Artists

Founded by Jenna Didier and Oliver Hess, Materials & Applications (M&A) is a non-profit organization that produces installations twice yearly and hosts open air discussions, workshops, performances and other public events. M&A also creates outreach programs to educate and inspire property and business owners to make choices that increase the sustainability of their buildings and properties.

Jay Nelson’s drawings, paintings and sculptures are created as part of his quest for individual autonomy within the modern American landscape. His work pays homage to the long history of the Western frontier as a destination for a romantic solitary experience.

My fascination with fame has now evolved into documenting the famous and their surroundings. Because the U.S. has no royal family, I’ve created my own; a blend of Hollywood, fame and old money. In the same way that Jean-Etienne Liotard created portraits of the Habsburg-Lorraine family, I am drawing portraits of our queens and princesses. Or to be more honest, drawing women that are worth the title to me. I’m interested in the world of old time class. People that carry a large personality and can show off decadence with a smile or handbag. And people who are drawn to grand items like chandeliers, flocking, pearl necklaces and very big rooms. I want to draw a world like William Randolph Hearst did when he built Hearst Castle. I want to draw the people I imagine would be hanging out inside these big fabulous places.

Through these works I am physically recreating packaging while addressing the packaging of concepts such as nature and wilderness.

I am both interested in how the materials I use move through the consumer economy and how words and concepts like ‘sustainability’, ‘ecological’, ‘recyclable’ , wilderness and ‘nature’ are passed through the information economy.

Through my art, I attempt to undo the alienating junk mail cycle on a micro-level and create a space to explore aspects of our lives that sometimes get buried by the overwhelming consumer cycle.

My work is concerned with impermanence, human frailty - the ephemeral nature of what we call reality, aligned with the dichotomy of enduring hope.

While easing my way into a painting, I find truth in simple objects, using them, as a jumping off point to abstraction.

By reducing the work to its utmost simplicity - an essence - I come closer to the feeling that the object evokes in me - a honing of my own feelings in relation to the object.

"Inspiration grows from my desire to explore and re-contextualize both traditional and unconventional materials, celebrating their inherent properties and exploiting their potential."

Based in London, Lamb blends experimentation and rationale to create furniture and products that possess a visual simplicity capable of communicating the obvious.

His fascination with the 'handmade' and zest for Britain's industrial heritage is explored in his ongoing project 'Exercises in Seating'. Lamb aims to produce objects that are both inspired and inspiring, and stimulate positive interaction between product and user.

Honesty to material and communication of process are key to Lamb's intent. Most recently, he has been exploring local skill-based industries and traditional craft processes.

I am interested in the smaller stories....Changing the everyday and standard things into something new, something a bit more unexpected. Sometimes I feel as though these smaller stories are neglected in design and art.

I personalize an object but in a way that makes other people think too about the things we have around us that we rarely question but just take as standard. Behind all my pieces is a narrative; one of using everyday objects to create a new story.

I completed a sculpture in the summer of 2007, titled ‘Gravity and the arc of Being.’ Gravity in physics is known as a weak force, yet it is surely inexorable. Desire is perhaps much the same. I have arrived at the thought that it is the desire of pure consciousness to know itself that gives rise to the infinite forms of the universe. This is a theme I wish to explore further while a resident at the Blunk house.
Using the arc, (both physical and conceptual) as an umbrella, I will develop a body of sculptural work. Through a simple dialogue between antipodal themes such as curved and straight, form and space, age and permanence I hope to discover and articulate the mechanics of the tension necessary for ‘aesthetic arrest,’ or the cessation of the subject-object relationship. For it seems that in this state, the creative drives of the universe may be apprehended.

As Long as I can remember I've been interested in and inspired by the mysterious qualities of life. As a child when I'd see something that I didn't understand I'd exclaim: "Look, a clue!" These clues I would find only added to my wonderment for things unknown as opposed to helping me solve any mystery. I'm still playing this game of following clues in the studio, where I make primarily oil paintings on canvas. My work is narrative with an interest in questions rather than answers. While working on paintings, I improvise, clues I stumble upon in the process lead me down many narrative pathways. As I go I'm always watching for an image that's ripe with potential. In the end my best work invites the viewer to join me in following a trail of clues that leads to a mystery.