Jan 22, 2025
HIIIIIIIIII RELIC!!!!!!!! Tallow is looking through your window :))
Why are you there.. You can just come inside,, ? There’s no sane reason to expose yourself to the elements without proper gear.
seen from Russia
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Poland
seen from Russia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from China
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from Japan
seen from China
seen from Russia
seen from Japan
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Germany
seen from China
HIIIIIIIIII RELIC!!!!!!!! Tallow is looking through your window :))
Why are you there.. You can just come inside,, ? There’s no sane reason to expose yourself to the elements without proper gear.
🌿 Who am I supposed to
please?
Once a man, now more machine than human— the remnants of what once was a bright young man, now a relic of the past. He was once a thriving inventor, dedicating years of it's life to his work with his late partner, in the pursuit of a better future— Alas, hubris and pride cause the demise of many a man, and Relic is no exception. An accident, and a sworn promise to fix their wrongdoings has doomed his humanity. Surely, he can fix this, right?
A victim of it's own fervour and work, and now a husk of his former self, Relic is slowly forgetting who he once was. Haunted, it aimlessly wanders the forest when free to do so and helps those in need— whether it be man or animal.
Who am I? 🌿
Victoria Hoyt, artist
Lee Gets Domestic, Lou Helps, ink, graphite on paper, 15" x 15"
Victoria Hoyt is the third artist in the Look More Ways Than Left and Right exhibit at the lichen gallery in Lincoln closing August 26, also the closing party for the gallery (which will continue to host quarterly shows at other spaces around the city; details below). Hoyt shares with Les Femmes Folles about her inspiration of literature, her nonlinear artistic process, her drawings up at lichen right now, the "for" and "against" issues of being a female artist, and how Omaha is "booming" with creative possibility...
Tell me about your background; are you from NE? Where did you go to school? How did you get to Nebraska?
I am indeed a native Nebraskan. I graduated from Omaha North High School then went to Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota for my undergrad. I’m in Ashland now and going to school in Lincoln for my MFA.
Tell me about your work; how would you describe it?
Literature is a huge source of inspiration for me, which is funny because (like my mother) I can’t really remember what happened in a book after I finish it. I remember feelings and characters and the things I thought about while reading, but the plot? Forget it. Maybe that’s my work in a nutshell: a plot-less picture book all in one page. (One of my professors here called them "lost narratives" which is far more poetic and just as accurate.) I usually don't start with an agenda or issue, but slowly gather observations, news stories, random facts and imagery to create a conversation I want to have with the world. The fact that my conversation gets to be wordless, non-linear and have nothing to do with fact is why painting is so great.
Foresight Got Her Behind, ink, gouache on paper, 15" x 15"
Tell me about what you are showing at the lichen. My paintings can get quite laborious as I fill in and overlap constantly, so this work is like the first layer left untouched (for the most part). I want my work this year to be big and serial, so I’m trying out different ways of using pattern and repetition on a small (and quick) scale. They are as close as I get to making studies for larger paintings.
Do you think being a woman has had an impact on your career/work?
When it comes to a career in the arts, I think there are hierarchies that work both for and against women as artists. The “for” part seems to be sex appeal—apparently pretty, young women are still good at selling art, so I guess if you make AND sell, well… benefits abound! The “against” part is more subtle and deeply rooted. We might be past the time of blatant, outspoken sexism (and racism) but we all carry those internal measuring sticks and it affects all facets of an artistic career. I think both men and women have to be very conscious of how gender stereotypes influence our thinking and we need to be able to question those patterns of thought without pointing fingers. (Or being snarky, which I failed at here. Sometimes I can’t help myself.) That said, both my work and my career choices are influenced more by choosing to be a feminist than my sex. I want to change who and what we value in the contemporary art world—when I hear that a work of art is “too masculine” I’ll change my tune. But not until then.
Do you think Nebraska - or Lincoln - is a good place to be a woman in the arts?
I do. I know Omaha better than Lincoln, but both cities seem booming with creative possibility and strong female leadership. I would like to see more investment in arts education, however, both in public schools and higher education. A good place for a woman artist is an inclusive, critical, intelligent community—education is where it’s at.
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August 26, 6-9p.m. is the closing reception for Look More Ways Left Than Right, as well as closing of the lichen gallery, open since 2009 (boasting over 60% of their artist exhibitors as female!). The lichen is located at 2810 N. 48th Street; for hours and more information visit thelichen.com.
Emma Nishimura, artist
Collected Stories
Artist Emma Nishimura, a student in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln MFA program, is showing drawings alongside Victoria Hoyt and Alison VanVolkenburgh at the lichen opening August 5 (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about her multi-media work which subject stems from stories she heard growing up about her grandparents' internment as Japanese Canadians during the Second World War and the multitude of encouragement and support she received from the women in her family.
Tell me about your background.
Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, living in Nebraska and the U.S.A. is a new experience for me. I completed my B.A. at the University of Guelph in 2005 and after spending five years working as an artist/printmaker in Toronto I decided it was time to go back to school. Drawn to UNL for their strong printmaking program, I’ve been in Lincoln for a year now, where I am currently an MFA candidate.
Tell me about your work.
My primary medium is printmaking; it is what I have been trained in and where most of my work begins. However, over the last few years my practice has evolved to include sewing, sculptural elements, photography, drawing and audio works. I have always been interested equally in the processes of creating art as well as the end product and I have adapted my working methods to allow the work to become what it wants to be.
