Josh Johnson Curatorial
Sideways Glance (Exhibition View)
2017

Sideways Glance, Elder Gallery, Nebraska Wesleyan University

The human body traverses the physical world relying heavily on vision. Information collected by the eyes and our corporeal relationship to the objects around us, becomes cataloged experience, a resource and shorthand for navigating our everyday peripheral landscapes. Sideways Glance brings into focus artwork that exists in the corner of the eye. Initial perceptions are challenged, as the familiar is jostled out of place by a shift in perspective. Disappearance and reassurance are equal players, allowing formal clarity to slip from one interpretation to another.

The artworks included in this exhibition require a slower read. Qwist Joseph (Riverside, CA) and Michael Ian Larsen (Lincoln, NE) subvert straightforward materiality by splicing high art tropes with lowbrow resourcefulness. Emily Newman (Des Moines, IA) conflates the sculptor’s traditional skill set with domestic encounters and spatial ambiguity, while Erin Schoenbeck (Lincoln, NE) bridges the realms of décor and high tech, industrial fabrication in quiet, delicate forms. The seemingly direct formal punch of Amanda Smith (Omaha, NE) and Michael Villarreal (Lincoln, NE), is off set by a slow reveal of indoor and outdoor spaces collapsing together, creating a mesmerizing depth of experience.
Curatorial