PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 03, 2021
Contact: Joy Reed Belt
405.528.6336
EVENTS
Exhibition Opening
Friday, September 03, 2021, 5 – 8 pm
Artist Talk: Gabi Magaly & Andy Mattern
Friday, September 03, 2021, 6:30 – 7 pm
Artist Talk with Jessica Teckemeyer
Saturday, October 9th 1 – 3pm
JRB Art at The Elms Presents
“how to take pictures of wo/men: new paradigms in photographic portraiture” - Curated by Christa Blackwood
“Introspection” –
Featuring Sculptures by Jessica Teckemeyer
OKLAHOMA CITY – On September 3, 2021, during The Paseo’s First Friday Gallery Art Walk, JRB Art at The Elms will host an Opening from 5:00 – 8:00 pm for two extraordinary new exhibitions: “how to take pictures of wo/men: new paradigms in photographic portraiture,” curated by Christa Blackwood, in the Main Gallery. In addition, the exhibition, “Introspection” by Jessica Teckemeyer will feature her skillfully made mixed-media animal sculptures in the iconic Ship Gallery. Both Exhibitions will run through October 30, 2021. An Artist Talk, featuring several artists from this show, will take place from 6:30 to 7:00 pm, allowing them to discuss their displayed works.
“how to take pictures of wo/men: new paradigms in photographic portraiture,” curated by Christa Blackwood investigates identity, gender, race, culture, photo history and pharmaceuticals with new ideas that utilize historic and contemporary photographic techniques. This show features an array of artists, hailing from Oklahoma, New York, North Carolina, Georgia and Texas, including: Lesley Nowlin Blessing, Brian James Culberston, Ghazal Foroutan, Gabi Magaly, Andy Mattern, Jennifer McClure and Andi Schreiber, all hailing from across the United States.
“Introspection,” by Jessica Teckemeyer features mixed-media animal sculptures to explore the multiplicity in human nature. Her highly finished artworks feature dramatic, glossy human eyes to clue viewers into her ideation’s introspective nature. Teckemeyer’s research explores psychology, literature, film, media, and monster theory, revealing insights into how we develop socially.
Curator Christa Blackwood is an artist and educator from Oklahoma, currently based in Austin, TX and NYC. Blackwood received her BA in Classics at The University of Oklahoma and her Masters in Media Art & Photography from NYU. She is the founder of The Children’s Photographic Collective. Her work addresses themes of identity, gender, art/photo history and popular culture and has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States as well as overseas and featured in several publications, including The New York Times, The Chicago Sun Times, The Village Voice and Art Desk Magazine.
Lesley Nowlin Blessing, fine art and documentary photographer from Austin, TX, painstakingly creates large scale, beautiful, eerie and other worldly gilded platinum prints on vellum in her series, “Twin Elements,” that reference her life as a twin.
Brian James Culberston, artist and art/art history professor, currently based in Greenville, NC, incorporates prescription medications into his photographic chemistry for his large scale salt prints from the series, “Adverse,” that questions the one size fits all depersonalization of modern medicine and prescription drug culture.
Ghazal Foroutan, Iranian artist, designer and professor, received her MFA from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK this year and currently lives in Augusta, GA. Foroutan’s work explores a women’s place and rights in contemporary Iran with her passport photo series, “Cover it Up,” and graphic design Riso prints, zines and stickers – “Women of Tomorrow, Not Me.”
Gabi Magaly, artist and educator, currently based in San Antonio, TX, creates work that addresses her identity as a Mexican-American female with imagery that celebrates and critiques her catholic upbringing in the series, “Mi Religiòn” - self-portrait photographs and recreations of Bible stories that she heard growing up. The work is printed on blankets and hung with curtain rods on the Gallery walls.
Andy Mattern, artist and professor from Stillwater, OK, in his series, “Visage,” visually analyses how photography historically has depicted it’s subjects and how we then have viewed ourselves and others. With his custom built 20x24 inch camera, Mattern creates mirror images that are then printed as 20x24 inch gelatin silver prints.
Jennifer McClure, fine art photographer and educator from in NYC, uses the camera to ask and answer questions. McClure's work is about longing, solitude, and an ambivalent yearning for connection. She uses herself and her experiences to explore the creation of personal mythology and the agency of identity.
Andi Schreiber is a fine art and documentary photographer based in Westchester County, NY. Schreiber’s series, “Pretty Please,” examines the insecurities of middle age with honesty, sensuality and a sharp wit.
Jessica Teckemeyer maintains an active studio practice and is the Sculpture Professor at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities in May 2010. She is interested in the complexity of human behavior driven by instinctual reactions and culturally learned responses. Teckemeyer states, “as social creatures, we combat reason versus instinct. Through translating human experience into the form of an animal, we look at ourselves from another viewpoint – focused on our untamed, dangerous selves.” For example, her piece, “Human Shadow,” is a newborn deer with the shadow of a wolf; the head is visually distorted as if a slow-motion blur has permanently morphed the physicality. Ernest Hemingway stated, “All things truly wicked start from innocence.” The statement implicates the murky depths of our unconscious. Each person naturally develops a “shadow” beginning in childhood composed of repressed personality traits as culture teaches us to split and polarize dark and light. According to Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, great potential waits to be retrieved in the shadow.
All of these artists’ works will be available to view at JRB Art at The Elms from September 3 to October 30, 2021
About JRB Art at the Elms
JRB Art at The Elms presents a diverse roster of emerging, established, and internationally exhibited artists who create in a wide range of media including: paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, glass, fine crafts, functional objects, fiber art and photographs. This 8,000-square foot award-winning gallery in Oklahoma City’s Paseo Arts District changes its exhibits bi-monthly in a gracious environment that fosters a dialogue between the arts and the larger community while providing quality art for first time buyers as well as individual, corporate and museum collections.