Presented by the Arizona Commission on the Arts and Charteuse

Featuring 2015 Artist Research and Development Grantees David Emitt Adams, Alex! Jimenez, P.Nosa, Lauren Strohacker and Kendra Sollars
Each year, the Arizona Commission on the Arts awards Artist Research & Development Grants (ARDG) to artists working in all disciplines to aid in the development of artistic work, support the advancement of artistic research and recognize the contributions individual artists make to Arizona’s communities.

In June 2016, the Arts Commission presented an exhibition at Chartreuse, a contemporary art space on historic Grand Avenue in downtown Phoenix, featuring work by five members of the 2015 cohort of ARDG recipients.

The artists featured in Land Tracings work in various media and address multiple thematic concerns. However, at the core of their artistic practice is a need to document a passing moment. Whether its P.Nosa’s durational extemporaneous artmaking, Strohacker & Sollars’ digital reintroduction of long-departed animal species, Jimenez’s typographic exploration of culture and geography, or Adams’ anachronistic approach to documenting energy production and its impact on the environment, each is trying to preserve a time and place that may already be gone.

 

Featured Artists

DEA_ArizonaPublicService_sm
David Emitt Adams

Adams employs an 1850’s photographic process known as wet-plate collodion to make tintype photographs of power plants and oil refineries on 55-gallon oil drum lids as well as discarded aluminum cans. His work is exhibited nationally and internationally and he is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Society for Photographic Education’s Crystal Apple Award, the Magenta Foundation’s Emerging Photographers Award, and the Nathan Cummings Travel Award.

 

Alex! Jimenez

Jimenez created a “geographic alphabet book” of screen-prints featuring letters found in the distinctive signage of Tucson’s south side. The prints tell the stories of the streets and businesses of the area. Jimenez holds a degree in Animal Sciences from Cornell University, but rather than pursue a career in the field, she opted to return to her hometown of Tucson and explore her creativity and artistic impulses. A fourth-generation Tucsonan, Jimenez’s art frequently addresses issues related to the city and the history of its Mexican-American communities.

 

pnosa1a
P.Nosa

With a portable sewing machine powered by a solar panel and a bicycle that generates electricity, Nosa tours the country, settling in public areas where he sets up his machine and asks people to describe a scenario in five words or less. He interprets these scenarios in the moment, sewing intricate designs onto a patch. An artist, musician and DIY inventor, Nosa started sewing in 2003. Since then, drawing with a sewing machine has developed from a rewarding art form into a full-time career.

 

Lauren Strohacker & Kendra Sollars

Strohacker and Sollars are the creative team behind “Animal Land,” wherein larger-than-life video projections of wild animals are directed onto and within urban spaces. In 2014 Animal Land was awarded the Contemporary Forum Emerging Artist Grant by the Phoenix Art Museum. In 2016, Strohacker and Sollars participated in the Annenberg Space for Photography’s Iris Nights lecture series.