In September of 2019, Removed went viral AGAIN which led to some international travel, a ton of new media coverage and publications, as well as the spark for some exhibitions and collaborations. Below is a recap of last year as well as what to expect this year. The greatest news is that Angie and I are expecting our second child this month! Additionally, Angie completes her pediatrics residency this summer so it’s going to be a very big year. Thanks so much for your support and please check in with me if we haven’t spoken in a while. It’d be nice to know what’s happening with you as well.

Exhibitions – Current and Past

Dear Human Performance by Tiffany Shlain / The Museum of Modern Art

New York, NY

I was very excited to provide images from my Removed series for the spoken cinema performance world premiere of Dear Human by Tiffany Shlain at MoMA last weekend. “This live cinematic essay-performance takes the audience on a journey across the past, present, and future of the relationship between humanity and technology. Incorporating live narration, moving images, original animation, an evocative soundscape, and audience engagement, Dear Human invites the audience to think about how technology both amplifies and amputates our humanity, and how to make sure we stay human in this 24/7 culture.”

THE QUALITIES OF LIGHT: THE STORY OF A PIONEERING NEW YORK CITY PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY

Tucson, AZ

“This exhibition celebrating the legacies of LIGHT (1971-1987), a significant early photography gallery, focuses on characteristics identified by those who visited, worked, showed, and were impacted by the gallery.” The exhibition curated by Rebecca Senf, Ph.D., Chief Curator, included several works from the archives of CCP as well as works from contemporary galleries who have been dramatically influenced by LIGHT. Rick Wester of Rick Wester Fine Art being one of them provided this piece from Removed as well as works by Christopher Colville, Lilly McElroy, Donna Ruff, and Cassandra Zampini. The exhibition is open now through Saturday, May 30, 2020

Hello, Robot. Design Between Human and Machine – V&A Dundee

Dundee, Scotland

Once again, pieces from Removed are finding their way into another country. The exhibition HELLO, ROBOT. DESIGN BETWEEN HUMAN AND MACHINE just closed on February 9th, 2020 in Dundee, Scotland. The exhibition was also on display in Lisbon, Portugal from January 23 – April 22, 2019 at Museum Art Architecture Technology.

Time After Time / QUAID Gallery

Tampa, Florida

Last summer I had a piece from my House Sitters project in a group show in Tampa at QUAID Gallery. I wasn’t able to make the opening but I had some of my South Florida family make an appearance for me.

REMOVED / Hillsboro Library

Hillsboro, OR

Ten Pieces from Removed were on exhibit at the Hillsboro Library in October of 2019. The library paired several events and readings with the exhibition which allowed for numerous groups to engage with the work.

Look Up Pop Up / Palette

San Francisco, CA

Palm teamed up with Blloc phone to put together a special one-day-only event to talk to people about the effects that our digital technologies are having on our behavior, psychology and overall well being. Featuring acclaimed speakers such as Dr. Nicholas Karadas and Tiffany Shlain, the day was filled with enlightening, and at times, frightening insights on the reality of spending too much time on our digital devices.

New Representation

In January I was invited to Shanghai where I formally began my partnership with Shanghai Zhutu Culture Media Co,. Ltd. They will be tasked with representing my work across mainland China for publishing, licensing, exhibitions, and copyright protection.

Select Press and Publications

We have had a flood of media attention since last summer. It is evident that my photographs continue to move people. I couldn’t have managed if it weren’t for the extremely hard work and dedication of Julie Grahame my agent, manager, friend, and kick-ass photo consultant. She always goes to bat for me I can’t thank her enough for all that she does. If you are looking for help getting your projects recognized, edited, organized, strategized, or want help with licensing, contracts, or other usage-based questions, you owe it to yourself to send Julie an email. Julie@juliegrahame.com

BBC NEWS
NOW THIS NEWS
National Geographic Poland
Slow Scroll
QUARTZ
Yorokobu

For editorial and media requests contact Julie Grahame
For print/exhibition inquiries contact Info@ericpickersgill.com

I am currently available for editorial assignment and speaking engagements, please contact for booking information.

Duke Arts Visiting Artist Series
“Manga 4.5: Building Comics with Tatami Mats and Stones”
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
6-7 pm, A266, Bay 10, Smith Warehouse, Durham, NC

February 27 and 28, CURRENT ArtSpace, 7:30 pm

The Process Series presents the 19th Amendment Project in collaboration with Arts Everywhere and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities. UNC faculty-artists create interdisciplinary performance centered around the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment, exploring women in politics.

