Intern Exhibition: i forgot i was worried about you

December 10, 2015 by

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It’s that time of year again: the fall 2015 intern exhibition, i forgot i was worried about you is up in our gallery! WSW provides interns with unlimited studio access and now we can celebrate all they’ve accomplished—professionally and artistically—in their time here.

Emma Bilyeu has been a studio intern since July, working primarily in the etching and papermaking studios, as well as with our fall artist’s book residents. For the exhibition, Emma worked with handmade paper, intaglio printing, and letterpress, the final results reflecting her fear of a static mind. After witnessing the brain’s downfall within her own family and realizing that she’s likely to face a similar fate, she has become hyper aware of moments when her brain is idle.

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“When I could be thinking critically, I am often reciting lyrics or repeatedly counting to eight,” she says. Through layers of intaglio and letterpress printing, Emma repeats characters that are only reminiscent of language, as well as numbers one through eight. These, she says, “are a record of her space-holder thoughts.”

She also created handmade paper pieces using overbeaten abaca, which have a skin-like translucency. They represent brain scans: vague and indecipherable, but not empty. Grey Matter, a hand-bound piece also using overbeaten abaca, conjures images of a single brain hemisphere, both fragile and resilient.

Mara Hyman has also been a studio intern for the last six months, working in the letterpress and silkscreen studios, and assisting with artist’s book production. During her time here, Mara has produced work in many media, including zines (letterpress and cut-n-paste/copy-machine printed), screen-printed curtains, mixed media collages, photopolymer prints, and both paper and ceramic sculptures. She says she loves the “intricacy and intimacy of traditional printmaking, as well as the immediacy and accessibility of cell phone photos and copy machines.”

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In her work, Mara contends with ideas of public and private space: claiming space as one’s own and then allowing oneself to be vulnerable and honest; accessing privacy as privilege; and achieving privacy in public space. Her screen-printed printed curtains feature repetitious window imagery, portraying the barrier and binary of public and private.

Much of Mara’s other work centers on fetishism and romanticism. She uses themes of objectification and abjection to “struggle through [her] own gender, sexuality, and heartbreak, and the trauma of living in a sexualized body.”

Katie Wofford has been WSW’s Nonprofit-Management Intern since January, working with the marketing team, planning WSW’s many events, and maintaining our database. In her year at WSW, Katie has come a long way in looking at her artistic practice.

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College taught her to create minimalist work free from emotional meaning, but after working alongside both spring and fall intern groups (and taking and SAI workshop in sculptural papermaking), she’s brought representation back into her work.

One current body of work—a large closed basket and two sets of paper sculptures—represents shelter and by extension, ways to heal oneself so that shelter is no longer needed. Katie’s second body of work is a series of mixed media prints depicting plants noted for their healing properties.

“As I was installing,” Katie admits, “the two bodies of work felt too different from one another, given their conceptual relationship. I decided that the sculptures needed to literally function as a home or a shelter, so now they’re plant houses! It turns out tillandsia are quite finicky and need to be babied, so that worked out surprisingly well for a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

Last weekend, WSW held an opening reception for i forgot i was worried about you. If you missed it, stop by the studio anytime before December 18th to see what these talented ladies have been up to. We can hardly believe there are only a few weeks left of the term, but are so excited to see what they do next!