"I love Sue Wrbican"

2022-09-03 00:02:17

Work Statement Bio Resume Links Menu Sue Wrbican Artist Work Statement Bio Resume Links Photography My recent photographic work questions our surreal era and the voracious cycle of consumer culture. Ship Splitter is a photographic series of works begun in 2019. For these photographs, I created small sculptures and dioramas in my studio from shipment detritus such as plastic and cardboard, positioning them to evoke futuristic seascapes. This process arose from my previous work bridging the gulches between intentions and outcomes. I worked with friends in different coastal locations recording their response to images of folded paper mimicking the shape of a sail.Through a number of intentional situations involving a sail from a ship I documented the participant's response in various landscapes. This work is entitled Biography of Catastrophe an investigation of form which began an inquiry into surrealism. Before the Ghost #1, (2021/22 ) Versions created originally for group shows “Prescient Surfaces” at Rocky Mountain College, Billings, Montana and “Hospitality - counterbalance venom” Cade Center for Fine Arts, Anne Arundel Community College, Arnold, MD Archival print from the series Ship Splitter, 2019 Archival print from the series Ship Splitter Archival print from the series Ship Splitter Archival print from the series Ship Splitter From the photographic series Biography of Catastrophe From the photographic series Biography of Catastrophe From the photographic series Biography of Catastrophe From the photographic series Biography of Catastrophe From the photographic series Biography of Catastrophe From the photographic series Biography of Catastrophe Process While working with the sail imagery I came across a painting by Surrealist painter Kay Sage (1898-1963, entitled In the Third Sleep and was entranced by her desolate landscapes featuring sail-like shrouds.I imagined contemporary landscapes inspired by her paintings by creating maquettes to get a sense of scale and feasibility. The maquettes were later used to create large towers to inhabit various landscapes. Here are images documenting the various processes of fabrication, maquettes, digital sketches and architectural renderings. Sketch for Buoyant Force 50’ sculpture installed in Reston Town Center commissioned by Greater Reston Arts Center Paint application for Buoyant Force courtesy of Paint Tech, Inc. January 2020 Whiting-Turner and Paint Tech, Inc. at Arcwel's shop December 2019 discuss hauling, rigging and painting of Buoyant Force Kaleb Norman, Howard Connelly, Will Bowers at Arcwel’s shop attaching sail sculpture to main structure of Buoyant Force. Documentation of Buoyant Force Fabrication at Arcwel. Amos Moses walking to the right of steel sculpture fabrication. Image credit: Will Bowers of Arcwel, Rockville, MD. Fabrication team: Will Bowers, Amos Moses, Dave Higgins, Courtland Harkness, Harry Mayer, Chas Colburn and Howard Connelly Design Architect's rendering for Buoyant Force Geoff Lewis and Victoria Myrick, Architecture Inc. Maquette for The Eventual Outcome of an Instant Twenty foot sculpture installed at the Seligmann Center in Sugar Loaf, NY, 2015 Sketch for Tomorrow is Never Digital rendering of idea for Tomorrow is Never, unrealized, 2015 Weather  Going deeper into the work revealed an extensive dialogue with circumstance as often things did not go as planned. I drew from happenstance to purposely undermine the narrative I initially perceived.  Installation Gallery installations and site specific sculptures Party Popper / Plague Tower (2022) Installation for exhibition with ATLANTIKA COLLECTIVE: APPROACHING EVENT HORIZONS at Mason Exhibitions, Arlington, VAParty Popper / Plague Tower draws connections between the excessive consumption of materials, the sway of US political deal-making regarding the climate crisis and reflects on the 17th and 18th-century commemorative plague towers, constructed to ward off future European epidemics.150’ Hawser, Ribbon, Ink A Difficult Treasure, 2022 Storefront installation at 41 West, Hancock, MD showcasing previous works. This Iridescent Era Installation at VisArts, Rockville, Maryland, 2021. Susan Main CuratorCatalog by Ann Burke Daly here The Iridescent Yonder Craddock - Terry Gallery, Riverviews Art Space, Lynchburg, Virginia 2021The Iridescent Yonder is a reimagining of elements from artist Sue Wrbican’s prior installations integrated with paintings made by family and friends. The new configuration of sails will act as viewing stations for a painting forecasting a different world Fragile Rainbow, by Claire McConaughy (2021) and a sculptural relief comprised of discarded plastic, Oil Tanker, originally created by Matt Wrbican, Phil Rostek and James Nelson (1991).More info here Buoyant Force commissioned by Greater Reston Art Center and Installed in Reston Town Center January 