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The 2011 AiR Invitational Exhibit
January 4th - February 9th, 2011

For the 2011 A.i.R. Invitational Exhibit, 2010-11 Artists-in-Residence Corinne Manning, Ron Longsdorf, Kerri Ammiratta and Ian Shelly were each asked to invite visual artists from around the country to exhibit their work at the Showroom.  Eight artists participated in the show. The exhibit features a wide-range of styles and mediums, including photography, mixed media, sculpture, textile, and painting. 

Dani Galietti

Dani Galietti is an installation/digital based artist. She received her BFA from University of Delaware, and is currently pursuing an MFA at University of California, Davis. Galietti predominantly uses various forms of paper (often book references & actual found books), references to water, and digital mediums to explore narrative.

Natalie Hellmann

Natalie Hellmann (b. 1983) grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, where being an only child often meant romping through creeks and playing under backyard pines. Early companionship with small natural forms and drawing, brought her to art as a means to continue exploring her relationship with objects and marks. Through the medium of sculptural ceramics and drawing, her current work seeks to elicit a sense of repose through cultivating fragile affinities between objects and materials.

Natalie holds a BFA and BA from the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio and is currently working towards completing an MFA in Ceramics from the University of Missouri in May 2011.

I have always been one to take things deeply to heart; be it words spoken, small expressions performed, or the beautiful singularity held by everyday objects. I read into what these elements can communicate and I revel in the peace they provide me.

Something as quiet as contemplating the arrangement of stones on a path or line drawn on a page, can calls us to build equanimity between elements. The soul of the individual is supported by a bond to the larger whole, making relationships responsive and fragile. In experiencing these moments of aesthetic participation, both in life and in the studio, I have found an affinity for a language built upon the reciprocal nature of seemingly mundane elements. Through my use of porcelain, paper, silk, steel, and graphite, I present a temporal experience rooted in this sensitive interdependence. Within this body of work, I seek to cultivate relationships with simple objects and materials. Through the interactions within these composed and self-contained environments, I strive to elicit a state of mindful repose.

Esteban Longoria

Esteban Longoria was born in Galveston, Texas and currently lives and works in Oakland, CA.  He is a painter and printmaker known primarily for his large scale oil paintings.  He has studied at the New York

Studio School and Brandeis University, and he received his MFA from Boston University, where he studied with John Walker.  Esteban was nominated for the Dedalus Grant, and was a finalist for the Kahn Award. His work has been shown in Boston and in the Bay Area, and he has an upcoming solo show in San Francisco.

These drawings are from a series entitled, Most Wanted.  They are connected to the graphic traditions found in Tiepolo, Goya, Picasso and ukiyo-e artists such as Kawanabe Kyōsai and Yoshitoshi.  There’s no telling what these creatures in these images are up to. Their actions are at once humorous and sinister ... and I imagine that the worst will only get worse; the strange, more strange.

estebanlongoria.com

Marc Manning

Marc Manning was born in Neptune New Jersey. He received his BFA in printmaking with a concentration in nontraditional photography from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. While in school he won a scholarship to travel to Transylvania that had a enormous affect on his work. After he graduated he lived and worked in Philadelphia for 10 years. He was a member of the artist co op Nexus Foundation for Today’s Art and won a Challenge Exhibition at Fleisher Art Memorial.

Manning relocated to Portland Oregon where the cascades and the scenery of the Northwest had an equally important affect on his work. He lived in Portland for four years and then relocated again to San Francisco California where he currently lives and works. Here images of fog and rain clouds have seeped into his work.

My work is like a form of automatic writing. I use it to help me deal or cope with the unseen forces in our world. Looking for connections and clarity I dive head first into ambiguity, knowing it will only lead me deeper into the beautiful cloud of unknowing. The idea is not to understand so much as the expression of the desire to understand.