Four projects were chosen to be presented in this shared program and will go on to launch a new faculty performance series in 2020-2021.

The Debate – Heather Tatreau (Department of Exercise & Sport Science) & Tracy Bersley (Department of Dramatic Art) This dance-theater piece will use a series of duets and text to investigate how women in politics have been characterized over the past 100 years – from anti-suffragette propaganda to current female politicians portrayed as medusas in the media.

XIX – Jacqueline Lawton (Department of Dramatic Art)
This play exposes the racial divide of the 19th Amendment by following an interracial family where all the women were fighting for suffrage, but only half of them won the right to vote.

Sojourner Truth – LaToya Lain (Music Department)
This one-woman show, comprised of song and spoken narrative, explores the effects and aftermath of the passage of the 19th Amendment as told by one of the most famous black participants in women’s suffrage, Sojourner Truth.

#19 – Sabine Gruffat (Department of Art) & Bill Brown (Department of Communication)
This two-person, three-channel Live Cinema performance will incorporate original laser-etched 16mm film, a selection of
archival 16mm film loops, and an original electronic soundtrack in order to survey and contextualize the 19th Amendment and to explore the past and present struggles of women to achieve political empowerment.

Allyson Packer: Sounding
On view February 7 – March 29, 2020

Monday – Thursday | 9 AM – 9 PM
Friday | 9 AM – 6 PM

Saturday | 12 – 5 PM
Sunday | 2 – 9 PM

Opening Reception with the artist | Friday, February 7 | 5 – 7 pm

The Hawn Gallery is pleased to present Allyson Packer: Sounding, a site-specific, interactive installation spanning all four floors of the Hamon Arts Library at SMU. With looping video, text-based instructions, and subtle interventions into the architecture and resources of the library, Packer offers viewers an encounter with the possibility of the infinite. While infinity may only exist as a concept, spaces like libraries, Packer argues, can suggest it. The building itself has clearly defined boundaries, and at any given time the physical and digital materials that make up its collection of resources can be quantified numerically. There is a sense of impalpable depth too contained within The Hamon Library, the sublime potential of what is already known, what could be known, what is not yet known, and what is unknowable. The exhibition’s title, Sounding, describes the process of measuring— originally with lead and line, today with sonar— the depth of a body of water, without making direct physical contact with it. Likening the contents of the library to a body of water, the pieces included in this installation act as sounding instruments to plumb the collection’s literal and metaphorical depths. Water, in many different forms, recurs thematically across the whole exhibition. It appears in direct citation of J.M.W. Turner’s paintings, in reference to a fountain outside of the library, in imagery based on folders containing sheet music from the Hamon stacks, and on the public computer desktops.

For several months, Packer has visited the library regularly. She spent long afternoons wandering the stacks, getting to know Hamon’s internal and external rhythms and overlooked quirks. This extended visitation with no other purpose allows her to develop an outsider’s peculiar knowledge of the place that’s at once intimate and remote. The resulting interventions into the space deviate only slightly from a patron’s usual experience of the library. Most are subtle to the point of precarity— the term that French art historian, Anna Dezeuze, in Almost nothing: Observations on precarious practices in contemporary art, uses to describe artworks that exist on the verge of disappearing into the fabric of the everyday (5). By existing on the border between perceptible and imperceptible, Packer’s work redirects viewers’ attention to their own bodies, and their awareness of their presence in a space.

Allyson Packer will speak about her work at the opening reception on Friday, February 7.

Artist bio

Allyson Packer makes artwork that engages viewers in an examination of the myths and values embedded in the built environment. Her installations and performances have been shown at Nahmad Projects (London), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), and Birds + Richard (Berlin), among other venues. Her upcoming solo exhibition, Inland Sea, will open at the Las Cruces Art Museum’s Brannigan Cultural Center in July 2020. Packer earned her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her BFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She lives in Denton, Texas, where she is a faculty member in the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas.

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Image courtesy of the artist.

Congratulations to undergraduate studio art major De’Ivyion Drew and MFA candidate Sally Ann McKinsey on receiving UNC Chapel Hill LIbraries’ Arts Incubator Awards!

