Going through the motion.
Liz Rodda + Steven Evans
ON VIEW: Sun, 26 Feb – Sun, 28 May, 2023
OPENING RECEPTION: 26 February, 2023 | 1 - 5 pm
Jonathan Hopson is proud to present Going through the motion., a two person exhibition from gallery artists Liz Rodda and Steven Evans. Rodda will present an installation of two short video works and Evans will fill the back gallery with his large scale neon sculpture directly from his installation for the New York City Aids Memorial, Songs for a Memorial, 2022.
Going through the motion. rekindles Bruce Nauman's neon artwork The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths from 1967. Both Evans and Rodda invoke this old adage of what it is to embody the spirit of the artist and how their work can do the Sisyphean task that Nauman sets forth. For Nauman the work was at once a questioning and a faith exercise that keeps revealing its own mystic truths about artists and art making to this day.
Steven Evans responds, "Bruce Nauman’s The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (1967) is a bold statement, and regardless of whether the viewer believes Nauman is sincere or not, it is a potentially self-aggrandizing statement to be coming from an artist, placing the viewer in a passive, receptive stance. You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) (2020-2022) is a strong statement, it is me trying to lift the viewer up, pointing out that without a community, without friends, without lovers, an artist does not have inspiration. Without a partner in the exchange of ideas and emotions, an artist has no reason to create. In my proposition, I only become “Mighty Real” when I am part of a symbiotic participatory relationship with my community."
Rodda and Evans utilize conceptual frameworks that tie themselves to the immediacy of the present moment. The beckoning neon sign and the long slow drawl of a vulnerable monologue stop us instantly: we are captured in the moment of their making. In that rare space that these two artists conjure up we take up a seance with the mysticism of that glowing spiral: we approach new truths through mystic formulations.
Going through the motion. rekindles Bruce Nauman's neon artwork The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths from 1967. Both Evans and Rodda invoke this old adage of what it is to embody the spirit of the artist and how their work can do the Sisyphean task that Nauman sets forth. For Nauman the work was at once a questioning and a faith exercise that keeps revealing its own mystic truths about artists and art making to this day.
Steven Evans responds, "Bruce Nauman’s The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (1967) is a bold statement, and regardless of whether the viewer believes Nauman is sincere or not, it is a potentially self-aggrandizing statement to be coming from an artist, placing the viewer in a passive, receptive stance. You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) (2020-2022) is a strong statement, it is me trying to lift the viewer up, pointing out that without a community, without friends, without lovers, an artist does not have inspiration. Without a partner in the exchange of ideas and emotions, an artist has no reason to create. In my proposition, I only become “Mighty Real” when I am part of a symbiotic participatory relationship with my community."
Rodda and Evans utilize conceptual frameworks that tie themselves to the immediacy of the present moment. The beckoning neon sign and the long slow drawl of a vulnerable monologue stop us instantly: we are captured in the moment of their making. In that rare space that these two artists conjure up we take up a seance with the mysticism of that glowing spiral: we approach new truths through mystic formulations.
Liz Rodda
Liz Rodda (Sacramento, 1982) lives and works in Austin and is Associate Professor at Texas State University where she founded the Expanded Media Studio Art Area, dedicated to time-based practices.
Her work has been screened and exhibited in museums, galleries, and film venues such as Fotofest The Museum of Contemporary Art Miami, Miami; Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin, Medellin, Columbia; David Shelton Gallery, Houston; Women and Their Work, Austin; Ditch Projects, Springfield, OR; and Anthology Film Archives. Residencies include Wassaic, Fountainhead, Experimental Television Center, Vermont Studio Center, Byrdcliffe, and La Napoule. Liz is also a co-programmer for Experimental Response Cinema.
This exhibition is Rodda's third at Jonathan Hopson Gallery.
Liz Rodda (Sacramento, 1982) lives and works in Austin and is Associate Professor at Texas State University where she founded the Expanded Media Studio Art Area, dedicated to time-based practices.
Her work has been screened and exhibited in museums, galleries, and film venues such as Fotofest The Museum of Contemporary Art Miami, Miami; Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin, Medellin, Columbia; David Shelton Gallery, Houston; Women and Their Work, Austin; Ditch Projects, Springfield, OR; and Anthology Film Archives. Residencies include Wassaic, Fountainhead, Experimental Television Center, Vermont Studio Center, Byrdcliffe, and La Napoule. Liz is also a co-programmer for Experimental Response Cinema.
This exhibition is Rodda's third at Jonathan Hopson Gallery.
Steven Evans
Steven Evans (Key West, 1964) earned a BFA in photography at the Atlanta College of Art, Georgia, and an MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Canada in 1989. Evans is an artist, writer, curator, and Executive Director of the award-winning arts organization FotoFest, which founded and sponsors the first and longest-running international Biennial of Photography and New Media Art in the United States.
Evans has served as a panelist for the National Endowment of Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Prior to FotoFest, Evans worked with a wide range of artists and collaborators as Managing Director of the Dia:Beacon Museum in New York and as Director of the Linda Pace Foundation in San Antonio, Texas. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions in New York City, New York; Los Angeles, California; Paris, France; Berlin, Germany; and elsewhere, including recent inclusion in group exhibitions Macho Man, Tell It To My Heart at Artists Space, New York, New York, and Powerful Babies, Keith Haring's Impact on Artists Today at Spritmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden. His first solo museum exhibition took place at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) in 2019. This exhibition is Steven Evans' sixth at the gallery.
Steven Evans (Key West, 1964) earned a BFA in photography at the Atlanta College of Art, Georgia, and an MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Canada in 1989. Evans is an artist, writer, curator, and Executive Director of the award-winning arts organization FotoFest, which founded and sponsors the first and longest-running international Biennial of Photography and New Media Art in the United States.
Evans has served as a panelist for the National Endowment of Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Prior to FotoFest, Evans worked with a wide range of artists and collaborators as Managing Director of the Dia:Beacon Museum in New York and as Director of the Linda Pace Foundation in San Antonio, Texas. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions in New York City, New York; Los Angeles, California; Paris, France; Berlin, Germany; and elsewhere, including recent inclusion in group exhibitions Macho Man, Tell It To My Heart at Artists Space, New York, New York, and Powerful Babies, Keith Haring's Impact on Artists Today at Spritmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden. His first solo museum exhibition took place at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) in 2019. This exhibition is Steven Evans' sixth at the gallery.
Liz Rodda
Slow Dazzle, 2017 Video, found/manipulated audio 3:27 minutes (screenshot shown) |
Steven Evans
You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), 2020-2022 LED Neon sign 10 x 192 inches |
