Defining Our Voices: Evolving into the Artists We Want to Be

Davis Gallery, Shwayder Hall, University of Denver

2121 E. Asbury Avenue, Denver, CO 80210

April 3-May 7, 2023

Admission: free

Curated by Clare Link-Oberstar and Linneya Gardner

Review by Laura I. Miller

There’s no set path to becoming an artist. Not many art students emerge from their studies booking solo exhibitions and considering offers for commercial gallery representation. For most, there’s a yawning gap between the time when they finish college and when they see the first glimmers of success.

An installation view of the exhibition *Defining Our Voices: Evolving into the Artists We Want to Be* at the University of Denver’s Davis Gallery. Image by *DARIA*.

Defining Our Voices: Evolving into the Artists We Want to Be at the new Davis Gallery on the University of Denver campus recognizes and celebrates the liminal space between the milestones we use to gauge success in the art world. Featuring eight University of Denver alumni who graduated in the last five years, the exhibition provides space for emerging artists to explore how their relationship to art has changed over time.

A view of the photographs and wall text in Linneya Gardner’s *Dear Me*, 2023, inkjet photography and textile. Image by *DARIA*.

A common theme traverses the pieces on display: identity. Whether through photography, painting, illustration, or crochet, the artists look inward to discover stories about themselves that make them unique. In Linneya Gardner’s Becoming, a series of nine photographs depict the artist wearing a shawl inscribed with a letter to herself. The letter, which is also on display, serves as an affirmation of the artist’s identity and reads, in part, “You do not have to wait to become an artist, as you already embody one by just being who you were called to be: you.”

Linneya Gardner, *Dear Me*, 2023, inkjet photography and textile. Image by *DARIA*.

Gardner reveals in her description of the piece that she struggles with self-confidence. By creating and showing this work, Gardner claims space for herself, suggesting acceptance for where she’s at on her journey to becoming an artist.

A detail view of Olivia Kayang’s *Hands_Remembering*, 2022, charcoal on paper. Image by *DARIA*.

Similarly, Olivia Kayang’s charcoal drawings Hands_Remembering and it shall not be erased capture the artist’s relationship to the present moment. The handprints in both works, which look as though they’ve been dragged down the length of the paper, represent “voluntary and involuntary hand and body movements as a means of pulling emotions, memories, past lives to the surface.”

Olivia Kayang, *It shall not be erased*, 2022, charcoal and pastel on paper. Image by *DARIA*.

The forces shaping Kayang’s work become more clear in it shall not be erased, in which the artist traces handprints and finger strokes are traced with red pastel, representing an awareness of how the past interacts with and affects the artist’s practice. These pieces evoke rawness, inhibition, and excitement toward the process of creation.

Clare Link-Oberstar, *Flow*, 2022, encaustic on canvas and wood panels. Image by *DARIA*.

A detail view of one of the component works in Clare Link-Oberstar’s *Flow*. Image by *DARIA*.

Link-Oberstar’s encaustic work, Flow, also takes an abstract approach to the exhibition’s theme of identity. The artist uses beeswax on canvas and wood panels to create swirls of bold colors that represent her journey over the past two years, which she describes as “ever-changing.” The white line running throughout each piece, she says in her description of the work, represents how the artist has “navigated life since graduation and her artistic practice.” With this work, Link-Oberstar recognizes that her journey toward becoming an artist will require constant adaptation.

Sofia Hailu, *A Mother’s Gaze*, 2022, ink on paper. Image by *DARIA*.

While many of the pieces emphasize the role of ancestry on the artist’s journey, two artists reveal their familial influences more explicitly than the others: Sofia Hailu in her ink drawing A Mother’s Gaze and Blake Ballard in his crochet panel No Place Like Home. Hailu’s black-and-white portrait shows a woman, presumably the artist’s mother, gazing down at something out of frame. The work, Hailu says in her artist’s statement, “is an expression of the grief Hailu felt towards her mother.” For this artist, the relationship to her family is inextricable from her identity as an artist.

Blake Ballard, *No Place Like Home*, 2021, filet crochet panel. Image by *DARIA*.

Ballard, whose large crochet panels confront the viewer upon entry to the gallery, has two pieces made from teal-colored yarn on display. With No Place Like Home, a flag-like panel is embroidered with the titular phrase. The medium of crochet allows the artist to connect with “a technique passed down through multiple generations” and references “finding comfort and safety in one’s community and found family.” These works show how the artist has reclaimed a traditional practice and reframed it to help tell his story.

A view of *Defining Our Voices: Evolving into the Artists We Want to Be* from the doorway of the Davis Gallery. Image by Laura I. Miller.

Each piece in the exhibition is accompanied by a word or phrase that speaks to the artists’ post-graduation experience and evolving artistic process. These include: “Becoming,” “Grief,” “Disorienting,” “Awakened to the past,” “Finding my way back to me,” “(In Observation of) Death,” and “Sanctuary is built over time.” This commentary provides additional context, but the works are strong enough to stand on their own without it.

A still image from Olivia Kayang’s *To be a body*, 2023, single channel video. Image by *DARIA*.

Overall, this exhibition perfectly encapsulates the mission of the Davis Gallery to provide a safe space to show works that facilitate conversations for the DU community and beyond. Not enough safe spaces exist for budding artists to gain practice and confidence in sharing their progress. Yet, the exhibition coordinators could have given more care to the ways in which the pieces are displayed. Some of the paintings are hung with thumbtacks or scotch tape whose visibility suggests carelessness or inexperience. Likewise, the video projection To be a body wasn’t working when I visited the gallery.

A view of the curators’ exhibition text for *Defining Our Voices: Evolving into the Artists We Want to Be* and works by Blake Ballard and Linneya Gardner. Image by *DARIA*.

Despite these drawbacks, Defining Our Voices offers visitors a rare glimpse into early stages of an artist’s career. It’s exciting to think how far these talented DU alumni will go, and it’s an honor to be able to see the work that is helping propel their artistry to new heights.

Laura I. Miller (she/her) is a Denver-based writer and editor. Her feature articles, reviews, and short stories appear widely. She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona.

[1] The artists are Blake Ballard, Sean Burch, Linneya Gardner, Sofia Hailu, Olivia Kayang, Ellen Kenston, Clare Link-Oberstar, and Jenn Marsh.

[2] From Kayang’s statement.

[3] From Ballard’s statement.

[4] From the Davis Gallery website.