Jerry Jameel Wilson, Cortland Gilliam and De’Ivyion Drew  are collaborating on a visual arts project that examines representations of blackness within the UNC-Chapel Hill community, and explores the experiences of black students at Carolina from 1955 to the present, with an eye toward the future. The project consists of two complementary components—sculpture and short film that broaden and deepen conversations about the importance of symbols, the impact of art in the public sphere and the meaning of equal access to the benefits of citizenship. The artist hopes to display the sculptures and the short film together in a multimedia exhibit that challenges our understanding of place, time and progress.  

Sally Ann McKinsey’s “The Coffin Is A Table” investigates cultural responses to illness and death in medical and memorial customs in the American South, particularly those that involve corporate labor in giving both medical care and gifts of cards, food and handmade objects to those experiencing illness or loss. Through sculptural installation and printed matter, the project is concerned with medical and social practices that attempt to keep the dying alive, to manage chaos or to control mortality, and the material practices that reveal large, unanswered questions of living, dying and losing. The project explores fiber materials as metaphors for systems of support, examining artistic labor in traditional folk crafts like crochet, embroidery and quilting using medical textiles like operating room sheets and hospital gowns. 

More information about other Arts Incubator awardees can be found at https://library.unc.edu/2020/01/announcing-the-2019-2020-incubator-award-recipients/

Go now and read this great interview with Lyneise Williams in the most recent Endeavors Magazine: https://endeavors.unc.edu/lyneise-williams/?fbclid=IwAR1pAWj7-u_oJ0ql4A836L9D36VFQw5Zym0zP-xnqkNuRwhjCMBeFc55hy8

DOMESTIC INCANTATIONS
December 13th, 2019
@ private practice, 506 N. Buchanan Blvd.
Durham, NC 27701
6-8 PM

Domestic Incantations will feature work that explores materials and themes borrowed from each respective artist’s background. Through the reproduction of old family recipes, medicinal practices, and treasured artifacts, artists will examine their cultural histories and share them with one another in a household setting. This show will take place at private practice 506 N. Buchanan Blvd in Durham, North Carolina on Friday, December 13th from 6-8 pm and will feature MFA candidates Cassidy Kulhanek, Alena Mehić, Chloé Rager, Krysta Sa, Natalie Strait, Vonnie Quest, and Sheyda Yazdi.

Congratulations to our 2019 Undergraduate Art Awards Competition Winners! Give them a well-deserved thumbs up for all of their hard work!

Alexander Julian Prize Winner: 
Caroline Allen,  $1000

George Kachergis Studio Art Scholarship Winners:
Barron Northrup, $1000
Anabelle Quarles, $1000
Adrianne Huang, $1000
Mingxuan Shen, $1000

Anderson Undergraduate Studio Award Winner:
Peri Law, $800

Johnathan E Sharpe Scholarship Winners:
Pax Rudenko, $800
Carolyn Bucknall, $800
Tristan Brown, $800
Eleanor Burcham, $800
Elizabeth Trefney, $800
Livian Kennedy, $800
Cynthia Carcamo, $800
Ella Kiley, $800
Luke “Blue Boy” Collins, $800
Madeline Chandler, $400
Nitara Kittles, $400

Penland Scholarship for Diversity Winner:
Peri Law

Penland Partners Scholarship Winner:
Barron Northrup

Sculpture Garden Phase I Design Honorariums:
Caroline Allen, $500
Peri Law, $500
Pax Rudenko, $500
Medeline Chandler, $500
Nitara Kittles, $500
De’lvyion Drew, $500

WINTER SHOW 2019
December 8, 2019 – January 17, 2020
GreenHill
200 N Davie St
Greensboro, NC

Winter Show brings together over 100 artists each year from across North Carolina and constitutes a comprehensive survey of the finest art and craft being produced by artists who either reside or have lasting ties to the state. Painting, sculpture, photography, ceramic, jewelry, woodwork, fabric and fiber works are all displayed in a harmonious installation. Artists showing work in the exhibition vary not only by mediums, but also by experience, background and perspective. All work is available for purchase.

More information about the exhibition can be found here at http://www.greenhillnc.org/winter-show-2019

Hours: Monday: Closed, Tuesday – Thursday:12PM-5PM, Friday: 10AM-5PM, Saturday: 12PM-5PM, Sunday: 2PM-5PM (Gallery Only)