Gathering: Artist Zoe Childerley

This body of work, called Dinosaur Dust, was made with the community based around the edge of Joshua Tree National Park in California during an artist in residence programme and subsequent visits.

It is an intimate portrait of a peripheral and charismatic community of the high desert,struggling to find meaning and moments of grace in a hostile environment. The work explores the encounters between people and nature, playing with light, impermanence and the faculties of seeing.

Working with the contrast of the black of the night and the blinding light of the day, this work investigates the narrative potential of photography in relation to its abstract capacities, bringing forth a reality that is simultaneously uncanny and unknowable. I am interested in landscape, and particularly in combining a desire to experience the‘sublime’ with the inexplicable seduction of the abyss.

​In the American West everywhere has been conquered and exhausted, so people look to the desolate outposts and then to the heavens in search of the authentic wilderness. The images generate a powerful atmosphere and sense of place, one that is infused with the longing, uncertainty and expectation associated with the unseen.

We spoke with modern day Renaissance man, Tyler Thrasher a couple years ago in our Summer 2015 issue. Amber was drawn to his work after discovering their mutual interest in the Ozark Mountains. Read more about Tyler’s work and stop by Abrams Claghorn to see Quartz Cholla!

Nature and its respective curiosities. That is my current narrative and inspiration. My work has always spoken of and about the natural elements and microscopic ones ​that surround each and everyone of us, the tendencies for ​​humans to trace and follow curious and natural callings, and most importantly, the importance of curiosity and experimentation.
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For as long as I can recall, my work has revolved around these things, because I revolve around these things. I am driven by these elements, and in turn they are driving me.

Most of my time is spent exploring, reacting to, and prodding nature. Taking any chance I can get to hike, look for caves, find rare plants, dance alongside the fundamental principles of molecular chemistry, and following EVERY SINGLE ITCH. Every calling, whether it be a faint whisper or more of a dire screaming that wakes me up in the middle of the night, I answer them. This tends to come across as sporadic and chaotic in my work and what I “want to do” but it couldn’t feel more natural and at peace. While scrolling through my site, you’ll get little glimpses of that knack to answer every calling. Rather it be chemistry, illustrating, painting, photography, music, writing, you name it. If I need it, I do it.

Nearly a year ago we spoke to Spencer Merolla about her art that utilizes worn fabrics, human hair and several other materials to explore our relationship with grief. In our Autumn 2016 issue, you’ll learn about her earlier works including Hairworks and Funeral Clothes. You can see Enfold now on view at Abrams Claghorn as part of Gathering: A Venison Magazine Retrospective, through August 31st.

My work is concerned with bereavement: the tension between public and esoteric grief, social customs and material culture of mourning, and objects as repositories of memory which both retain and transmit meaning. Among the media I work with are human hair, clothing, and found photographs.

Hairwork: Mourning Art for Moderns

This series takes the Victorian women’s practice of sentimental hairwork as its jumping-off point. For the Victorians, mourning was a very public act. Rather than a esoteric emotion or an embarrassment, grief was a popular motif for the arts and fashion. What strikes modern sensibilities as mawkish and overly sentimental behavior was, at the time, considered proof of a person’s sincerity and morality. Ornamental hairwork, painstakingly crafted from the hair of loved ones, was a fashion that insisted the wearer embodied these virtues. This work plays with the tension between sincerity and emotional performance, imagining a contemporary practice in which moderns might socially engage with death’s physicality. The dissonance of the craft (when

transposed onto the emotional and aesthetic landscape of our times) draws attention to the ever-shifting boundaries of permitted public display.

​That the hair must be severed from the body to be worked in this fashion is a compelling aspect of the practice for me. With few exceptions, the provenance of antique hairwork is now unknown. As a result, it loses its essential quality of referring to a specific person, while still being a distinctively “personal” object. In a sense, the story of hairwork is a testament not of our capacity to remember our lost loved ones, but of our ultimate inability to hold onto them.

​Skye Livingston is an interdisciplinary artist working with textiles, paper, and organic materials. She has received several awards for her work, including “Best of Show” in the Kansas City Art Institute’s 2012 BFA Exhibition, an ​award juried by ​artist Andres Serrano and director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum Julian Zugazagoitia. Her work is included in the collection of The Wichita Center for the Arts in Wichita, KS as well as numerous private collections. She has completed several residencies including the Artist in Residence program at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. She received her BFA in Fiber, and BA in Art History from the Kansas City Art Institute and is currently maintaining her studio practice in Ashland, W

My work utilizes skin-like materials and recognizable motifs to rearrange the concept of home. Through elements oftranslucency, fragility and repetition, I investigate the idea that our homes and our identities are enmeshed within each other, aswell as individually faceted: we create and discard them through a psychological process of growing and shedding skins. Byutilizing repetitive processes and creating collections of subtly unique multiples, I aim to depict and memorialize this overlapbetween mental and physical space, and consider each piece a small monument, both personal and universal.

Featured in our Winter 2014 issue, ​Toronto based artist Brian Donnelly joins Venison artists from all over the world with Confetti Portrait for Gathering: A Venison Magazine Retrospective. We’re excited to see how much his work has evolved in the last couple of years. Centered on portraiture, Donnelly’s minimalist portraits evoke a visceral response we cannot ignore.