Abbey Hepner

The Digital Anatomical Theater is a series of photographic images on silk and 360-degree photographs shown on a Virtual Reality headset. The series explores medical spaces from historical to contemporary times. The photographs were shot in anatomical and operating theaters in Europe, former insane asylums, and in present-day digital anatomical theaters— spaces where visualization technologies are used to view the body such as MRI machines. Early scientific practices for representing the body were conducted in Renaissance anatomical and operating theaters, places where public dissections and operations were performed in order to study the body. I wanted to better understand how history reverberates through medical practices and spaces, and make use of the immersive experience that happens through the physical perimeter change and sensory limitation that occurs when using VR. The medical industry is also one of the top consumers of VR technology, using it for a variety of things, including mitigation of stress before a procedure, and helping paraplegics gain muscle control. 

Bologna Anatomical Theater, Pigment Print on Silk, 2019

London Operating Theater, Pigment Print on Silk, 2019

Working with photographic imagery in an immersive environment for the first time inspired me to learn more about the history and future of VR. VR has been present throughout photographic history. Artists have always been pioneers of technology, but photographers have been at the forefront of engagement with immersive visual environments. These include the Viewmaster in 1939 and the Stereoscope and Cyclorama in the 1800s. Although modern-day VR has crossed into the realm of interactive and performance art, it still makes use of early photographic technology and stereoscopic vision.

Digital Anatomical Theater, Photographic Prints on Silk and 360-Degree Photographs viewed through a VR device, 2019

Virtual Reality has been called a modern-day empathy machine. Works such as “The Machine to be Another” (BeAnotherLab), “Zero Point” (Oculus), and journalistic stories presented in 360-degree photos and video, suggest that VR has the ability to put a viewer in someone else’s shoes. This is because of mirror neurons; neurons that respond to actions that we observe in others, firing in the same way that they would if we recreated that action ourselves. Mirror neurons are a cornerstone of human empathy and language, and VR technologies are believed to access this phenomenon. Artwork in this arena makes use of scientific discourse that bridges aesthetics, medicine, and psychology, tapping into human emotions and accessing something at the core of human civilization. Can the immersive perspective that VR provides increase empathy? What might be the positive outcomes or recourse in believing this?

Digital Anatomical Theater, Images Courtesy of the Galleries of Contemporary Art, Colorado Springs Colorado

While one company is developing a VR application that allows individuals to “experience” what it feels like to be disabled, others are developing applications that permit individuals with varied abilities to virtually tour spaces that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. I will share examples of ways that photographers are using VR technologies, including my own experiments and failures, and share the kinds of questions that researchers and artists are grappling with as they examine the future of VR. I will also have devices available for the audience to view the work from the Digital Anatomical Theater themselves.

Abbey Hepner will present her work at this year's Yuma Art Symposium

To register for Yuma Art Symposium click HERE

For more information about Abbey, click HERE

Hosanna Rubio

Making Meaning from Mayhem OR How to Over-Share at Parties

You know the people who you can tell have just had a “life”? Like, life with a capital L: Life. We smile till our cheeks hurt, but our eyes say we have seen some things. I am one of those people, whose casual anecdotes typically get one of two responses: “Wow, you should totally write a book”, or stunned silence followed by a slow escape. But if pop culture and a generalized knowledge of art history have taught me anything, it’s that I’ll never lack for experiences to draw from to make art.

If you have ever met me, chances are you know that I was raised in a Fundamentalist Pentecostal church. Our church leader had been prophesying the end of the world since the mid-seventies, and with every passing year the congregation became more emphatic that we were living in the end times. For as long as I can remember, I was taught not to fear death, but to welcome it. People would often tell me, always with a glow of religious fervor, “This isn’t our true life. Our true life comes after we die.” This constant discussion of death filled me with existential dread from such a young age that it drove me to seek out why something that was so reassuring to those around me could be so terrifying for me.

Morbid from a young age, I threw myself a funeral at age five. “Here lies Hosanna”

I developed a fascination with subjects that touched on the macabre, such as Vanitas paintings, which used imagery like bones and wilting flowers as reminders of man’s mortality. The word Vanitas was derived in part from Ecclesiastes 1:2, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” While the original Hebrew word “hevel” means a “breath,” or “vapor,” and symbolized fleetingness, later translations substituted the word vanity, which has Latin origins meaning empty, vain, and idle.

