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Spacetaker Artist SPEAKeasy: May 2010

Presented by Spacetaker at Winter Street Studios

May 19, 2010

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Every third Wednesday of the month at the Artist SPEAKeasy, Spacetaker hosts two to three artists from varying disciplines (visual, performing, literary, etc.) to present, in an informal atmosphere, creative dialogs/talks/presentations about their work followed by a question and answer session where the audience can glean further insight into the artist, the artist's aesthetic and creative process. The evening is designed not only to bring together artists and those who appreciate the arts, but also to introduce local artists to each other to encourage conversation and cross-disciplinary collaboration between artists and their chosen media.

Drinks and nosh are served at 6:30; formal talks are underway at 7:00. Guests are invited to come and go as necessary.

This Month:

This month's Spacetaker Arist SPEAKeasy features the artists of "Additional Support" (Hagit Barkai, Kelley Devine & Jessica Jacobi) and Radames Ortiz.

About Hagit Barkai:
Originally from Israel, Hagit Barkai received an MFA degree from Penn State University, a B.A. in Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and also studied at the Jerusalem Studio School. Her work has been shown in exhibitions at Praxis Gallery, New York; Houston Art League; Chashama, Gallery, New York ; Crane Gallery, Philadelphia; Fe Gallery, Pittsburgh; and the Pennsylvania State Museum, in Harrisburg. She has been featured in the Houston Chronicle; the Pittsburgh City Paper, and in Research Penn State. Awards include the College Art Association Professional Development Fellowship in Visual Arts in 2008, first place for the Visual Arts in the Graduate Research Exhibition at Penn State University in 2007, a travel grant to Israel from The School of Visual Arts at Penn State in 2006, and being selected to represent Penn State in the Big Ten Conference in Chicago in 2006.

Barkai said she looks at “body languages of vulnerability, awkwardness and misfits as expressions that move between acceptance and resistance.” She seeks to maintain balance between one’s struggles to gain visibility and struggles to escape it. “I paint bodies for what they fail to be, for how they fail to settle in any image or concept that confine and regulate them, and for how they are never able to close the gap between appearance and experience,” the artist explains. “I am painting in an attempt to capture this moment of losing and gaining respectability.”

About Kelley Devine:
Kelley Devine studied sculpture and visual arts at Southeastern Louisiana University and has now exhibited at various shows from Jonathan Ferrera Gallery in New Orleans and SLU Visual Arts Society Exhibitions in Hammond, La. to Galleria Lazzara and Sculptures by Design Studio in Houston.

Devine describers herself as “a mother, artist, entrepreneur and student” and says her art helps her communicate what she sees as the opposing forces within the human psyche. “As a painter and a sculptor, I strive to incorporate the concept of how self-perception and internalization differs from the perceptions and assumptions of others, by combining materials, applications or images that are visually and psychologically contrary to one another.”

About Jessica Jacobi:
Jessica Jacobi’s small metal sculptures are designed to question methods for defining acceptable body conditions. Originally from Houston, she received her B.F.A. in Studio Art at the University of Texas at Austin and her M. F. A. in Metals and Jewelry Design from Texas Tech University. She has exhibited at national juried exhibitions -- from Elder Gallery in Lincoln, Nebraska to Meadows Gallery at the Center for the Visual Arts in Denton, Texas. She exhibited in 2008 Craft Texas show at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and her works have also been displayed at Runnels Gallery, Eastern New Mexico State University and Landmark Arts Studio Gallery at Texas Tech University School of Art.

About Radames Ortiz:
Radames Ortiz's work has appeared in numerous literary journals including, Gulf Coast, Texas Observer, Open City, Hayden's Ferry Review, Cortland Review, and Exquisite Corpse. His work has also been collected in various anthologies which include: US Latino Literature Today, Regeneration: Telling Stories from Our Twenties, and Is This Forever, Or What?: Poems and Paintings from Texas. He was nominated for a 2003 Pushcart Prize. He was also awarded a 2003 Archie D and Bertha Walker fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He was the 2006-2008 Naomi Shihab Nye Scholar and was a featured poet at the Poetry at Roundtop Festival. You can follow him on twitter @radameso and read his blog at http://theamplifiedbard.blogspot.com/