Inside\Within

Ellen Nielsen’s Decorative Power

Published June, 2017

Ellen works from a studio inside of her apartment, surrounded by thread, fake flowers, and costumes made both for herself and other artists. Through staged acts she embodies decorative symbols and innocent icons, taking the form of a flower, bunny, or baby in order to highlight topics such as sexism and sexual objectification through stand-up comedy and strip routines. Interested in ornamentation and its potential for aggression, Ellen also produces sculptural work that is highly decorative, forming embroidered banners with complicated motifs and pom poms that aim to destroy corporate architecture.

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E. Aaron Ross’s Existential Nihilism

Published June, 2017

Entering into Aaron’s studio you immediately encounter several projects in different states of decay—loaves of white bread transforming into gruesome piles of sludge, and past-due bologna twirling above your head while other slices discolor the walls. Originally focused on video, his practice is more concerned with the process behind each of his pieces rather than their final image. Aaron closely follows how his work lives, rots, and dies, utilizing the mediums of sculpture, photography, or one-off performances which follow his destruction of a love seat within the context of an improvised death metal show.

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MuWDV: Rambod Vala's Cinematic Survival

Published July, 2016

INSIDE\WITHIN and Danny Volk sit down with Rambod Vala to learn how he tricked his way into grad school, why depression lies at the root of his practice, and get him to admit his go-to karaoke song.

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MuWDV: Stephanie Graham's Global Matriarchy Through Personal Narrative

Published July, 2016

INSIDE\WITHIN and Danny Volk sit down with Stephanie Graham to discuss navigating church camp, slaying misogyny as the goddess Oya, and how she broadcasts all of the above on social media.

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Jordan Martin’s Mutating Phenotypes

Published February, 2016

Layers permeate each aspect of Jordan’s practice, collages produced in resin, flatbed scans, and on video. Currently producing work created on flatbed scanners, Jordan prints, cuts, and layers back in elements that include photographs, paint, and imagery from books. Moving these pieces around on the scanner, he attempts to finds the perfect composition, often reworking original source material until the audience is unable to tell which elements are scanned, photographed or painted.

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Meg Duguid: Director as Post-Apocalyptic Performer

Published October, 2015

Located within her home, Meg’s studio travels to any room that fits her current need, covering an upstairs wall with details from her upcoming film while filling another with suitcases that carry the rubble of past works. After optioning the rights to James Agee’s 1947 script “The Tramp’s New World,” Meg has begun to explore the new roles the project has provided, creating performance through her position as director, and becoming comfortable within the new territory laid out as filmmaker.

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Jennifer Reeder's Unremarkable Utopias

Published May, 2015

Hailing from Columbus, Jennifer writes and directs films about places that are overlooked, the day-to-day scenes otherwise dismissed as filler. Injecting these stories with feminism, telekinesis, and multiple sub-plots, she creates worlds in which teen girls are often the stars, underdogs reigning as leads.

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Andrew Holmquist's Articulation Through Destruction

Published April, 2015

Embedded within Andrew’s work are the subtle and not so subtle instructions for its final composition. This process is also explored within his video work, 4-5 minute pieces that trace his compositional decisions while keeping a beat to move the audience along at a steady pace. Andrew’s work seduces the viewer into engaging longer than the typical once-over, making sure to entice one from any distance they stand from the canvas.

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Ivan LOZANO's Polysemic Scars

Published October, 2014

Ivan’s studio houses eyes, faces, and limbs roughly cut without attention to exact detail. The parts, culled from vintage and contemporary gay pornography, serve as bookmarks to the pornography’s history while also imitating similar shapes of Mexican milagros. With a background in experimental film Ivan has moved towards physically editing his work, creating animations that appear computer-edited rather than produced entirely by hand.

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Dana Carter's Nature-Bound Presence

Published September, 2014

Experimenting with an array of materials, Dana produces cut backdrops for her short videos and animations, light filtering through the slots that she gracefully removes from the dark fabric. Producing sets within her studio and on location, Dana creates videos that are both planned out and happened upon, a cinematic spontaneity incorporating nature and its poetic slowness. Dana’s practice is just as broad as the subjects she focuses, leaving open the ability for shifting light and attitude within her work.

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Alfredo Salazar-Caro's Digital Architecture and Mayan New Media

Published August, 2014

Alfredo’s virtual reality constructions delve into the exploration of both digital portraiture and architecture, creating online spaces for our society’s structures and those who inhabit them. Producing digital models of the exhibitions he participates in, Alfredo ensures the shows live forever, outrunning the restrictions of fixed physical spaces.

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Tony Balko's Flicker Fetishism

Published July, 2014

Tony’s work flashes, pulsates, and confuses, whether in person at one of his performances, or while watching a video of his on screen. Influenced by music like krautrock, Tony creates looping videos that seem to stretch time, placing you inside a moment for far longer than you feel comfortable. With a studio located both inside and on the back porch of his Pilsen home, Tony has space to edit his psychedelic video creations as well as build his recent triangular, cubed, and circular disco balls.

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Eric Fleischauer: The Stability of Ephemeral Media

Published May, 2014

Eric places his work in two realms—moving and still images accessed both online and in-person. Intrigued by dying and dead media, he plays with the non-literal use of past media objects and meshes old forms of media production with the new.

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Kirsten Leenaars's Operatic Coordinations

Published May, 2014

Kirsten is a Dutch artist whose minimal and open studio is found within her home on the north end of Humboldt Park. Crafting childlike sets, Kirsten creates spaces where her participants often play themselves in collaborative narratives.

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