Introductory

                                    "Secrets From Within"

                                                          10661 Oakapple Ave.

                             Summerlin, Las Vegas NV 89144

                                                 Curator

                                       Michelle Franklin 

                             Anything You Can Imagine Art

                                                    

                                                            

                                                                      

Exhibition Introduction

                   "Childhood Memories"

                                   Artists:

 Fabian Perez

 Justine Mohoney

Theodor Seuss Geusel

Louise Nevelson

Britney Spears

Samuel J. Butcher

Deborah Brown

Peter Lik

Brad Kahlahamerr

Sheherbano Hussain

This show will represent artists & their unique artistic creations produced by their famliararities from their connection either from their childhood or connection for children. I researched their history and discovered how in some way their product in painting, photography, music, or sculptured art was created through memories of their childhood or in creation for other children's memories to be! 

Fabian Perez

Artist: Fabian Perez

Title: "Untitled 2"

Media: Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 43"x37"

Date: 2004

                                 

Biography: Fabian was born in 1967 in Buenos Aires.  At a very young age was encouraged to draw by his mother who was an artist herself. His father owned illegal bordellos, brothels & nightclubs & was a gambler & eventually lost everything & went into deep depression. Fabians mother died when he was 16 & father when he was 19. Then he lived as a gypsy trying to survive.

Statement By Fabian: "The purpose of art is to perpetuate beauty, that is what I am always striving for. God created the world & embellished it with the wonders of nature. I think it is the artist's job to embellish it with his work."

Background: Fabian father was another inspiration of his works. He painted his father in many of his bar, brothel & street themed paintings. Many of the images memories of his youth of his father drunk & in depression.

Connections: Fabian has been one of my favorite artists. His history of his childhood & the memories he creates through his artwork, tells his story 

Justine Mahoney

Artist: Justine Mahoney
Title: "Girl With a Cast on Her Leg"
Media:  Bronze, Enamel Paint
Dimensions: 52x22 cm
Date: Listed as Current
                                                   

Biography: Justine Mahoney was born in Johannesburg, South Africa & lives & works in Cape town South Africak.  1988 entered to Johannesburg School of Art, Vallet, Drama & Music. In 1991 earned National Diploma Fine Art Tehnikon Witwatersrand.

Statement From Justine: "I tap memory & limit myself to see the world the way a child does." "The experience of growing up in South Africa during the 70's, 80's, & 90's was extremely schizophrenic & this is where I gather the elements together from."

Background on Sculpture: Recalling her first memory, this sculpture represents her at the age of three when she was hospitalized for a bone degenerating disease in her left leg. She had to ware a cast for a year.


Connection: Justine Mahoney  presents work based on miniature sculptures recalling memories of her childhood, dealing with struggles of life, emotionally & physically. I chose her works because they are inspired by her childhood experiences.

Theodor Seuss Geisel

Artist: Theodor Seuss Geisel
Title: "The Cat In The Hat"
Media: Illustrator & Author
Size: Book
Date: 1957

Biography: Seuss was born  March 2, 1904 & died September 24, 1991. He was an American writer & illustrator. Best known for writing childrens books under the pen name "Dr Seuss." He studied at Dartmouth college & University of Oxford. He left Oxford in 1927 to begin his career as an illustrator & cartoonist for Vanity Fair & Life Magazine.

Statement: Geisel gave varying accounts of how he created "The Cat In The Hat" but in the version he told most often he created a story based on the first two word he found that rhymed . The First words he found was Cat & Hat. 

Background: Geisel created the book in response to a debate in the United States. About literacy in early childhood & the ineffectiveness of traditional primers such as those featuring Dick & Jane."

Connection: It related to Childrens literacy.

Louise Nevelson

Artist: Louise Nevelson
Title: "Royal Tide I"
Media: Painted Wood
Dimensions: 86x40x8in.
Date: 1960

Biography: Louise Nevelson was born Leah Berliawsky in Pereiaslav-khenelnytskyim Russia.
Her family immigrated to Rockland, Maine in 1905 because of cultural strain between the Jewish community & the Tsarist Russians. As a young girl she dreamed of going to New York. Louise was inspired by a plaster statue of Joan of Ark that she seen at the Rockland Public Library. Louise married Charles Nevelson & they moved to New York.

Statement By Louise: Some of us come on earth seeing...some of us come on earth seeing color."

Background on work: The arranged pieces are organized within unifying wooden boxes. The content of the wooden boxes present pieces as meetings of opposites. Her arrangement reflects her sense of the cultural clash she experienced as a child in Tsarist Russia.

Connection: Nevelson's artistic subject matter reveals her personal feelings about her childhood uprooting & cumulative experiences as a Jewish child

Britney Spears

Artist: Britney spears
Title: Baby One More Time
Media: Song/Music Video
Time: 3 Min
Date: 1999

Biography: Britney Spears is a American singer & actress born in McComb, Mississippi & raised in Kentwood, Louisiana. She performed in acting roles in stage productions & television shows as a child before signing with Jive Records in 1997.

Statements: We all know what you're really thinking about when you hear Britney Spears "Hit Me Baby One More tine." We won't say it, but let's all agree discreetly. This possibly imaginary meaning of the pop singers iconic hit has plagued parents for years. Many mothers across the country simultaneously felt super guilty about letting their young children sing & dance along to lyrics begging for physical violence, But ow t seems we've all been overreacting.: 

Background: The song was written by Max Martin & Rami Yacoub. This song was originally written for American R&B Group, TLC, however they rejected the track. Spears later claimed that she felt excited when she heard it & she knew it was going to be a hit record.

