Images and Ruins at School 33 Art Center
June 7 – August 3, 2013
Curated by Michelle Gomez
Images and Ruins In Eduardo Cadava’s essay, The Image in Ruins, Cadava explains how images so often speak of death and survival. “Images and Ruins” is an exhibition about both the preservation and destruction of memories through alternative photographic processes, and how those processes are important to understanding the final outcome of the photograph. The manipulation of photography by means of obliterating, blurring, white washing, sanding, repeating and destroying imagery bring to light the mind’s processes, giving viewers a look into how artists deal with memories, fears, past experiences and repressed histories. These frozen moments become ruins because history can only be understood through its disappearance.
Artists: Twiggy Boyer, Chajana denHarder, Michael Koliner, Shannon LaRue, Erin Maywhoor, Joseph Parra, Nick Clifford Simko, and Heather Stratton
Curator Michelle Gomez
Michelle Gomez was born and raised in sunny Miami, FL where she graduated from the prestigious New World School of the Arts (NWSA) high school in 2008. In 2012, she received her BFA in General Fine Arts with a concentration in Curatorial Studies from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, MD. She is the recipient of numerous academic awards, including the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Merit Scholarship and Fanny B Thalheimer Merit Scholarship. Gomez has produced many independent curatorial projects and programs in Baltimore and Miami. She is the Founder and Director of Young Blood; an annual exhibition in Miami that showcases alumni from NWSA as a fundraiser for the Visual Art department, has served on the Program Advisory Committee at Maryland Art Place in Baltimore, MD and was a 2013 Smithsonian Latino Center Fellow.
Gomez enjoys making autobiographical artwork using a wide variety of mediums; most recently focusing on digital photography. Gomez has participated in many group exhibitions in Miami, Baltimore and D.C. Psychology, gender roles and cultural identity are subjects of her artistic investigations and curatorial projects. She is focusing her Graduate studies on new methods of exhibition presentation, socially engaged artwork, and Latin American culture and art. She is currently conducting fieldwork in the Baltimore Latino community, which will determine a final Thesis project that addresses the community’s wants and needs. Gomez will graduate with her MFA in Curatorial Practice from MICA in 2014.
* All photos courtesy of Michelle Gomez
