The GPS or Global Positioning System can instantly pinpoint your location and lead you to a destination. This national juried exhibition explores the transformative relationship between individual identity and a physical space, geographic location, or inhabitance. Exhibiting artists conceptualize how topographical characteristics evoke a sense of place through photographic prints, hand-crafted fiber art, photorealistic oil and watercolor paintings, digital collage, screenprints, glass sculptures, and installations. Cash prizes totaling $1000 will be awarded by Professor Laura Strand, head of Textile Arts at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
JUROR: Professor Laura Strand
Laura is head of Textile Arts has a comprehensive back-ground and formal training in weaving, surface design, papermaking, bookbinding and basketry through a BFA from Georgia State University and an MFA from the University of Kansas, Lawrence. She has exhibited widely and lectured throughout the country. As a working artist her interests include the interface between feminism and visual culture, exploring the connection between the textile field and our Western cultural understanding of "women's work." As an artist and a person she engages in an effort to link the rich heritage of the textile arts with contemporary theoretical discourse.
in the curated gallery
Caroline Philippone - "Jeju Island."Caroline is a self-identified traditional film photographer with a passion for environmental activism, social change and understanding of other cultures, she has developed a unique style that is a cross between commercial and documentary photography. Jeju Island is a fine art series of black and white silver gelatin prints of evolving environmental landscapes including coastal roads, mountained forests, and temples in the seasonal Jeju Providence of South Korea, the southernmost South Korean island.hopelessness.
Melissa Whiteman - "Storm Gallery." Melissa is a self taught painter with a fascination for temperamental weather. Her realistic oil paintings of a storm’s disturbed state convey a calm energy. The awe-inspiring works in Storm Gallery are comparable to dramatic atmospheric conditions while also reflecting an emotional state of being or an internal sense of place.
Meredith Foster - "Lighting Fires, Living Edge." Meredith is a visual artist with an interest in the relationship between culture and the natural world. Her installations, paintings, and photography draw inspiration from and uses outdoor imagery and the environmental landscape. Lighting Fires are oil painted burning embers of a bonfire designed to displayed with Living Edge, an installation of pixelated photographs mounted to lumber. Lighting Fires, Living Edge combined “gesture to the point that nature is not to be seen as something set apart from humans but is instead something we fundamentally alter and continue to shape.”