The Capital City Arts Initiative presents its exhibition, "Impact" by artist Paula Chung continues at the CCAI Courthouse Gallery through June 29.
The Courthouse, located at 885 E Musser Street, Carson City, is open to the public, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. You can take a virtual tour of the show here.
Paula Chung’s Impact works address violence on sports fields, battlefields, and the streets. Through the use of medical imagery, she illustrates how violence affects us all.
Chung bases her work on enlarged MRI medical scans for their beauty and universality. She searches for images on the Internet or receives them from friends and acquaintances; she and then converts and manipulates the images using Photoshop.
After transferring and enlarging the MRIs onto a water-dissolvable film, she uses multiple-colored threads to machine embroider and create the desired values and hues. She sews on different substrates including used tea bag papers, mulberry, and rice papers to convey a sense of fragility and impermanence. The enlarged pieces invite the viewer to become a part of the experience. Photographs of her work are available at http://paulachung.com/
Chung lives in Zephyr Cove, NV, where she gardens and maintains her art practice. Originally from southern California, she moved to Lake Tahoe upon retiring from public school teaching. She began taking art classes at Lake Tahoe Community College, where she began her studio career as a quilter, creating large silk abstract florals. Continuing her work with fibers, she experiments with different substrates, techniques, and now emphasizes social issues.
In addition to her talk at the opening reception, Chung will participate in the Initiative’s Nevada Neighbors series of public art talks with Phyllis Shafer, available online at ccainv.org
Chris Lanier, professor of digital art at Sierra Nevada College, wrote the exhibition essay, "Stitching Images", which CCAI published as a gallery handout and archived online. Working in digital animation, web production, and comics, Lanier enjoys producing hybrid forms. His animations have screened at Sundance, and he won the Grand Prize for Internet Animation at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. His art criticism essays have appeared in numerous online and print publications, including The Believer, Comics Journal, HiLobrow, Furtherfield, Rhizome, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
A Western Nevada College Latino Cohort student provided a Spanish language translation of the exhibition’s wall text.
CCAI is an artist-centered not-for-profit organization committed to community engagement in contemporary visual arts through exhibitions, arts education programs, artist residencies, and online activities.
The Initiative is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, John and Grace Nauman Foundation, Carson City Cultural Commission, Nevada Arts Council, Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities, NV Energy Corporation, Southwest Gas Corporation Foundation, U.S. Bank Foundation, and its sponsors and members.
For additional information, please visit CCAI’s website at www.ccainv.org.