Direct Support: Art 365 Curator Raechell Smith

After several years of planning, the Art 365 exhibition opened February 28, 2014 at [Artspace] at Untitled. Guest curator Raechell Smith worked with the five artists over the past year to develop the exhibition. Smith is the Director & Chief Curator at the H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute. Learn more about the exhibition and Smith’s perspective on the work in this video and in her curatorial statement below. 

Bryan Cook, Cathleen Faubert, Eyakem Gulilat, Alexandra Knox, Romy Owens

This year’s Art 365 introduces us to new and exciting artwork created by five artists who set out to challenge the vision and scope of their artistic practice in a dynamic partnership with the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition (OVAC).

A journey undertaken can assume many forms and the scale of its encounters can be grand or small.  For this project, each artist has embarked on a unique, adventurous journey.

While four of the artists traveled to regions both near and far to gather images, experiences, knowledge, and materials for the works presented in the exhibition, all of the artists have made new discoveries and gained fresh perspectives.

While one artist’s inner quest to define a purposeful, creative life has been graciously transformed into an immersive space for others to experience quiet communion and contemplation, they each have expanded the edges of their artistic and personal realms in courageous ways.

Art 365 artist Cathleen Faubert in studio visit with curator Raechell Smith 

One remarkable and common theme present throughout the exhibition is a deep interest in place. The artists give shape to questions that help us understand how place informs our personal and cultural identity and how we sometimes gain from it a sense of belonging, an understanding of home or notions of a homeland.

In photography and installations, the artists explore personal, familial, natural and cultural histories and ecologies as they consider the many ways we can survey and understand place - a particular landscape - and our connection to it.

Over the course of the past year, these five creative practices have shifted and expanded to include new and innovative approaches to thinking and making work. 

With direct support from OVAC, each project has been generously shaped by inspiration, extraordinary vision, opportunity, conversation, and the shared knowledge of many. From all accounts, it has been a journey well taken.

Raechell Smith

Guest Curator, Art 365

See the exhibition [Artspace] at Untitled, 1 NE 3^rd, in Oklahoma City 10-5 Tuesday through Friday or 10-4 on Saturdays or check out some of the public programs. Admission is free and will continue through May 10. The exhibition will be recreated at the Hardesty Arts Center (AHHA)101 E Archer St, Tulsa May 23 through August 9, 2014.