2020. This 50-foot steel sculpture is inspired by the paintings of American Surrealist Kay Sage (b. 1898, Albany, New York; d. 1963, Woodbury, Connecticut). Sage is recognized for her paintings of scaffolded structures and furled fabric in desolate, ominous landscapes. The sculpture is constructed of steel pipe commonly used to transport natural gas. However, the pipes you see here have been redirected from their intended purpose and now, out of circulation, hold nothing but air. More information can be found here Night view of Well Past the Echo featuring the installation "Small Warning" Greater Reston Art Center, Reston, VA 2017. Rachel Jones, philosopher, speaks of the work here. Molly Donovan, Curator of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC speaks of the work here (pt. 1) and here (pt. 2) Click here for Sue W. in conversation with curator Lily Siegel (part 1) and (part 2) Another view of Well Past the Echo 2017 Well Past the Echo detail, maquette for "Flag Forest"2017 Britta Joy Peterson, dancer, performs creative response to Well Past the Echo 2017 Sail Study in preparation for Well Past the Echo2017 In the Third Interation, The Transitional Object, Lululemon Loft, Georgetown, Washington, DC 2017 Installation for Like Fine Wine, la Bodega Gallery, Baltimore, MD 2016 Volunteers for The Eventual Outcome of an Instantat Seligmann Center, Sugarloaf, NY 2015 The Eventual Outcome of an Instant, Seligmann Center, Sugarloaf, NY 2015 Continue the Temporary and It Becomes Forever, Zizek Studies Conference, University of Cincinnati, OH 2014 Book  Two narratives overlap in Biography of Catastrophe and the Eventual Outcome of an Instant. The work is a documentation of a shift from one time and place to another.One of the sails featured in the book is used as the cover so that readers may hold the material being referenced in the narrative. The varied covers make each book a unique work in an edition of fifty with the title embroidered into the sail. Available Fall 2017. Book on pedestal for solo show Well Past the Echo, Greater Reston Art Center, 2017 Collaborative Work   Prescient Surfaces Group exhibition with members of the Atlantika Collective: Mark Isaac, Gabriela Bulisova, Todd Forsgren, Yam Chew Oh, Katie Kehoe, Billy Friebele. Curatorial Essay by María Alejandra Sáenz Have You Seen Me? Climate March April 2017 Collaborative operation with Victoria Crayhon, Laure Drogoul, Erin Devine, Jackie Hoysted, Julia Bloom and Susan Hostetler. We employed the screamers of the Floating Lab Collective and iceberg imagery created by Victoria Crayhon from her research trip to Iceland and used them in the Climate March in April 2017, Washington, DC. Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! interviewed us and you can see it hereat the 3:52:18 mark. The screamers projected a soundtrack of seismic sounds of icebergs melting with whistling wind mixed by Sue Wrbican and Edgar Endress. The Frozen Car w/ Mary Carothers, 2008 During the winter of 2008 Mary Carothers and I froze a car into a solid block of ice in Michigan, the state of the birthplace of the automobile industry. The project took place during the Winter Carnival at Michigan Tech University, in Houghton, located on the western side of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We worked with students, faculty and community members in dialogue about industry and the environment.More information:The Frozen Car In Memory of Water, LatelaDC, 2016 George Mason University photography students examined lantern slides illustrating various components of steam powered electricity plants at the turn of the century and created imagery addressing the words “water” and “power.” The images were displayed in light boxes with Silvana Straw's poetry and exhibited at Latela DC Gallery and GMU's Creative Writing department annual event Fall for the Book.More on this project and the student participants exhibited at Latela DC hereand the write-up at George Mason University here. The Floating Lab Collective The Floating Lab Collectiveis a group of artists working collaboratively on social research through public and media art projects in Washington DC, as well as nationally and internationally. They experiment with the aesthetics of direct action in crafting responses to specific places, communities, issues and circumstances.More information:Floating Lab CollectivePhotographs featured in Global Activism: Art and Conflict in the 21st CenturyMIT Press, Peter Weibel, ed. 2015 Scream at the Economy, NYC, 2008 We recorded the screams of the public and composed them into soundtracks for the amplification devices "screamers" and played them in front of the New York Stock Exchange, the banks and the Treasury Department. Scream Contributor, Washington DC 2008 prev / next Back to Work 12 Photography 9 Process 4 Weather 18 Installation 6 Book 18 Collaborative Powered by Squarespace