Connection: Britney's first experienced fame as a member of the Mickey Mouse Club. She has continued to perform in her artistic abilities.

Samuel J. Butcher

Artist: Samuel J. Butcher
Title: "From Heaven Above, The First Gift Is Love"
Media: Porcelain, Acrylic, Mixed Media 
Dimentions: 3 1/2"
Date:  2015

                                       
Biography: Samuel J. Butcher was born In Jackson Michigan in 1939. He was the third of five children. He grew up very poor. His family moved to Redding California at a very young age. 

Statement: Precious Moments is truly achieving goals set forth by its mission statement: to make the world a better place by helping others share the gift of "Love". The longevity of the Precious Moments brand is a testimony to its ability to stand the test of time & preserver with its core values of goodness, quality, creativity, & stewardship at its forefront.

Backround: Samuel is a practicing Christian & has brought his Christianity to his art work to expand and spread the good spirited love through his pieces.

Connection: Most of his childhood he drew & sketched. Because he could not afford drawing materials, Samuel would go to a factory dump where he would search for paper to draw on. From childhood Butcher drew from bible stories told by his grandmother. He grew into a devoted Christian which inspired him in his theme  "Precious Moments" creating greeting cards in 1974, then figurines. 

Deborah Brown

Artist: Deborah Brown
Title: "Coiffure"
Media:  Painting on canvas/Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 70"x80"
Date:  2015

Biography: Deborah Brown Is represented in New York. She has a studio in East Willliamsburg, Brooklyn & serves on the advisory board of Nurtureart & Bric Arts Media. She also owns the gallery Storefront Ten Eyck.Deborah is a graduate with M.F.A., Indiana University, Bloomington & 1976 B.A., Yale University, Sumna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa.

Statement: By reexamining images from the pas familiar to us from repeated exposure, Brown aims to preposition iconic images in a contemporary context, encouraging the viewer to rethink their meaning as we look back through the telescope of history.

Background: When She was eight years old, living in Washington D.C., her & her mother took a trip to see an exhibition of Van Gogh at what is now Washington Gallery of Modern Art. The paintings that inspired her was "Almond Blossom from the 1890's. She attempted to reproduce the painting in third grade but dropped the wet canvas face down on dirt on her way home after school. She was devastated but Brown continued to recreate the vibrant blue with dark backgrounds in her art as of Van Goghs pieces. 


Connection: Her works connect to my theme in how she was taken & inspired as a child when she saw Van Goghs works & gave her the interest & passion to do the similar works of her admired Van Gogh. 

Peter Lik

Artist: Peter Lik
Title: "Sacred Sunrise"
Media: Photography
Dimensions: 20"x 59"
Date: 2009

Biography: Born in 1959, a well know photographer from Australia. Best known for his nature & panoramic landscape images. He took his first photo at the age of 8, after his parents gave him a kodak brownie for his birthday. As a youth he liked to bring his camera on family vacations & take pictures of country scenes & oceans.

Background: Canyonlands NP, Utah. Panoramic camera format after a trip to the United States. A defining moment in his career.

Statement by Peter: "I'm the world's most famous photographer, most sought-after photographer, most awarded photographer."

Connection: I chose this work because his artistic abilities were discovered and became his interests that were influenced by his childhood camera.

Brad Kahlahamer

Artist: Brad Kahlahamer
Title: American Horse
Media: Acrylic & Ink on Bed Sheet
Dimensions: 104"x 84"
Date: 2014

Biography: Brad Kahlahamer was born in Tucson Arizona.  He was an adopted child & never knew his biological parents. He was exposed in his early years to the work of the late Ettore "Ted" DeGrazia, a local eccentric, who was know for images of Native American children. Brad is also known as a musician & played the guitar.

Statement: "Mr. Kahlahamers admiration for abstract expressionism is evident in his work." "His paintings are scattered across the surface in a swirl of forms."

Background: His work represents As Kahlhamer explains "[My work] is all about what I call a third place. . . .I'm adopted so there was another life available to me which might have been on a reservation or with my natural parents, whom I've yet to find. Then there's the life that I've lived, which is the adopted life. The third life is melding these two first lives with lots of fantasy, and that's what many of my paintings are about. It's this combination of history, fantasy, and personal revelation."

Connection: My theme of Childhood Memories is represented by Kahlhamers creation & the meaning of his art through his childhood relation.

Sheherbano Hussain

Artist: Sheherbano Hussain
Title: "Childhood Innocence"
Media: Photo Montages & Oil on Canvas
Date: 2013

Biography: Sheherbano Hussain lives and works in Karachi. She earned her bachelors digree in fine arts from Indus Valley school In 1995 & also in Archetecture in 2009. She was inspired by her travels & was drawn to Sulfi culture. She was nominated for 2011 Asian Sovereign Art prize.

Statement From Hussain: "I have tried to recollect & relive the magic & wonder one feels in the formative years before life makes us cynical"

Background: Some of her paintings portray scenes of an army base camp, which is where she grew up as a child.

Connection: Hussain has taken an adult image with the momory of her childhood living on the army base.

Conclusion

                               The Process of organizing takes in depth profiling and organization to have a theme that are depicted by various artists because I found that a lot of the artists have familiarities, but are also vary different in their individual art.
I believe that as an artist myself, it made it very interesting to research and become familiar with each artist. The most challanging was choosing 10 out of thousands of Artists!
To be a Curator, It would be exciting and fulfilling to be able to learn everyday about exciting artists.
I started very young as an artist myself and found many influences as a child. So it was interesting to read and learn about other artists that were influenced as a child like myself. I felt the connection to these artists and my theme "Childhood Memories."