I am inspired by ghost stories, a trip to Transylvania, cryptozoology, and ideas of the collective unconscious

www.marcmanning.net

Simone Meltesen

Simone Meltesen was born and raised in San Francisco, CA, and spent her formative years taking trips up the coast to traipse around tide pools and hike in redwood forests. In 2001 she left the west coast for Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, where she majored in visual arts and minored in feminist studies. Simone now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

The House/Boat soft sculpture series is based on stories describing boats dragged onto dry land during the Gold Rush in San Francisco that were repurposed as shops and houses. Drawn to the contradictory nature of such structures, I decided to create a personal version of these peculiar by-products of those feverish times.  My choice of materials and techniques, particularly thread, cloth, and embroidery, was initially inspired by work made by women in the 1970s during the Feminist Art movement. These small, portable sculptures, made of soft materials, embody domestic themes while challenging the traditionally monolithic nature of sculpture in the western world.

My pinhole photographs relate to themes of displacement and disconnect, as well as independence and adventure. Originally envisioned as documentation shot in  varied locations, the photos quickly established themselves as a tool for creating a narrative by revealing the sculptures as characters themselves.

www.simonemeltesen.com

Stephen Ruszkowski

Stephen Ruszkowski currently lives and works in Wilmington, DE. His work is heavily informed by his extensive research of historic Delaware architecture. Stephen has been the Exhibition Designer/Preparator at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts since 2005 and has exhibited in Delaware; Philadelphia; Virginia; and York, PA. In 2009, he received an Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts. Stephen holds a BFA in Painting from the University of Delaware.  

This group of drawings reflects my interest in historic structures and the enjoyment I find in the processes of painting and drawing. In these works, I combine renderings of historic buildings with loose brushwork. The layering in some pushes back the image, making it appear obscured. In others, the image hovers atop an atmospheric haze. The results display a symbiosis of controlled and spontaneous mark making.

Stephen Ruszkowski

Stephen Ruszkowski currently lives and works in Wilmington, DE. His work is heavily informed by his extensive research of historic Delaware architecture. Stephen has been the Exhibition Designer/Preparator at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts since 2005 and has exhibited in Delaware; Philadelphia; Virginia; and York, PA. In 2009, he received an Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts. Stephen holds a BFA in Painting from the University of Delaware.  

This group of drawings reflects my interest in historic structures and the enjoyment I find in the processes of painting and drawing. In these works, I combine renderings of historic buildings with loose brushwork. The layering in some pushes back the image, making it appear obscured. In others, the image hovers atop an atmospheric haze. The results display a symbiosis of controlled and spontaneous mark making.

Jacob Salazar

Andrew Jacob Salazar is a painter and sculptor from Lubbock, Texas. Coming from a background in graffiti has allowed Andrew to become familiar with the publics perception of how graffiti art is negatively viewed by the average individual. Some of the negative ideas of  the culture behind graffiti has caused Andrew to take a political and social stance on his work. Thus causing Andrew to move out of the graffiti world to the world of fine art to comment on some of the atrocities happening on the United States, Mexico Border. Andrew has not abandoned graffiti art but feels that the ideas he is trying to share would be more understandable in the fine art world. His work currently focuses on the relationship of American ethnocentrism and Mexican immigration policies. When Andrew isn’t making art he can usually be found riding his bicycles competitively throughout Texas.  Andrew is currently pursuing his B.F.A. in sculpture at Texas Tech University.

It is through artwork that I define myself. The process of making helps me better understand the world and allows me to share my views with others. The powerful statements that art can have on people is something that fascinates me. I believe that the power of the image can arouse, upset, and even change peoples opinions of the world around them. As an artist I feel that  I have a duty to use my talents to better help myself and the viewer understand  this world.  Currently my work is dealing with Mexican immigration, an issue I have much compassion for. My current paintings are documenting some of the horrors of the United States Mexico border. A place that is typically ignored in mainstream media even though thousands have been murdered there in only a short period of time

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