Please join me SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21 at 8pm for a RECEPTION and WINNERS’ CHOICE RAFFLE At CHE’S LOUNGE
350 N 4th Ave, Tucson, Arizona 85705. 100% of the proceeds go to benefit CASA LIBRE; raffle tickets are $5 AND ARE AVAILABLE IN PERSON AND AT CASA EVENTS IN FEBRUARY OR ON LINE AT casalibre.org. Winners need not be present or may choose a work on display to take home that night. There will be no charge to mail prizes to locations outside of Tucson.
The mission of Casa Libre en la Solana is to cultivate and enrich a vibrant community of writers and artists through the invention, presentation, and appreciation of creative work.
Casa Libre provides- a venue for classes, residencies, readings and workshops, opportunities to artists by offering the resources and support they need to make their artistic dreams a reality and offers space for other community events related to arts and letters.
Casa Libre has these previous works in my Autopoiesis series on display.
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A generous portion of the sale of any of these works will be donated to Casa as well.
Raffle Prizes
One intaglio print
One 3″x3″ acrylic or mixed media on canvas
One 3″x3″ or 6″x6″ acrylic or mixed media on canvas or pine
One encaustic or acrylic or mixed medium of any size
Please see the slideshow below or visit valyntinagrenier.com to view potential prizes.
Work will be on display through February Cafe Passe is at 415 N. Fourth Ave. Tucson, AZ 85705
Su-W 8 am – 8 pm
Th-Sa 8 am – 10 pm
Please join me SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21 at 8pm for a RECEPTION and WINNERS’ CHOICE RAFFLE. 100% of the proceeds go to benefit CASA LIBRE; raffle tickets are $5. Winners need not be present or may choose a work on display to take home that night.
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Interview by Jane Miller
JM: What is autopoiesis?
VG: Autopoiesis is a scientific term that describes the paradox that, in order for beings to be autonomous, they need to obtain resources from their environment. It plays out in these works metaphorically in the relationship of the pieces to each other, and in the way the viewer interacts with the pieces.
JM: What are the advantages to working in a small format?
VG: I can produce a lot of pieces that I can sell affordably.
The size gives me an opportunity to move back and forth, which inspires new combinations of forms and methods. In this case, I worked with oil paint in the encaustics, and I painted with acrylic, water, polyurethane, and some special mineral pigments from Peru; the look of the pigments, when sprinkled as dust and then wetted, inspired me to use oil paint over the encaustics to create some similar effects.
JM: Do you encourage your encaustic pieces to imitate sculpture?
VG: Definitely. I use sculpting tools when I make them. Pottery tools, dentistry tools, too. Also, many of the encaustic techniques imitate intaglio printmaking – similar to the way one etches lines in a metal plate, I start with a well of encaustic medium and carve the figures into it. Instead of using ink, I use medium in different colors to create an image or story.
JM: Your work seems to use both figurative and abstract elements. Do you see a relationship there, or do you experience those forms separately?
VG: I would call this series abstract symbolism, meaning my figures are less literal and more symbolic – some viewers experience the shapes as human, others as plants, etc.
JM: Your themes are often dark but your color palette is bright. Do you care to comment on that seeming disparity?
VG: I have seen that in other series I’ve done, but in this current body of work even the black, while literally “dark,” has bright, airy figures who are doing things, lively things, together at night. So I would say it is simply night, rather than describe the black backgrounds as emotionally heavy. No one’s alone, everyone’s with someone having a good time.
Café Passé is at 415 N. Fourth Ave. Tucson, AZ 85705
When you are out and about at Tucson Open Studios, stop by Splinter Brothers and Sisters Warehouse to see Fred Soto at Fred’s Custom Stretching. Fred is showing my work and the work of several other artists. He does all my stretching and framing as well as makes substrates for my encaustic art, and he deals in supplies. My work on display is discounted from online prices.
ANOTHER SUNNY DAY IN THE DESERT | MARCH 3 – APRIL 30 | CAFE PASSE | 85705
I owe the title of this series to my sex-same partner, who often opens the shade of a morning and exclaims, “It’s another sunny day in the desert.” The phrase can be understood as a point of fact, irony, or wonder. In a state that votes discrimination into law with such Senate bills as the federally-disputed SB 1070, and that narrowly vetoed SB 1062, which would have legalized a faith-based right to refuse service to assumed members of the LGBTQ community, it doesn’t always feel like a sunny day.
