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2006 Juried Student Fine Arts Exhibition Juror's Statement
My past experience as an instructor at VCU School of the Arts, The Visual Art Center and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts assisted in my process of selecting work for this show. I am aware of the expectations as well as the limitations of the art created in these institutions and have used this knowledge in my selection process. My teaching experience allowed me to place the needs of individual art students ahead of the agendas of the art world. I worked closely with students and tried to direct them in the best way possible to create meaningful work. I placed emphasis on studying art history, art theory, philosophy and contemporary culture. I analyzed students’ needs to help them find the proper materials to work with that suited their ideas and strengths. Above all, my experience as a working artist has given me the greatest ability to select the work for this exhibition. I have been out there showing my work, dealing with the rejection and the critical input of magazines, ‘blogs, writers as well as the harried business of the arts outside of academia. Promoting oneself is not altogether a nice process and it is hard work. But beyond all of it, I have the best job in the world. I spend my days making work. It is a discipline that in itself becomes an art form, learning to speak about your work to collectors and to the press. I have no boss, no one to answer to other than myself. I would have it no other way and I highly recommend it. It is a real honor to be the Juror for the 2006 undergraduate exhibition and give all the attention and focus to some of the younger artists out there - giving those selected a chance to shine and those that were not an opportunity to reexamine their work and motivate themselves to try again. Every artist must deal with rejection and that is as much a part of the process as making the work. The one defining factor in all of the selection process would have to be the clarity of the voice through the amount of experience the student has in the given medium. It has never mattered to me the medium in which one person works. Even though I am much more voiced in the languages and nuances of painting, drawing, printmaking and illustration, I have no illusions that one medium is dead or another dominant. It can take an artist a lifetime to figure out the proper way to tap into the topics that interest them the most and to be able to vocalize that with the correct medium. One point of good work is clarity, and I looked for clarity in both medium and message throughout all of the work selected. The student’s work that exhibited this clarity and advanced the language in its given medium won awards; these are the students that I hope will go on to do many great things and will make my work insufficient or invalid. We are all a part of the process- the teacher, the student, the administration, the untrained artist, the political artist etc.etc. Each of us has a role in the art world. While you are young, if you decide to be an artist, you will be validated in this manner. Another criteria I used to select the work was potential. This is a student exhibition, it is not the Whitney Biennial or Documenta. Dependant on where the student’s are in their academic career, I expect a certain level of proficiency in their use of materials. Each department has a different criteria, Painting assumes certain references to its history and advancement, whether it be actual painting or not. Crafts’ criteria involve functionality as well as the aesthetic qualities of the work. Sculpture is made up of an array of media so material and content must be taken into consideration. Film and video have technical and narrative issues to consider, Photography’s criteria includes light color saturation and depth of field, while performance has theatrics, presentation, props and dialog. Sound has quality and content uniqueness issues. All of these factors were taken into consideration with each of the 487 submissions. I stand firmly behind my decisions. I went into this with no theme for the selection of this work and I expected, somehow for a theme to emerge post selection. I was wrong. The only running theme I can possibly ascertain is an investigation of the self-portrait, and new figuration. Many of the works selected reference the figure in some way and many of them are self-referential. I am hoping that this reference to the self is an indicator of a return to self-acceptance and investigation in lieu of the cultural climate of judgment and isolation. I had the opportunity to sit in on a course here recently taught by Reni Gower, a Professor in VCUarts Painting and Printmaking Department. She said to her students, “Artists are Prophets.” In many ways, we are, but in order to continue to be the Prophets we must keep aware of our climate-politically, socially, and critically. We must pay attention to our culture; this does not mean we must all be revolutionaries, but we must be aware. Being critical with one another in this school should not be taken for granted. You all are the new thinkers, and you should not think of that in terms of privilege, think of it as expectation. Heide Trepanier, March 2006 Heide Trepanier is an internationally acclaimed artist who has shown extensively in the United States and further abroad. Ms. Trepanier has received numerous prestigious awards and grants, including a 2002 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship, and a 2000 Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant Award. She received her MFA from VCUarts Department of Painting and Printmaking in 2000.
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