NATHAN HARPER AND CHRIS WICKER – PEAK BEFORE THE VALLEY

This exhibition round includes works provided by Nathan Harper and Chris Wicker which will be on view in the Third Floor East Gallery from February 7  – March 30, 2024.  Lowe Mill A&E invites patrons and art lovers to join us for Open Studio Night, a building-wide experience when our over 150 studios will be open to the public.  The evening also includes receptions for all seven of our gallery spaces. This series gives the public a chance to meet and interact with visiting artists and discuss their work as it is on display and available for purchase. Come out, enjoy a pleasant evening, and maybe you’ll find that special piece of art that speaks to you!  The Open Studio Night reception is Saturday, March 30 from 5-7 pm.

 

About the exhibit:

Peak Before the Valley is a duo exhibition featuring the work of Chris Wicker and Nathan Harper. The body of work explores the human tendency to anthropomorphize and try to relate to technology and media. Ascribing human traits and relationships to nonhuman things is inherent in our psychology and can be seen through our historical, mythical, and contemporary existence. In robotics, designers witnessed a strange phenomenon where machines with human tendencies acquired immediate acceptance from the public. Still, once these machines became too human, the public’s opinion quickly shifted to disgust and fear. This sharp decline in favor was dubbed the uncanny valley. What exists at that peak where we accept the blending of man and machine just before the steep descent into the valley? The different works serve as observations of media and technology that both Nathan and Chris took in as children. Later, as adults, they would both reobserve them as holding uncanny qualities. Chris’s work in the exhibition focuses on NASCAR as something with a mesmerizing abstract quality unnoticed as a child but now brought to the forefront as the subject of Chris’s videos and drawings. Nathan’s ceramic faces come from a cartoon character from his childhood that amassed such a dedicated following that it is legally recognized as a cult in some countries. Both artists are revisiting a nostalgic “peak” vantage point to look down and observe the more uncanny valley beneath these beloved pieces of media that speak to obsession and devotion toward inhuman things.

 

About the artists:

Nathan Harper explores the ancient concept of the egregore or collective thought-form and its continued relevance in contemporary life. One might not think of the systems that we operate in today as ritual in nature, especially those that utilize new technology. We may imagine cyberspace as the ultimate rational and objective realm where all things can be categorized, quantified, and monetized. However, it is a place saturated with ceremonial situations upon close inspection. Mary Douglas argues that much of the rituals of our lives take place outside of strictly religious institutions; one should consider the Internet no exception. In fact, it may be the primary mode of ritualistic discourse of our time.

Nathan Harper is an interdisciplinary artist and Professor of Digital Art and Creative Technology at Florida SouthWestern State College. He received his MFA from The University of North Texas with a concentration in New Media. His research examines internet culture through historical and ritualistic lenses to reinvestigate our post-enlightenment assumptions about technology and digital society. His work spans a variety of software and materials, from animation, sound, online intervention, and dirt. His work is nationally and internationally recognised in such notable spaces as Pylon Lab, The Chapel of Santa Maria dei Carcerati in Bologna, the Barcú Virtual Art Fair in Columbia and The Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts.

Website: https://www.nathanharperart.com

 

Chris Wicker utilizes imagery consumed during the early 2000s to deal with concepts such as shared memory, trance, video consumption, and sensory bombardment through video, sound and installation. By manipulating, stretching, layering, and repeating sampled media, Wicker translates his personal viewing history into an entrancing experience for the viewer. While crafting these compositions and being influenced by said past viewing history, analogue media, and intellectual properties such as Power Rangers and NASCAR, Wicker’s work provides insight on both past and contemporary media consumption, the affective properties video has, and video itself through media sampling.

Chris Wicker is a New Media artist from Texarkana, TX. Chris received his BFA from Stephen F. Austin State University in 2018 and his MFA from Texas Christian University in 2021. Chris has had solo exhibitions at Blind Alley in Fort Worth, TX, Common Space in Bartlett, TX. and recently in the New Media Gallery at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts in Lubbock, TX. His work has also been included in multiple group exhibitions at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Creative Exchange Gallery in Ruston, LA, and in the recent exhibition titled Château Château in Dallas, TX. Internationally, Chris has been a part of exhibitions in Hiroshima, the Khodynka Gallery in Moscow, Russia, and included in The One Minutes Foundation showing off The Fields of Algorithms in The Netherlands. Currently practicing in Houston, TX, Chris maintains his role as the Exhibitions Manager for FotoFest.

Website Link:
https://chriswicker.com/ Click on icons to view video work

To find the the gallery in Lowe Mill A&E, click MORE INFO below (Tickets are NOT required.)