The residencies awarded for the 2012-2013 cycle are

Andy Behrle
Isabelle Hayeur
Daniel McCormick & Mary O’Brien
Sarah Quintana

We appreciate the time and imagination that all of the applicants contributed to their proposals and we have been inspired by everyone’s approaches to the theme, one that clearly merits further exploration. Congratulations to Andy, Isabelle, Daniel, Mary and Sarah and hope that you will join us for events scheduled around each residency.

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Born and raised outside of Boston, Massachusetts, Andy Behrle pursued and received a Master of Fine Arts at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona in 2003. In the Southwest, he found a correlation between the vastness of the ocean and the desert and a new-found interest in Time and the footprint of humanity on our planet. The combination of Behrle’s upbringing and interests coalesced in the creation of his first large-scale time-based immersive installation and changed the direction of his artwork. Behrle has received solo exhibitions at 621 Gallery in Tallahassee, Florida and the Mary G. Hardin Center for Cultural Arts in Gadsden, Alabama. Recent work by Behrle was honored with a Merit Award at Huntsville Museum of Art’s triannual exhibition, Red Clay Survey in 2012 and will be on display in Grand Rapids, Michigan for ArtPrize 2012.

During my time with A Studio in the Woods, I propose to create a parapet style tomb somewhere in the city of New Orleans that will be covered with layers of dirt and mud. Over time, rain will erode portions of the structure and help feed weeds and moss planted in the dirt covering this raised tomb. This project will display the beauty of Nature’s cycle of reclaiming humanity’s footprint while also serving as a chilling reminder of New Orleans’ precarious relationship with water and the ecosystems created by the hand of man.

Image:
Tomorrow’s Relics, 2012, wood, paint, Line Creek (Etowah County, AL) dirt, Red Mountain (Birmingham, AL) dirt, steel, water, silicon, electrics

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Since the late 1990s, Isabelle Hayeur has been known for large-format digital montages her videos and her site-specific installations. Both appealing and alarming, her work presents vast landscapes that denounce the no-man’s-lands that modern and contemporary civilizations allow to emerge. Hayeur was born in Montreal (Quebec) in 1969. Her artworks have been shown in the context of numerous exhibitions and festivals. She has taken part in several important exhibitions, including the National Gallery of Canada, at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), at the Musée d’art contemporain of Montreal (MACM), at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts (MassMoca), at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago (MoCP), at the Tampa Museum of Art, at Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York, at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in Berlin, at Akbank Sanat in Istanbul, at the New York Photography Festival and at Les rencontres de la photographie in Arles, France. She is represented by Division Gallery in Montreal.

For some years, I have been working on an underwater photography project entitled Underworlds. This on-going project takes me through North America to probe various environments, especially polluted ones, but also fragile and threatened ecosystems. I would like to take advantage of my stay at A Studio in the Woods to document the Mississippi Delta and the Gulf of Mexico. I wish to put in parallel natural environments and industrial sites such as refineries and the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor is one of the places I intend to document.

Images:
Isabelle Hayeur (photo by Frederic Saia)
Chemical Coast 02, Underworlds series, 2011, Inkjet print

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Daniel McCormick and Mary O’Brien create sculptures that have a part in influencing the ecological balance of compromised environments. They are an artist team who collaborate to create environmental art installations that have a remedial trajectory. These works are intended to give advantage to natural systems, and after a period of time, as the restoration process is established, the artists’ presence diminishes, and the end result is remedial. Daniel McCormick is an interdisciplinary artist/design professional with integrated skills in the fields of environmental design, sculptural installation and ecological restoration. He was educated at the University of California, College of Creative Studies and has a BA from UC, Berkeley College of Environmental Design. Mary O’Brien is a sculptor and creative director. She has a BA in Political Science from Marquette University and a Certificate in Studio Arts from UC Berkeley.

Our work is intended to both frame and bring attention to local wetland restoration efforts. By focusing on a series of site-specific activities, often employing sculptural components compatible with environment in transition, we will seek ways to give aesthetic weight to scientific methodologies. The residency at A Studio in the Woods will allow us to further our inquiry into relationships between community, land and water, and ways in which they influence each other.

Image: Thicket, Watershed sculpture, shown completed and at 5 months, Silicon Valley, CA, 2012. An ecological restoration installation which mitigates bank erosion due to invasive species removal. (Photos: Mary A O’Brien)

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Sarah Quintana is a charming performer, a dedicated instrumentalist and composer, and her voice is instantly recognizable. A graduate of NOCCA and Loyola in New Orleans, she received a CODOFIL scholarship to study in France. Quintana has a background rich in roots music- New Orleans jazz, blues, folk and Cajun– and playfully incorporates these styles in her songwriting and interpretations of classics. Quintana splits her time between New Orleans and France and tours with the project Omax to Lomax and La Companie Nine Spirit led by saxophonist Raphael Imbert from Marseille. She is on the 2012-14 Jeunesse Musicales de France, artist’s roster— France’s largest touring agency. In New Orleans, Quintana has played and recorded with the New Orleans Moonshiners. An upcoming documentary by Monique Verdin and Sharon Linezo Hong called “My Louisiana Love” features Quintana’s voice and in May, Quintana released her first studio album of Jazz-folk originals— The World has Changed.

 At A Studio in the Woods, I will explore the landscape of sound using coffee cups, crystal and metal singing bowls, mixing bowls, mason jars and water in hopes of bringing nature and the human condition into the heart center of my songwriting and performance, challenging my own ideas about what music is and connecting to the greater story of water in our region.

Photo: Sarah Quintana

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Ebb & Flow is a 6-week residency based on the premise that Southern Louisiana can be seen as a microcosm of the global environment, manifesting both the challenges and possibilities inherent in human interaction with urban and natural ecosystems. We ask artists to describe in detail how the region will affect their work, to propose a public component to their residency and to suggest ways in which they will engage with the local community. A Studio in the Woods, located in the Louisiana wetlands, has observed firsthand the dynamic nature of this rapidly changing territory which in turn affects the entire northern hemisphere. We envision this as a powerful context for the exploration of critical thinking, the development of new ideas and strategies, and using the creative process as a catalyst for social change.

The water we experience is not just hydrogen and oxygen but is the intersection of water as a physical, economic, legal, spiritual, cultural and artistic thing. Those factors, and perhaps others, make up the third component of water, a component which this Studio in the Woods residency seeks to explore and express.
Mark Davis, Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law & Policy

Ebb & Flow Residencies are sponsored in part thanks to generous support of the Lambent Foundation, The RosaMary Foundation and The Surdna Foundation. This program is supported by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council. The grant is administered through the Arts Council of New Orleans. Supported by a grant from the Louisiana State Arts Council through the Louisiana Division of the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts