imagery.  Dominic founded and directed St. Charles Projects in Baltimore city from 2015-2023. He has been awarded the Triangle Workshop, PNC Transformative Art Prize, Belle Foundation Grant, and completed three public sculptures in Baltimore City. Dominic recently exhibited at Craig Krull Gallery and Helen J Gallery in LA, The Front, Tappeto Volante, Good Naked, Underdonk, and Headstone Gallery in NY. International exhibitions include Mc Bride Contemporian in Montreal, Canada and NEVVEN Gallery in Gothenburg, Sweden. 

 

Natalie Krick (b. 1986 Portland Oregon) is a Seattle based artist whose work investigates visual perception and pleasure through complicating the act of looking. She holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA from Columbia College Chicago. In 2015 Krick was a recipient of an Individual Photographer's Fellowship from the Aaron Siskind Foundation for her project Natural Deceptions. In 2017 Natural Deceptions was published by Skylark Editions and Krick was awarded the Aperture Portfolio Prize. Krick’s work has recently been exhibited at SF Camerawork, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Aperture Foundation, The Museum of Sex, and Blue Sky Gallery. Her photographs have been highlighted in several international publications including BOMB, The New Yorker, Vogue Italia, PDN, Aperture, and Vrij Nederland. Krick also is part of a collaborative team with Kelli Connell called o_ Man which reimagines Edward Steichen’s oeuvre and his subsequent influence on the photographic medium and the history of photography.

 

Michael Hong is an artist currently enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Washington, Seattle. His work explores the multicultural identity as a Korean immigrant living in Los Angeles, California. The work he creates primarily uses clay, a sponge-like medium that readily responds to its environment, a trait that parallels Hong's assimilation experiences.

 

Miguel Laureano Damian is a Mexico-born, Seattle based filmmaker and photographer. He spent the first chapter of his career working a photographer/editor and later transitioned his focus to video full time. Miguel’s intrepid adaptability relishes in finding a story across multiple genres. Bringing to each project a passion for visual art, technology as well as fluency in post production. Miguel’s holistic approach to filmmaking continues to manifest in each new undertaking.

 

Mak Fai Kung Fu Club was established by Grandmaster Mak Hin Fai in 1974. They specialize in the Hung Sing Choy Lay Fut style Kung Fu and Southern style lion dancing. Mak Fai is Seattle's premier lion dance troupe, performing hundreds of shows year round. They aim to enrich and promote lion dancing in the Greater Seattle area and keep the tradition alive by teaching the younger generations in the community.

 

Antonia Wright is a Cuban-American artist based in Miami, FL. Through a multimedia practice of video, performance, photography, sound, light, and sculpture, Wright responds to extremes of emotion, control, and violence in relation to systems of power. The body is a principal element in her work.

Wright received her MFA in Poetry from The New School in New York City in 2005 as well as at the International Center of Photography for photo and video in 2008. She has exhibited in the U.S. and abroad and has been awarded artist’s residencies both nationally and internationally. Exhibitions include shows at The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.), The Perez Art Museum (Miami), Pioneer Works (New York), The Faena Arts Center (Buenos Aires, Argentina), The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Spinello Projects (Miami, FL), Luis de Jesus Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries (SF, CA), Aeroplastics (Brussels, Belgium), The National Gallery of Art (Nassau, Bahamas), and Ping Pong (Basel, Switzerland). In April 2012, she became and founded the first artist-in-residence at the Lotus House Shelter for women and children in Overtown, Miami. Wright recently won the No Vacancy 2022 Juror’s Choice Award, The Ellies Creator Award (2022, 2020), the South Florida Cultural Consortium Award (2019-2020), CINTAS Foundation finalist awarded to artists with Cuban heritage (2019, 2021). Her work is in the collection of The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Pérez Art Museum Miami, El Espacio 23, The Bass, The Girls’ Club, and NSU Art Museum. She is represented by Spinello Projects in Miami, FL, and affiliated with Luis De Jesus Gallery Los Angeles, CA.

 

Victor Yañez-Lazcano is an artist and Assistant Professor in the Photo/Media program at the University of Washington. Since 2009, Victor Yañez-Lazcano has shaped an interdisciplinary body of work that chronicles his family’s history in the U.S. as it transitions from immigrants to first-, second-, and third-generation Mexican Americans. His artworks explore his family’s collective identity at the intersection of race, language, class, and labor to further grapple with notions of assimilation. Yañez-Lazcano received his MFA from Stanford University and his BFA from Columbia College Chicago. He has been a visiting art lecturer at various institutions including Stanford University, San Francisco State University, and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. His work has been exhibited at numerous spaces including Royal Nonesuch Gallery (Oakland), Natalie & James Thompson Art Gallery (San Jose), Perspective Gallery (Milwaukee), and The Chicago Design Museum. His published works are included in various collections including Yale University’s Haas Arts Special Collections, Indiana University’s Wells Library Fine Arts Collection, and Harvard University’s Fine Arts Library Special Collection. Yañez-Lazcano was recently an artist in residence through the RAiR Foundation in Roswell, New Mexico.

 

Kyle Staver (b. Virginia, MN; lives and works in New York, NY)  is an American painter who also works in relief sculpture, drawing, and etching. Engaging with canonical Western mythological and folkloric traditions, Staver finds her inspiration in sources ranging from the Bible to ancient Greek oral-poetic traditions. Staver captures critical moments within these narratives in her fastidiously refined color palettes, identifiable for their stark highlights and rich use of darker tones which blanket figures and their environments in shadow. Despite working with stories that have been re-told throughout centuries, Staver cultivates an enigmatic atmosphere within her paintings—both formally and narratively. As Dan Nadel put it in Artforum: “Her sources are the urtexts of patriarchy, but Staver often flips the script” to offer intelligent re-workings of gender dynamics enshrined in ancient archetypes. Her paintings traffic in a kind of narrative uncanny, as the stories to which they refer are simultaneously familiar and new or unsettling.