So much behavior comes from, and makes for, heavy hearts. To oppose fear and hatred, I am compelled to expose and explore with light-heartedness and whimsy. It is important to me to bring heavy subjects to “light.”
The master images for ANOTHER SUNNY DAY IN THE DESERT exist as light. Reading about David Hockney’s use of iPhone technology to make art led me to explore the drawing applications available on my iPhone. I settled on Green Gar’s Whiteboard app. I began making digital paintings in 2012 at local businesses, and outdoors at home of an evening or afternoon.
My use of color was greatly expanded by working with a digital palate. It was a delight to match colors in encaustic and acrylic with the digital colors. Each encaustic or acrylic corresponds to a digital fingerpainting and is one of a kind. Translating digital images into encaustic art required me to use tools in new ways. Previously I relied on incising, using paintbrushes to fill incisions, but with these pieces, I also used the brushes to paint. Next, I used a heat gun to move and to fuse the layers that I’d painted on. The process of moving back and forth between ultra-contemporary and ancient techniques is liberating.
The prints are produced in a range of sizes, with a maximum of 5 images per size and a maximum of 25 prints per image.
All works are discounted for purchase during the exhibit. If you would like to take a piece home today, Café Passe will accept cash on my behalf. If you would like to pay with a credit card ($5.00 processing fee on purchases of $100 or less) via PayPal, please contact me.
Thank you to Betts Printing and Fred’s Custom Stretching.
ANOTHER SUNNY DAY IN THE DESERT showing MARCH 3 – APRIL 30 at CAFE PASSE and at BENTLEY’S MARCH 15 – APRIL 15
DON’T SHOOT showing at FemArts: ART INSTALLATIONS BY WOMEN ARTISTS Hosted by Dinnerware Artspace FRIDAY MARCH 7th 6-9pm THE STEINFELD WAREHOUSE | 101 West Sixth Street | 85701
Reading about David Hockney’s use of iPhone technology to create art led me on a search to explore the drawing applications available on my iPhone. I settled on Green Gar’s Whiteboard app. Many of these were drawn on the front porch in the desert of an evening, or on the back porch of an afternoon, inspired by Tucson’s green desert. Each encaustic corresponds to a digital “fingerpainting” and is one of a kind.
The images printed on glossy photo paper are available in a range of sizes, beginning at 8 1/2″x11″, limited to an edition of five archival prints.
8 ½” x 11” $100
Larger sizes (24” x 36” or 48” x 72” for example) priced upon request.
CLOUDSHOW / UTOPIA will be showing AUGUST 15 – SEPTEMBER 15 at BENTLEY’S 1730 EAST SPEEDWAY 85719. Bentley’s is open M-Sa 7am to 5pm and Su 8am to 4pm.
I’ll be having a RECEPTION SATURDAY AUGUST 17th 4 – 5:30pm, come by for a glass of Lemonaid.
Antony and the Johnsons’ exquisitely painful song, Another World[1], conveys a desperate love for what’s here, confounded by the knowledge that it and we are ephemeral. The guiding principle for CLOUDSHOW / UTOPIA[2] is to make ANOTHER WORLD and discover PEACE ON OTHER PLANETS. Because we hurt nature, each other, and ourselves, I set out to create my utopia as a place unpeopled, a place of clouds, rainbows, and waterfalls without us there to screw everything up.
No sooner had I begun serious thought about utopia, than I began to kick people out of it. I’d been thinking a lot about John William Waterhouse’s painting Ividia[3]; in Latin, invidia is the sense of envy, from invidere, “to look against, to look at in a hostile manner.” Envy for or from others drives us to solitude. I recalled the noir film LE SAMOURÏ[4] and reacquainted myself w/ its opening text, “There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle… Perhaps…” — Bushido[5]
There are TRACES OF FORCES that guide us to each other and to ourselves. My work for CLOUDSHOW / UTOPIA actually began with a previous show inspired by The Divine Comedy[6], in particular by Michael Mazur’s[7] monotype illustration for Canto XI, a map of Dante’s hell, which, if rotated, reads as a rainbow. In my painting, Nine Circles Make A Rainbow and a Target[8], a pink arc with red road markers represents the seventh circle, in which Dante houses those who commit sins of violence.
