Three FSU Art Professors in B20: Wiregrass Biennial Exhibition

B20: Wiregrass Biennial is a regional juried exhibition encouraging innovative and progressive work, that utilizes a variety of art forms and media and will feature paintings, sculptures as well as mixed media, new media and installation art. “The biennial exhibition is an important venue to showcase the incredible work being made in the South,” says Dana-Marie Lemmer, the museum’s executive director and FSU alumni. “I always enjoy being introduced to new artists and providing a platform for the artists to connect with each other. What makes this exhibition unique is that it serves as a visual representation of the diverse stories that exist across our region and an opportunity to learn from the experiences and stories that our artists are sharing.”

This year’s show features thirty-nine artists from eleven states; three of these are professors from FSU’s Department of Art: Lilian Garcia-Roig, Carrie Ann Baade, and Tra Bouscaren. Wiregrass Biennial is being held online this year due to the ongoing need for physical distancing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Artists would normally travel from around the Southeast to deliver and install their work, attend the traditional exhibition opening, and hold in-person artist talks and workshops. This year’s online presentation will give the public new ways to engage with artists, with plans for virtual artist talks, online workshops, virtual studio tours, artist conversations, and social media takeovers.

Cumulative Nature: North Florida Palm Brush, Garcia-Roig 2019
Oil on canvas, Dimensions: 48″ x 72″ (diptych)

Lilan Garcia-Roig, chair of the Department of Art, says “In a virtualized world, one could consider perceptual plein-air painting to be an act of defiance.”
She believes…” that the very act of making and viewing perceptually based, plein-air painting invites discourse on our own ability to have a meaningful, even sublime experience of nature today.”

Assistant Professor in Digital Media, Tra Bouscaren, informs his work with this quote by Guy Debord “Pollution is in fashion today, exactly in the same way as revolution: it dominates the whole life of society, and it is represented in illusory form in the spectacle.” His work engages American spectacle at the crossroads of waste culture and the surveillance state. By sculpting trash into screens for the multichannel projection of surveillance-based video, Bouscaren harvests materials from the waste of American culture.

Untitled, Bouscaren 2019-20
Salvage neon, metal, and styrofoam projection-mapped with an interactive multi-channel array of live surveillance video.

Professor of Painting, Carrie Ann Baade describes her work as painting is about painting. “In some ways, I am trying to bring the past back and keep it alive, and in other ways, I weave quotations of past work into a narrative that reflects my life experiences in the present. I paint from collages cut from the pages of Western European art history, so in a way, I work to preserve the past, and to create a new narrative that I may write my name on body of work mostly made by men.” Like the quiltmakers in her family, “each was designed into a new creation to cover us from scraps of the old. Nothing was lost; it was ordered and reabsorbed into a larger pattern. This reflects my own process working from the fabric of art history.” You can read the complete interview with Carrie Ann Baade using the following link, Wiregrass Interview.

Manufacturing of Tears, Baade 2018
Oil on Linen, Dimensions: 60″ x 84″

WMA will present five awards to this year’s participating artists: the Judge’s Award ($1,000); the new Alabama Award ($1,000), which will be given to an Alabama artist in the show; and three People’s Choice awards.

To participate in the People’s Choice awards, please follow these links to support FSU’s professors:
Tra Bouscaren https://wiregrassbiennial.com/works/untitled/
Lilian Garcia-Roig https://wiregrassbiennial.com/works/cumulative-nature-north-florida-palm-brush/
Carrie Ann Baade https://wiregrassbiennial.com/works/manufacturing-of-tears/

The People’s Choice Award will be decided through online voting by the public from the exhibitions opening date through September 26. The awards are intended to give artists funding to continue to develop new work and support their studio practice.

What: The Wiregrass Museum of Art’s biennial juried art exhibit
Where: Due to COVID-19, the exhibit will be virtual this year and opens Thursday, July 16 and end Sept 26th