PODCAST:

The exhibition “We Dream of Life” opens Friday, January 30th, and runs until March 20th at UVA’s Ruffin Gallery.

TRANSCRIPT:

Coco Ahn:

At UVA’s Ruffin Gallery, the exhibition “We Dream of Life” will open this Friday, January 30th, and run until March 20th. The installation is the collaboration between New Mexico-based artist Paula Wilson and California-based artist iris yirei hu. The exhibition will kick off this Friday with an artist talk from 3:30 to 5:00pm at Campbell Hall, and an opening reception from 5:00 to 7:30pm at Ruffin Gallery. For Arts This Week, we spoke with the two artists and the Ruffin Gallery and Visiting Artist Program Manager, Elena Yu,

Paula Wilson:

Hi, I’m Paula Wilson. I’m a multi disciplinary artist based in Carrizozo, New Mexico.

Iris Yirei Hu:

My name is iris yirei hu, and I’m visiting from Los Angeles, California. I’m a visual artist. I make paintings, textiles, sculptures.

Elena Yu:

My name is Elena Yu, and I’m the Ruffin Gallery and Visiting Artist Manager at the UVA Department of Art. I’m originally from California and from the West Coast, and I knew iris and then learned of Paula’s work through following iris’s practice and admiring as an artist myself, the way that they work together in friendship. And so when thinking about what artists I wanted to bring to the UVA community and to the Charlottesville community, I thought of these two wonderful artists whose practices embody kind of a holistic approach to art and life that takes into account these unique places, special places that they live in.

Paula Wilson:

We kicked off with the invitation from Elena over a year ago, and initially we we knew we wanted to make something that was hyper collaborative, but we weren’t quite clear what that would be. And it started with i ris visiting me in New Mexico, and we thought we would just talk about what we wanted to do, or just kind of brainstorm. And then before we knew it, we were launched into creating this over 52 foot figurative piece that span, that will span the length of the gallery. And yeah, we started mono printing and built a model. Figured out things from the beginning, like that.

Iris Yirei Hu:

Yeah, it was also a marriage of both of our ways of working, painting, printmaking, collaging. We also, you know, brought in our own personal iconography into the work. So it’s really a collaboration, kind of on all parts and when we were working together, but we work together in person, largely, and we’re sharing the same meals. We’re kind of on the same routine, so it really feels like a birth from this sort of unified, organic lifestyle that we cultivated. You know, Paula makes these large, monumental figures who are mostly women, and I paint these blue figures that are sort of floating in like subterranean, watery spaces in my paintings. And so this collaboration is sort of a marriage of that. And we were also thinking about the Egyptian deity Nut, who governs the skies and the cosmos and they are, or she is thought to swallow the Sun each night and birth it in the morning.

Paula Wilson:

Yeah, and so I think that when we were creating this figure, a lot of the colors we were thinking about a celestial scene, but something that moved from bright yellow, kind of starburst energy, and then flowed into the depth of night, these kind of midnight blues and stars, kind of twinkling along and then back down into the bright yellow.

Iris Yirei Hu:

Yeah, we were interested in these moments of transition, like the sunrise, the sunset, dusk, Dawn, and so the colors really mimic that.

Paula Wilson:

It’s all one. You know, these sort of divides between the human and the natural, or even the waking life and the dream world. To us, they’re unified, and that pulling from natural elements that then take place within the body of the figure further heightens that reality, that nature is a part of us, and we are a part of nature. And part of our friendship is sharing dreams with each other, even taking dream kind of classes where you’re dreaming socially with others, dreams are just as real as the waking life.

Iris Yirei Hu:

Art making is a way to, you know, draw out that that world in a way, and bring it into a shareable space. Dreams are, you know, incredibly inspiring to us, and dreams and myth have, you know, a very integrated and ongoing relationship historically. And so Nut seems to be sort of ripe for this world of dreams that we’re exploring.

Paula Wilson:

This idea of the kind of individual cast, especially the individual artist, I think, is such a myth that doesn’t serve us, that so much art and so much of our lives is a collaborative endeavor.

Iris Yirei Hu:

And especially in the art world, I think there’s this priority of the creative genius and the sole author of a work. And, you know, we’re trying to critique that and resist that,

Paula Wilson:

And kind of celebrate friendship overall. I think that universities are such a great place where people really meet so many of their lifetime friends. And that is so it’s exciting to be showing here, where it’s kind of in that, in that embrace of friendship’s power in our, in our, in our lives.

Iris Yirei Hu:

I think there’s so many moments in the piece where, you know, there’s just these extreme details. And I think both Paula and I make artwork that really reward the viewer that sticks around. We both want to highlight the handmade. Everything in this piece is made by hand. It’s painted by hand. Nothing is done digitally. The slowness of that, we want to highlight that. I think so much of the ethos of the work is about staying open and remaining porous.

Paula Wilson:

There might be a jumping board, a jumping off point where you see the snake skin, you’re like, Oh, that reminds me of this experience where I was walking and I came across a snake skin. Or look at those teeth floating around in space that reminds me of something else, and so that there could build these associations that don’t have to be about the work itself, but about your experience in the world and in friendship. The whole gallery is painted this midnight blue color, and so I think there’s this moment when they’ll walk in, where your eyes will have to adjust to this dim lighting and then to see this immense piece that almost holds a kind of celestial sense of awe and wonder.

Iris Yirei Hu:

You’ll see a full gradient from yellow to orange to magenta to purple to dark blue. There are teeth floating around. There are seeds that look like hands that are both floating around and on this giant blue figure’s body.

Paula Wilson:

Lots of Yucca.

Iris Yirei Hu:

There’s worlds within worlds. It’s sort of infinite in that way. A lot of playing around with scale.

Paula Wilson:

The hands of the figure interlace to form an infinity sign, and the hands are holding a compost pile from which roots and debris is falling cascading into space.

Coco Ahn:

“We Dream of Life” also marks the final exhibition curated at Ruffin Gallery by Elena Yu, who is departing to California to join UC Berkeley’s Department of Art practice as Gallery Manager.

Elena Yu:

I’m very honored that this exhibition will be my send off and a big celebration of the future potential of arts programming at Ruffin gallery, as I know the gallery will continue to bring inspiring artists from all over the world, as they have the last few years.

Coco Ahn:

The Ruffin gallery will host the exhibition “We Dream of Life” by Paula Wilson and iris yirei hu. It opens this Friday, January 30th, with an artist talk from 3:30 to 5:00pm at Campbell Hall and an opening reception from 5:00 to 7:30pm at Ruffin gallery. Learn more online at art.as.virginia.edu. Arts This Week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance, music, theater, and visual arts programming. Learn more@- at pvcc.edu. For Arts This Week, this is Coco Ahn. You’re listening to WTJU.