The Mine and Yours art exhibition is closing on Saturday, August 15th with a full slate of artist's works, and the recorded artist talks online for all to view. These public works are not for sale.
At its inception, the Mine and Yours Exhibition was intended to be a free outdoor event occupying public and private land with artists responding to the prompt:
When are boundaries beneficial? Detrimental? How does ownership of one's identity, physical property, or tangible space help or hurt a community?
On January 31, while the event was in the early stages of planning, the world health organization issued a global health emergency. Curator Renae Barnard immediately began reconsidering her ability to safely host an in-person event at any time in the foreseeable future. Realizing that online space would be the only shared space, Barnard decided to attempt to mirror the intimacy of in-person art-viewing by including an immersive video of each artist's work and process.
Celena Rusalka. Anatomy of Hearth and Home.
In the early afternoon of May 25, Barnard sent out the selected artist confirmations. Just a few hours later, George Floyd would be brutally murdered by Minnesota police officers. Horror, rage, and grief have weighed heavily, and these forces have undeniably influenced the content and tone of the exhibition.
Barnard explained, "For me, making has been a place to put difficult things, process complex ideas, and open these challenges up to others. The Mine and Yours exhibition holds space for ten artists to do the same.”
The artists' works traverse a landscape of timely and sometimes painfully uncomfortable issues, a critical examination of ownership, appropriation, belonging, and community.
Artists: Arezoo Bharthania, Ashton Phillips, Celena Rusalka, Debbie Carlson, Fang Li, Jessica Wimbley, Kristin King, Sohani Holland, and YoungTseng.
Duplexis.
Renae Barnard is a multi-disciplinary artist and curator interested in the network of interactions between environment, perception, and wellbeing. Barnard's work seeks to connect with and contribute to a collective commitment of kindness and compassion. Barnard received her MFA from Claremont Graduate University and her BA from California State University Los Angeles.
Artist Spotlights:
CELENA RUSALKA
"In Anatomy of Hearth and Home, a found object sculpture, I depict forms folding, constricting, and oozing out of an abandoned burn barrel. I present a look into one's growth within an 'othered' community, spilling out into the world. As a Canadian artist living on an island, this global pandemic has reinforced the overwhelming feeling of isolation. Within isolation and paranoia of the unseen, my work has begun to show signs of longing for times of childlike nostalgia.”
ASHTON PHILLIPS
"When I conceptualized Breaking Ground, I imagined the work would be about our strange alienation from the earth that lies just under the city's surface and the illusion of independence and permanence that comes with it. But, the pandemic necessitated a change of plans. My act of digging out the earth beneath me became less about grounding myself to the land I did not own and more about breaking - how I am breaking, how the environment around us is breaking, and how this moment marks a profound breaking rupture in the status quo."
Fang Li. Identity 20A19.
FANG LI
This series of works represents an environment in flux through the medium and process of painting and digital collage. During this time of isolation, my intention in this series of works is to deconstruct the physicality of the body and to combine or record both physical and psychological movements of the community. Its influence is represented in the way how I use colors and how I manipulate the shape, form, and materials.”
