About the Fellowship
The four artists selected make compelling works that offer singular, yet collective views on our rapidly changing environment. Each attempts to reclaim, re-contextualize, and re-imagine different parts of Oklahoma’s physical and cultural landscape in ways that connect them to the broader social and environmental issues of our time. In their multi-media, performance-based practices, Sarah Engel and Glenn Herbert Davis stage interventions in rural and urban settings that challenge viewers’ perceptions of themselves in the context of the post-industrial society that we inhabit. Both artists use irony and humor to critique notions of authenticity and consumption. Themes of alienation and displacement underscore the works of Cedar Marie and Sherwin Tibayan. In her installations and photographs, Cedar Marie uses familiar objects to address notions of otherness and loss. Sherwin Tibayan’s photographs similarly speak to notions of loss. His photographs of blank billboards that populate our automotive-based landscape subtly question the disappearance of old media in a new media age. Through their individual artistic practices, each of these artists offers an alternative view to the problems and issues that we confront in our increasingly technologically determined age.
The Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition helps artists thrive in Oklahoma. OVAC serves over 4,000 artists annually through curated exhibitions, skill-building workshops and awards. The Oklahoma Visual Arts Fellowships and Student Awards of Excellence recognize Oklahoma artists with outstanding vision,
Oklahoma Visual Arts Fellowship and Student Awards of Excellence 2010
rewarding them for their past achievement and future promise. A guest curator selects the awards through an open call process.
View video interviews with the Fellowship award winners at www.youtube.com/okvisualarts.
On the cover: (Top) Cedar Marie, Norman, Fear, Mixed Media (wood, rubber, copper, linseed oil, paste wax) (Bottom) Glenn Herbert Davis, Tulsa, 5 Toolboxes, Common and Salvaged Woods, 10’ x 2’ x 2’
730 W. Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 104 Oklahoma City, OK 73116
Liza Statton Gallery Director/Curator Artspace, New Haven, CT
Non-Profit Org. US Postage PAID Okla. City, OK Permit No. 113
Curator’s Statement
www.ovac-ok.org | 405.879.2400
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8 Glenn Herbert Davis, Tulsa, Oklahoma Visual Arts Fellowship
Glenn Herbert Davis works in installation, performance and photography studying the struggle of the human body to endure and thrive within the systems to which it is subjected. Davis 2 is an Assistant Professor and Head of Photography Area at the University of Tulsa School of Art. He received an MFA in Photography from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and a BA in Journalism from the University of Minnesota. “Physical limits are set through multiple schemes,” said Davis in his artist statement, “each including an effort to negate the assumptions of non-touch, non-entry and/ or aesthetic purpose so routinely assigned. In this respect, function, fetish and sitespecificity are utilized aggressively to draw the question – perhaps to answer – that this entity ‘is for’ something else.”
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Cedar Marie, Norman, Oklahoma Visual Arts Fellowship
Cedar Marie’s work focuses on the displacement of the human body in its relationships to the production of physical objects. She received an MFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her BFA in Painting and Video from the University of MinnesotaDuluth. She is Assistant Professor of the Foundations Program at the University of Oklahoma School of Art & Art History and was selected to participate in the Oklahoma Art Writing and Curatorial Fellowship 2010. “I engage with problem solving processes informed by history, culture and the analysis of cultural materials,” said Marie. “The forms I create both mimic and alter cultural objects and their functions.”
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www.environmentalcues.blogspot.com
1. Glenn Herbert Davis, Tulsa, Track aNd trolley, Installation (common and salvaged woods, specialty lighting), 12’ x 24’ x 54’ 2. Glenn Herbert Davis, Tulsa, dust, blood, light, Photograph
3. Cedar Marie, Norman, Ache, Mixed media (wood, rubber, copper, linseed oil, paste wax), 36” x 6” x 1” 4. Cedar Marie, Norman, Something in the Air Between Us (detail), Mixed media (window frame, seine net), size varies 5. Cedar Marie, Norman, Old Man Jenkins, Mixed media (wood, epoxy, copper, paint), 17’ x 5’ x 2”
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Sarah Engel, Norman, Student Award of Excellence Sherwin R. Tibayan, Norman, Student Award of Excellence
Sherwin R. Tibayan is an MFA student at the University of Oklahoma. In his photographic work, he searches for the story that tells the most stories. In his series Horror Vacui, Tibayan documents the increased presence of empty billboards across several states. This project is created as a study of material culture, as a direct encounter and investigation of the billboard as an object and its relationship to the surrounding environment.
Sarah Engel is a student at the University of Oklahoma working towards a BFA in Media Art: photography and video. Her work incorporates a variety of media including photography, living plants and traditional craft techniques. Using facets of nature, she combines urban and rural spaces and encourages discussion of society’s split from its agricultural roots. w w w. o vac g a l l e r y.c om
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6. Sherwin R. Tibayan, Norman, Kilpatrick Turnpike, OK, Archival pigment print, 24” x 36” 7. Sherwin R. Tibayan, Norman, Impact, near Dallas, TX, Archival pigment print, 24” x 36”
8. Sarah Engel, Norman, Of Moss and Men, Digital photograph with bonsai tree environment, 8” x 10” 9. Sarah Engel, Norman, Horse and Buggy, Digital photograph closeup, 15” x 22” 10. Sarah Engel, Norman, From Dawn ‘til Sawdust, Digital photograph, 15” x 22”