Artist Lectures

Erika Harrsch

Exhibited around the world, Erika Harrsch is a well-known contemporary artist who specializes in multidisciplinary practices such as painting, photography, and animation. Her main pieces revolve around the symbolism of the butterfly. She has over six years of experience with an entomologist, researching and studying every aspect of the butterfly. To Harrsch, the butterfly symbolizes the relationship people have with their own nature and this is represented uniquely in each of her works.

The first piece she showed was “Imagos”. It is a vast collection of cut out photographs of various species of butterflies with the images of female genitalia in the center. Each butterfly is unique to the country of the women she used in the center. By doing so, Harrsch illustrates the culture and migration of the women as she did similarly with another project in which she created a passport with the design of Canadian, American, and Mexican pieces surrounding a Monarch butterfly. The butterfly is a form of identity of gender within society. She renders the genitalia in “Imagos”not as taboo, but as an organic object. Imago, the title of this piece means fully-winged insect or fully adult, perfectly representing each part in this piece. Her work, however, was controversial in a few places such as Syria, where it was censored after it was inspected more closely.

Another project she has craftily designed is her “Inverted Sky”. Her installations, kites, and paintings each contain a butterfly in some form. The kites on display are made from the monetary units of China (dragon) and the US (butterflies). They display two sides to the meaning of specimen; in one way for study and the other as a bank note. Harrsch designs her work in such a way that it begs the viewer to question and look more deeply into human nature and the struggles of our culture and society. Each of her projects were inspiring and so original that it is easy to see why Harrsch is so successful.

Colby Stephens

In his MFA thesis lecture, “Visual art and the Stratification of Information,” Colby Stephens cleverly presents the issues of the Federal Reserve, his muse, through conceptual art. From Oregon with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Stephens is completing his MFA at UNR in spring 2014. He intends to pursue a career in politics as an artist, researcher, and as a political activist.  

Stephens began his lecture with a comparison of horizon lines and politics. “Horizon lines are a navigation framework, they vary in usefulness, and are futile to pursue. They are conceptual illusions and they do not exist.” He said the same goes for political landscapes; “They are conceptual illusions and therefore, do not exist.” With this, he proposes a solution to the problem with federal policy and injustice. “Mismanaged federal policies have a disproportionally negative effect on the poor and middle class while simultaneously benefiting the wealthy by an upwards redistribution of wealth.”

So why art? Stephens sees art as a way to provide sufficient and unique opportunities to convey the facts and ideas that aren’t available elsewhere. He believes the stratification of information gives details that help make his work more intellectually honest. In his piece, “Gown for Lady Liberty,” he stratifies the information through the title, material, and details of his work. The gown, delicately placed on a white manikin, is made entirely from papers of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Taking a closer look, each letter “A” has been changed to a scarlet red to symbolize the adulteration of our liberties at the hand of central banking. Stephens’ originality and attention to detail make his work stand out and speak to its audience. 

Benjamin Poynter

Ben Poynter is a "practitioner of digital media and independent video games in the contemporary art world." His work examines the relationships between the real and the virtual. They revolve around the animation, cinematography, and narrative included in some of his projects in the forms of indie games, digital applications, and computer graphics.

Poynter's lecture was very fast-paced and covered many of his works. Admittedly, his rate of speech was so fast at times it was hard to understand what he was explaining. One project of his that stood out was his smartphone game “In a Permanent State.” This game is based off the events at Foxconn’s electronics manufacturing plants in 2010. Laborers threatened to jump to their death (fourteen of which died) drawing media attention to the employment practices of Foxconn. Poynter’s game "imagines the spiritual afterlife of seven overworked laborers who have committed suicide," while at the same time criticizing the human rights violations of Apple and Foxconn. Surely enough, the game was taken down from the Apple App store within an hour of its release. Each scene was hand drawn/painted, giving the game a unique aura. The backgrounds of the levels were done on special Chinese scrolls, which, rather than being used to mourn the dead, served as lessons learned from their death.

Poynter’s unusual style and original ideas are what bring attention to his work. He seems to include a lot of his personal experiences and memories in his projects which bring them together, adding deeper meaning. Overall, I see Ben going far with his ideas and with his strong will and passion to pursue this dreams.