Sacramento, CA (1888PressRelease)
May 01, 2007 - What does an old, ugly lamp and an end table that dates from the 1960s have to do with the environment and art? In the hands of artist Cherie Hacker, it becomes a plaintive call to take care of our planet. Hacker’s conceptual, environmental photography project, in which she goes to scenic state and national parks to capture this “generic Americana” image in the pristine wilderness, has now grown to include abstract paintings.
The results of this artistic praxis can be seen at Asylum Gallery inside HQ: Headquarters for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento (25th & R Sts.) from May 5 to June 10, 2007. There will be two Saturday evening receptions for this show: 2nd Saturday, May 12th and June 9th from 5 to 10 pm. There will also be a special Friday event featuring poetry and music May 18th from 6 to 10 pm.
“I started the Lamp & End Table Project in 2004”, Hacker said. “It was to focus on environmental issues such as planning for population growth, consumer culture, reduce-reuse-recycle, abuse-overuse or resources, deforestation/clear cutting, garbage, litter, pollution, and other basic concepts regarding our human responsibility to care for the planet. Since this work focuses geographically on Western North America, it involves visual themes based within the movements of Manifest Destiny; Conquering the West; How the West was Won; and the Last Frontier.”
Hacker goes on to say that the project is evolving and the Lamp & End Table now appear to her as a “Domestic Icon.” This representation of an American, suggests that it has a place in relation to American history, folklore, and the geography of the continent. It contains the qualities of a human that distinguish mankind: not divine, nor animal, or mechanical. Its indigenous nature relates to the household and family. Finally, the lamp can be seen as a celestial body, a source of intellectual illumination that anchors itself on a generic framework that is usually found near a sofa.
Since her aesthetics lean toward mixed media, a natural progression in the ongoing investigation of the subject is to interpret it with all possible media. So, the images can be seen in her abstract mixed media paintings and she is also replicating the icon in serigraphy on a variety of surfaces.
Hacker is an adjunct professor of art at Folsom Lake College. She holds a MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA cum laude in Studio Art from University of California at Davis. She is the recipient of a Graduate Level Internship at the SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM, Washington, D C, as well as the Maryland State Fellowship for the American Association of Museums Conference in St. Louis, MO.
For more information
email asylumgalleryathq ( @ ) yahoo dot com
or call Cherie Hacker @ 916-704-2909
or Ann Tracy @ 916-804-6095.