THE ROAD TO NOWHERE[9] begins and ends within us. Though we do harm, we do love. We are kind. And we’re here for the near and somewhat distant future at least. Challenging myself to make objects without the presence of humanity didn’t come to fruition.
Accidents happen; it is a part of my practice to embrace them. When pouring the base for CLOUDS WHISPER TO THE MARTYRS OF AN END TO ALL WARS in a 115-degree garage, the dam broke. A few pounds of 400-degree beeswax and damar began to cascade across my worktable and fall to the floor. I quickly placed supports around the edges of the frame to save as much medium as possible. I added more medium, and pulled out my hot air gun to direct and re-melt the cooling surface. Despite my efforts, it began to harden unevenly. I walked away.
I returned to discover that the profile of a woman’s face had hardened into the “misshapen” surface. I decided to carve the minimalist symbol, seen in TRACES OF FORCES,[10] as I had initially planned, and also to define the woman’s profile. I filled in the rest of the uneven surfaces w/ clouds, sky, and foreground. It was not until the piece was completed that some friends pointed out the optical illusion of a man’s profile tracing the woman’s profile. It’s a paradox – I set out to create a world free from people and behavior, yet I can’t help but make human faces embracing.
I desire connection and celebration, too. I want to go to a CLOUD PARTY AT THE RAINBOW[11]. I want to KEEP DANCING[12]. Music is an integral element of my practice. I like to dance while I’m working. I chose Jay-Z’s Heaven[13] to start my playlist– I like to choose a certain song, then hit shuffle.
Reading, research, and other visual arts are integral to my process as well. They are my escape from actual making, but also my inspiration to get back to paintbrushes or sculpting tools. Inspiration for a series also comes from my collection of art postcards. For CLOUDSHOW / UTOPIA, I was inspired by one of King Tut’s inlaid pieces of jewelry and a drinking cup, Victor Pasmore’s The Green Earth[14], David Smith’s Voltri VII[15], Miro’s Bleu II[16], Howard Hodgkin’s Lovers[18], Kandinsky’s Painting with Three Spots[19] and Calder’s circus[17].
I had the opportunity to visit California in the midst of production. I took with me Hundertwasser’s Complete Graphic Work 1951-1976[20], an exquisite, pocket-sized catalogue produced by Joram Harel in Vienna, 2008. At the LACMA, we saw Matisse’s large-scale ceramic La Gerbe[21], Hans Richter: Encounters[23] (Richter was involved w/ the utopian groups Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter) and Chris Burden’s Metropolis II[22]. I brought home a copy of Timothy Benson’s Expressionist Utopias[24] and was surprised to rediscover that the guiding principle behind the many utopian movements is the desire to make a better community, which creates the innocence of a Garden of Eden or the complexity of an architectural fantasy. For the Glashaus utopians, a CRYSTAL CATHEDRAL is the center of their architectural ideal.
My cathedral is the rainbow, a WATERHOUSE. My utopia is a community of works that CIPHER THE COSMOS for SYMBOLS THAT BELONG ON THE ALTAR OF A FUTURE SPIRITUAL ONTOLOGY[25].
[9] The word utopia was coined in Greek by Sir Thomas More; it comes from the Greek: οὐ (“not”) and τόπος (“place”) and means “no place” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia
[10] From Timothy O. Benson’s Essay, “Fantasy and Functionality: The Fate of Utopia,” “artists around 1900 hoped to find in nature signatures or traces of forces that might reshape the world for the betterment of humanity”
[11] I worked at The Rainbow Bar and Grill in my early 20’s
[12] The title KEEP DANCING comes from Arcade Fire’s song “My Body is a Cage” (in particular, the lyric “My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love”) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhhZdune_5Q
[25] From Timothy O. Benson’s Essay, “Fantasy and Functionality: The Fate of Utopia,” the goal of the Munich Blaue Reiter (founded by Kandinsky and Franz Marc) according to Marc was “to create out of their work symbols of their own time, symbols that belong on the altar of a future spiritual religion”
CLOUDSHOW / UTOPIA will be showing AUGUST 15 – SEPTEMBER 15 at BENTLEY’S 1730 EAST SPEEDWAY 85719. Bentley’s is open M-Sa 7am to 5pm and Su 8am to 4pm.
I’ll be having a RECEPTION SATURDAY AUGUST 17th 4 – 5:30pm, come by for a glass of Lemonaid.
VALYNTINA GRENIER 