Lisa Dillin (nominated by Guest Spot)
Lives in Baltimore, works in Washington, D.C.

Under the Desk Escape Unit (UDEU)
2010, Formica laminate, MDF, polystyrene, epoxy, Aqua-resin, video and found objects

Window A
2010, Aluminum, Formica laminate, fluorescent lighting

For some time now, Dillin has been exploring the humdrum, melodrama implicit in the workplace environment. At first glance, this installation resembles the set of the TV sitcom "The Office," leading one to wonder whether the previous tenant accidentally left this stuff behind. Once one ventures inside, one realizes that it's meant to be. Similarly, Window A, which resembles vertical blinds, furnishes streaming sunlight, giving those stuck inside the sense of basking in daylight.

Although workplace politics appears to be Dillin's primary focus, her work actually addresses more profound artistic concerns such as perception, fabrication and accessibility. As for perception, her most recent works subtly explore sight (several employ colored lights) and touch (sculptures ventilating air or a soft leather shirt). Whether she uses the latest technology or creates works by hand, craft matters. Her works question accessibility both "metaphorically," in terms of the capacity for workers/artists to achieve career goals, and "actually," as it pertains to either sun rays seeping through trees to reach window panes or each viewer's ability to "enter" the work, both physically and metaphorically.

Her latest works are currently on view in her solo exhibition at Flashpoint in Washington, D.C. and her Sondheim finalist exhibition opens at the Baltimore Museum of Art in June. Next fall, she'll exhibit at Gallery Four and Guest Spot. A 2012 Sondheim finalist and a 2011 Trawick Prize semi-finalist, Dillin teaches art at the Corcoran School of Art + Design and American University.

(Picture Not Available)
Skye Gilkerson (nominated by current)
Lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland

Atlas
2012

Gilkerson's practice is guided by issues of perception; how we grasp our world, which is typically tied to what aspects we select. To that end, she sometimes experiments with "telepresence." By training a surveillance camera on her family's farm, she projects a live online feed of this scene, visible to all 24/7. Similarly, she has "built" wooden perceptual devices that automatically connect one's vista to the horizon line.

More recently, her interest has turned to nature; how we perceive and value nature, whether "cultivated," and thus adored; "orphaned," and therefore cared for; or invasive, and hence despised. By stringing lights on "chance" trees found sprouting amidst downtown buildings, Gilkerson highlights their value, just as posh restaurants decorate trees outside their venues to indicate significance. Look for her lit tree across Charles St. in the abandoned Mechanic Theater!

Since arriving in Baltimore in 2010, Gilkerson has been a 2011 Trawick Prize finalist and has curated an exhibition for Guest Spot. Her drawings were included in the recent current exhibition "Division of Labor."

James Johnson (nominated by Guest Spot)
Lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I come from a serious place
2012, Neon

Additional Research
2011/2012, Wood, MDF, carpet, foam insulation, tape, 14k gold, chip board and lights

Scrap
2010, 14K gold

Well known for manipulating the viewer's perceptual field, Johnson has arranged situations whereby viewers spy or gain access to secret situations, such as ordinary folks working in their kitchens. With Additional Research, the viewer spies upon, but cannot access a miniature workspace. I come from a serious place is one among many of his provocative neon sentences that are simultaneously humorous, "true," self-reflective and critical.

Like Yves Klein, who exchanged gold certificates for the rights to empty spaces, Johnson used half the value of his 2009 West Prize to purchase gold to make art, an investment I doubt he regrets, since its value has risen nearly 70%! Scrap is the direct result of his having exchanged this prize for gold.

In many ways, Johsnon's oeuvre addresses sustainable art practices, since he routinely reworks elements from earlier works to generate new works. Rather than select materials that lose their value once they're used (out of the tube), he chooses materials whose value increases since they either appreciate or can be redeployed.

In addition to being a West Prize finalist, Johnson had a solo show at Philadelphia's Vox Populi (2011) and his work has been included in group shows at Samson Projects, Boston and Guest Spot locally. He is an Assistant Professor at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia.

T. R. Kaltreider (nominated by Nudashank)
Lives and works in York, Pennsylvania

Filly Feed
2012, Paint on paper and paddock

With this painting installation, Kaltreider contrasts an actual paddock (a grassfield and trees) with drawings of living things, such as women's legs and a working farmer. This installation marks a distinct turn away from his earlier paintings which clearly found inspiration in Surrealism. Filly Feed keeps the irrational and surprise element in tact, without resorting to styles reminiscent of either Salvador Dalí or René Magritte.