In terms of inspiration and the conceptual roots for my work, I have been drawn to and keep returning, to the family stories that I grew up hearing. Haunted by the stories of my paternal grandparents and their internment as Japanese Canadians during the Second World War my work looks to connect my own experiences and interpretations with these memories. Yet throughout this process I am forever aware of the futility of my actions due to the fragile nature of memory, of it’s malleability and mediated effects.
Collected Stories (detail)
Tell me about what you will be showing at the lichen in August.
This August I will be exhibiting a number of recent drawings from a series entitled Inherited Narratives. Each piece depicts a different Japanese object that has been passed down to me from the Japanese side of my family. And although I am calling them drawings, the works are actually solely composed of hand written text. Interested in the associations that stories and memories create over the years, the drawings use text from novels, historical accounts and transcriptions from my family members version of events surrounding the Japanese Canadian internment. Throughout my research I have come to realize how conflated my own memories of my grandparents experiences have become. Different stories have merged together, while parts of novels and history have woven themselves into my own version of my family’s tales.
Do you think being a woman has had an impact on your career/artistry?
Absolutely. Growing up in a family of women, I have found great support and encouragement from both their strength and wisdom. Within my work I don’t often focus specifically or solely on issues related to being a woman, however my work most certainly deals with my love of stories, of how tales are passed down through generations, specifically by the women in my family.
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Look More Ways Than Left and Right opens at the lichen, 2810 N. 48th St. in Lincoln, Friday, August 5, 6-9p.m. and continues through August 26. For more information visit thelichen.com.
Alison VanVolkenburgh, artist
O.O.S.O.O.T., digital print
Alison VanVolkenburgh will be showing at the lichen alongside fellow University of Nebraska-Lincoln MFA graduates Victoria Hoyt and Emma Nishimura, opening August 5 in Lincoln (details below). She shares with Les Femmes Folles about her interest in the "awareness of others and the associations and emphasis placed on the human form" in her work, the inspiration behind the drawings to be shown in the show, and how Nebraska is a very encouraging place to be for an artist...
Tell me about your background.
Despite a lifetime of practice, it’s always a tricky business for me to explain where I’m from. My answer is generally long, rambling, and, I suspect, tries the auditory endurance of even the most patient listener. Hopefully, the written version will allow for some skimming!
I was born in South Korea and spent my childhood moving back and forth between Minneapolis, Minnesota and the island of Singapore in Southeast Asia. I rounded out high school in Maine before attending Wellesley College in Boston, the city where I lived and worked after graduation. I moved to Nebraska, my most recent relocation, two years ago when I entered the MFA program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Tell me about your work.
I work primarily with 2-D imagery--digital photography, drawing, and print--to investigate ideas of perception and cognitive recognition.
I am particularly interested in our awareness of others and the associations and emphasis placed on the human form. The ability to visually process our environment may seem extremely straightforward to those long accustomed to its instinctive use. However, there is more to seeing than the pure mechanics of visual perception. Despite sharing the general structures and function for sight, every person’s experience differs. In this way, while broadly accessible, perception is also highly individualized.
My work focuses on expressing my personal view of the world, one which is largely shaped by a low awareness of others. In my eyes, the daily interplay of seeing and being seen, self and other is disrupted, as features and distinguishing characteristics of those I encounter almost always fail to register.
Tell me about what you will be showing at the lichen in August.
The works in the Look more ways than left and right show at the Lichen reflect my experimentation with various styles of drawing this summer and a continued investigation into different ways of seeing. As the show title suggests, the works encourage the consideration of things from a new angle.
Through altering what is expected in a familiar form, I hope to prompt a re-evaluation of the original object and how we perceive it. For example, in my drawings of the figure, the actual body is removed, and represented instead by a garment, which is itself created simply from minimal lines and areas of pattern. I would like the viewer to question the distinctions made between self and exterior, volume and line, and the other categorizations by which we understand and describe the world around us.
Untitled, pen and ink
Do you think being a woman has had an impact on your career or artistry?
I do think that being a woman has impacted my artwork, as it has my life. As artists, I believe that our work reflects the various experiences that have shaped us as individuals, and, in our society, gender is an undeniable factor in shaping those experiences.
Thanks to the continuing work of generations of women’s rights activists and supporters, there may not necessarily be key moments of overt discrimination for me as a female artist, but the assumptions regarding my various goals, roles, interests, and inclinations based on my gender affect me both as a woman and an artist.
Do you think Nebraska - or Lincoln - is a good place to be a woman in the arts?
Being relatively new here and still working within the academic bubble, I imagine that I lack the full picture of what it means to live and work within the arts and wider community in Nebraska. That being said, I do believe that Nebraska is a good place to be an artist. The number of independently owned galleries, arts organizations, exhibition opportunities, and general support for the arts make it a very encouraging environment for both new and established artists.
While Nebraska is not immune from the issues (be they stereotypes or double standards) faced, in varying degrees, by women artists the world over, the work and presence of local female artists and supporters of the arts is heartening and extremely admirable.
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Look More Ways Than Left and Right opens at the lichen, 2810 N. 48th St. in Lincoln, Friday, August 5, 6-9p.m. and continues through August 26. For more information visit thelichen.com.