nothing feels like the first time

Last week, I was able to attend the reception for Computer Aided at the Masur Museum of Art. Computer Aided is an exhibition examining the impact technology has on current art making practices and contemporary culture. I was enjoyed reading what Curator Benjamin Hickey had to say about my work in the exhibition catalogue:

“For Computer Aided, Chambers created an edition of nine mono prints on which he drew images with gouache and ink. He also used the computer drafting program Illustrator to print vinyl stickers featuring the silhouettes of these works’ characters as well as the words “nothing feels like the first time,” the name of the edition. The silhouettes left voids filled by the brilliant white paper beneath and bring to mind the various meanings lurking behind the words and images on Chambers’ pieces. It is interesting to think of printmaking as a near timeless medium associated with Albrecht Durer, one of the medium’s most famous and expert practitioners who worked in the sixteenth century. Printmaking was the first reliable way to make copies of an image, a feat that is now seen more as a right than a potentially laborious art form. Each of Chambers’ mono prints are nearly identical, but were individually made, thereby calling attention to how difficult image making has been in a historic sense. Chambers’ mingling of historic and contemporary art making techniques lends his art a great deal of historic perspective. Specifically, a whole series of images titled nothing feels like the first time asks if it is important to prioritize the means in which we experience images. Is seeing a thumbnail of an image search on Google a lesser experience that seeing the original in person?

Mr. Hickey was spot-on. The work is also concerned with the incongruity between the limitations of language and our range of experience. Nothing feels like the first time, but there are many first times. With infinite alterations that take place within repeated happenings, how do we decide which experience is new or merely another repeat in a long line of similar situations?

The show will be on exhibit through October 5, 2013. The Museum is open 9-5, Closed on Sundays and Mondays. The exhibit contains work from the following artists:

Keliy Anderson-Staley
Joshua Chambers
Harold Cohen
Mat Collishaw
Craig Damrauer
Hanson Elahi
Shepard Fairey
Damien Hirst
Jenny Holzer
John Rodriguez
Jes Schrom & Graham Simpson
Kate Shannon
Marni Shindelman & Nate Larson
Bill Viola

I have two exhibitions coming up in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Both shows will open in October. Stayed tuned for more info.

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nice letters are nice

I received my first rejection letter of the new year: The Bradley International Print and Drawing Exhibition. I have to admit that I’ve grown fond of reading rejection letters. I enjoy the subtle differences in the construction of each rejection letter. I used to save them when I was in graduate school. I pinned them to the wall of my studio like some sort of merit badge. I kept them all on the same push-pin. One day while I was painting, the push-pin fell out of the wall. It could no longer hold the weight. I laughed at the situation until I was cleaning up the mess and realized the stack that I thought had been accumulating for awhile had only amassed over the course of one academic year. Sitting there on the floor in the midst of an obscene amount of rejection letters I counted on two fingers the shows I had been selected for, neither of which were in the same year. It was a very dramatic moment.

I’ve grown a thicker skin and developed a more selective process for submissions. And sometimes a rejection letter can be a relief, especially when the opposite would mean a last minute scramble to frame and pack. I think I still prefer a rejection in the mail over one in email.

Now to speak of the shows in which I do have work. Here are the links to their online catalogues:
Louisiana Purchase
Surreal Salon 5

I have also finished two new monotypes and two new paintings: