Underdonk

press release

Yours or Mine
opening reception: Sat, Aug 24  from 6-8p
Aug 24 – Sep 29

Oletha DeVane, Sam Reeder, Sydney Shavers, Jackie Slanley, Jacquelin Zazueta

Curated by Christine Stiver

It’s easy to be seduced by Slanley’s slick, clean-edged surfaces. The near perfect symmetry of her plexi and hardware florals tap into our biological rules of attraction. As the creator of her own mythical world, Slaney crossbreeds 18th century botanical drawings, tattoo art, Buddhist iconography and ancient Japanese depictions of hell to create a world of inexhaustible variation. Zazueta is also building a world, one steeped in Mexican folklore, southern storytelling and Catholic ritual. In her travels she collects objects that make their way into altar-like tableaus, each one a dedication to magical thinking. The original objects are destroyed in the making of a 3D print, engaging in a cycle of death and rebirth where the rebirths are infinite. Inasmuch as a sculpture can transmit the divine, DeVane’s totems do so by channeling the power of the archetype. By employing mythical figures such as the mermaid, she invites interpretations of her work from different cultural perspectives, such as that of the Mami Wata, siren or selkie. DeVane frequently uses reflective and shiny objects to hold the spirit close to the earth, a tradition long found in West Africa, and later, the American South. Rather than reflecting light, Reeder’s larger-than-life neon drawing emits it. Neon conjures images of late night streets, Come In We’re Open, you can eat here, sleep here, dance here, play. Various promises of security and/or pleasure acquired in increments of time. Reeders work instead broadcasts desire in perpetuity, without a prescribed beginning or end. Shavers’ icing and found object paintings also play with the notion of pleasure, but gratification from these works verge on the grotesque. Encoded in their sickly sweet surfaces are secret messages of anti-authoritarianism. Because Shaver’s paintings defy preservation by inevitably cracking with age, her work also resists the assumption that an image holds still with time. 

Yours or Mine is both an invitation and a boundary. Although the works in this exhibition claim space by being highly idiosyncratic, they seek common ground somewhere between attention, affection and desire.

Artist Bios

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Oletha DeVane received her B.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art and M.F.A. in painting from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.   As a multidisciplinary artist, her social, political and spiritual concerns are the content of her art practice.  Her first major exhibition was at the Springfield Museum of Art in Massachusetts in 1976. Since then, she has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions locally and internationally. The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture in Baltimore commissioned DeVane to create a video installation documenting Maryland’s history of lynching in 2003 entitled “Witness”. The piece was inspired by an earlier silent video installation of the same subject at Maryland Art Place (2002). Her work is in permanent museum collections and she has exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Museum of the Bible in NY, Museum of the Americas, DC.   Articles about her work have appeared in issues of the B’more Art Magazine, JHU’s periodical, the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post. She is among the first African-American artists invited to be an Artist-in-Residence in Abu Dhabi, UAE, was an Artist in Residence in Banff, Canada and Lecce in Italy.  All of her travel and research informs her work.  She is involved in the Baltimore arts community as an exhibiting artist, curator and educator in the arts. She has served on the board of Maryland Art Place, School 33 visual arts panels, as vice-chairperson of Wide Angle Community Media, a non-profit youth media organization in Baltimore and the board of  the Build Haiti Foundation.  She was the Program Director for the Maryland State Arts Council’s Individual Artist (1979-92) and Visual Arts programs (1990-92). An artist and educator, DeVane is the former head of visual arts in the Upper School at McDonogh School in Owings Mills and was honored in 2007 as a recipient of the Rollins/Luktemeyer Chair for Distinguish Teaching.  She is a recent recipient of  the Trawick Prize 2019 and Art Matters Grant 2018 and 2020.  She started a mosaic in Camp Coq, Haiti with the help of local artisans and students 2017 with a grant from the Ruby Foundation.  She currently resides in Ellicott City, MD where she maintains her studio practice.  

Sam Reeder received his BFA in Sculpture and Dimensional Studies from Alfred University in Alfred, New York. He continues his studio practice as a neon artist and is the Studio Technician for Lite Brite Neon. He lives and works in Kingston, New York.

Sydney Shavers is an artist based in New York, NY. Her work appraises preconceived notions & concepts of value. Her work uses deceptive camouflage to infiltrate systems both digital & ‘IRL’, and expose the ways power constructs understanding, mediates perception, and prescribes limits to reality. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including We Were Already Gone at Hauser & Wirth Chelsea, Manhattan NY; un/mute at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Manhattan NY; A Gathering at The Catskills in Tribeca, Manhattan NY; and Pieces of Me at Transfer Gallery & left.gallery [online]. She has developed and led educational programs such as ‘IRL Constellations: Social Media, Algorithms & Pop Culture’ for Drawstring Magazine’s LEARN; and co-developed ‘The Role of the Artist & A Sense of Place’ for CUNY Hunter College. Shavers has participated in residencies & projects including UN/MUTE 10002 with the European Union National Institutes for Culture & Undercurrent Gallery; ACRE; and HATCH projects at Chicago Artists Coalition. 

Jackie Slanley, a first-generation Vietnamese American artist based in Brooklyn NY, crafts narratives using laser-cut plexiglass as her medium. By intricately cutting and assembling plexiglass with nuts and bolts, she constructs a cinematic gradient composed of layered, tinted transparencies. Using images of plant life, animals, and landscapes sourced from public archives, Slanley delves into the intersections of fiction, botany, biology, and technology. Employing vector software, she translates these inspirations into digital renderings that draw from images rooted in myth and scientific history. She often engages in work that explores where sculpture and materials meet historical symbolism. Having been an artist in residence at the Ox-Bow School of Art and a sculpture fellow at the Vermont Studio Center, Slanley has shown her work nationally and internationally, with exhibitions in NYC, Kansas City, Washington D.C., and Austria. She’s been in international print publications including ArtMazeMag and WOW Magazine. She holds a BFA in Painting and Visual Art from Hunter College and an MFA in Sculpture from Pratt Institute.

Jacquelin Zazueta (b. 1997, Rogers, AR) lives and works in Texas. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of design (RISD) in 2019. As a Mexican American who grew up in the Ozarks, Zazueta’s work blends mountain superstition, Mexican myths and folk catholic practices. Zazueta’s work explores the sacred, holy and profane while consisting of everyday found objects that utilizes the modern practice of 3D printing with the traditional craft of flocking and ceramics. Through combining these practices, Zazueta’s shrines, altars and ceramic prayer tablets transform the ghosts of the lost forms into colorful and devotional objects.

Curator Bio

Christine Stiver is an interdisciplinary artist and curator living and working in Brooklyn. She has exhibited her sculptures most recently at Tappeto Volante (Brooklyn), McBride Contemporain (Montreal), Headstone Gallery (Kingston, NY) and Upstate Art Weeknd with Good Naked (Cragsmoor, NY).  In addition to maintaining her sculpture practice, Stiver seeks out meaningful collaborations with other artists including performances with actor, Tracie Jiggetts; collaborative edible sculptures with Dominic Terlizzi; and a room installation with Book Club Artists Collective at Spring Break Art Show. As a curator Stiver has collaborated on many projects, including a recent outdoor exhibition in Msgn. McGolrick Park Pavillion, titled No Regerts. This is her debut curatorial project as a member of Underdonk.