Hevel. Steel, sterling silver, copper, brass, enamel. 6” x 3.5” x 1”

In the Shadow of your Poison Tree. Steel, silver, copper, brass, bronze, laser etched enamel, tulle, acrylic, cigarettes, rubber. 18” x 6” x 2”

In Medieval Christianity, disease and death were seen as divine punishment, and it was common for individuals to examine their moral conduct to determine how they had brought illness upon themselves. In some form or another, this belief lives on today. I was never a healthy child. The other members of our church saw my constant injuries and afflictions as an indication of a moral failing on my part. This pressure to fear my pain and illness, to feel ashamed of it, drove me to try to find a way to redefine the situation for myself, to reclaim the beauty in the transience of life.

Keen Brooch Series: Shadow, Uphill, Void. X-ray, acrylic, paper, copper, brass, silver, steel, enamel, hair, wood. 7” x 3.5” x 1”

Prick. X-ray, acrylic, silver, copper, brass, bronze, rubber. 20” x 3.5” x 1”

Mourners. X-ray, acrylic, silver, steel, brass, rubber. 20” x 3.5” x 1”

This lecture and demonstration explores a body of work consisting of jewelry and sculptures that delve into personally significant issues such as mortality, religion, and gender, while also striving to push the boundaries on what constitutes expected jewelry materials and processes. I will share the techniques I have developed over the course of my studio practice, such as galvanic etching, which allows me to make my mark on the world just as it has left its mark on me.

We Came Together and We Came Apart. Cast silver and bronze, acrylic, X-ray. 2” x 1.5” x 1.5”

Creating layered, detailed pieces allows me to find balance in the chaotic, to attempt to exert control over the uncontrollable aspects of my life and in the world at large. While my experiences are not universal I hope to inspire an atmosphere of dialogue with my work to show that sometimes moments of pain and tragedy can offer us the greatest opportunities for beauty and transformation (And hey, it’s cheaper than therapy!)

Opening, Witness, Barrier. Enamel, china paints, copper, brass, steel, silver. 5.5” x 3.5” x 0.5”

I am so excited and honored to be presenting at the upcoming Yuma Art Symposium (can you tell??)

Come see Hosanna at Yuma Art Symposium!!

Register for Yuma Art Symposium 2020 HERE 

See Hosanna's  Webpage HERE

Judy Stone

Enamel Layering: 3 D Color on 3 D Form

It is my great honor to be chosen to be a presenter at the 2020 Yuma Symposium.

I have been working in my medium since 1972.  Along the way I have developed a unique composite of enameling techniques based on the contemporary work of the late Fred Ball and the teaching of the late Bill Helwig.

Sgraffito through liquid white from Fred Ball’s Experimental Techniques in Enameling 

I work mainly on formed copper.  Most of the vessel shapes are cut and then rejoined with woven copper wire, copper rivets, and copper tubing. 

sewing a copper bowl

I call these "destructed" vessels Burnt Offerings because they not only represent my homage to the medium and the power of heat and fire, but also they challenge me to heal what has been destroyed and hopefully make it more beautiful. As I began making my vessels several years ago I was not conscious of the Japanese ceramic tradition of Kintsugi which is about healing broken vessels. In time I began to see my vessels as representing my attempt to make a broken world whole again, much like the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam.

 Kintsugi vessels

The vessel form, which is dimensional, has taught me to look at my enameling as narration much as historically vessels have contained some form of narration.

 Keith Haring ceramic vessel

The fact that my enamel narration is frequently on both sides of my vessels has created the challenge of finding balance and harmony between the enamel and the form. It is always exciting when I succeed.  

I work in thin layers of enamel in which I try to evoke the looseness of painting on canvas. I see the layers as creating 3-D color which reflects and refracts light through and off of the various layers and the copper.  Light, optics and dimensionality are everything to me.

 Ball Study 3

Hermioni 3

See more of Judy's work HERE

Find out how to see Judy at Yuma Art Symposium HERE