Kaltreider's work was included in the three-person show "Planting Houses, Building Trees" (2011) at Jordan Faye Contemporary, where he will have a solo exhibition in 2013.

Justin Kelly (nominated by Nudashank)
Lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland

I. II. III. IV.
2012, Light on canvas

Although Kelly works in various media, including sculpture, painting, drawing and digital prints, he recently began to experiment with an ipad ap that enables him to produce abstract movies. This ipad ap explicitly captures the detailed movements of marks made with a stylus on the ipad screen, sophisticated gestures that owe their origins to finger painting. Projected on canvas, these movies engender dynamic paintings.

The desire to create dynamic paintings using the latest technology can be traced to the experimental, stop-motion animated films of Oskar Fischinger, as well as Stan Van der Beek's computer-animated films and John Whitney's digital films, several decades later.

In 2011, Kelly presented works in a three-person show at current and his work was included in "Paper Chasers" at Nudashank Gallery.

Ben Kelley (nominated by Open Space)
Lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland

Cupid and Psyche
2021, Airplane carcass, arrows

Since graduating from MICA's Rinehart School of Sculpture, Kelley has gained prominence for exhibiting quirky sculptures that pair gritty, found objects with sleek geometric companions. Having recently taken up archery, he suddenly seemed keen to repurpose this Cessna by shooting it with arrows! As such, this sculpture is the culmination of five separate actions: acquiring an aircraft (without a clue of what to do with it), storing it in the corner of his studio, suddenly feeling an urge to use it for target practice, reconstructing the plane inside this bank and recasting this scrapped object as an elegant sculpture...

On first glance, this cone-free aircraft seems a bit disconcerting, like a person without a face. However, the mash-up of wires and arrows encircling its nose casts stunning shadows, giving its smashed-up appearance a new purpose. Titled Cupid and Psyche, Kelley's sculpture tweaks the classic Roman myth, since Psyche's startling appeal supposedly spared her, rather than ensnared her, in Cupid's arrows. Another obvious art historical reference is the martyr St. Sebastian, whom Renaissance painters cast full of arrows. Despite these ancient tales, Kelley's targeted Cessna rather suggests archers taking down this invading craft.

Kelley, who has had solo shows at Purdue University, Open Space (2011) and In Flux (2012), has presented works at Conner Contemporary in Washington, D.C.

Chris LaVoie (nominated by Area 405)
Lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland

For this work, LaVoie used his body as a compass to generate three irregular circles. To draw the circle on the carpet, he used his left foot as a center point and drew the circumference with his right hand. To draw the two wall circles, he used his forehead as the center, leaving his left hand to position the wax paper, while drawing the circumference of the colored foil circle with his right hand.

The book shelf-project began with the idea of a salvaged-materials library. After collecting discarded materials from under I-83 and a dumpster near the Clipper Mill industrial buildings, LaVoie cut the stuff down to 8-1/2" x 11" plates and organized them on a bookshelf. Using only the Plexiglas from the Clipper Mill dumpster and materials found under I-83, he arranged them to mimic generic day and color schemes hung on the wall above.

A Sondheim finalist in 2010 and semi-finalist in 2011, LaVoie has had solo exhibitions at the Arlington Art Center, Arlington, Virginia; McDaniel Gallery, Westminster, Maryland; and Dinnerware Contemporary Arts in Tucson, Arizona.

Steven Riddle (nominated by Nudashank)
Lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland

Bad Baseball
2009-2012, Watercolor, acrylic and oil-based monotype collage on paper

Students of Hotel California
2011, Acrylic, oil-based monotype and relief print collage on paper

Untitled
2009-2012, Plexiglas, relief print, watercolor and oil-based monotype

Pete Rose Up
2011-2012, Watercolor, acrylic and oil-based monotype collage on paper

Hope dreams
2009-2012, Watercolor and acrylic collage on paper

Until recently, Riddle mostly fashioned "techno-goth" collages, that is, works on paper whose brightly-colored imagery is graphically edgy and sharp. In vogue since the mid-aughties, "techno-goth" describes the "look" of works by many of today's artists, including Guyton/Walker and recent RISD grads such as Jim Drain.

More recently, Riddle turned a corner, depositing his collages' raw material in Plexiglas display lids to create buoyant, scrappy sculptures such as this ziggurat. Since "techno-goth" fragments characterize this generation's everyday life, such a move evokes Armann's many boxes presenting quotidian scraps and detritus. By recognizing these fragments' "displayable" qualities, Riddle's decision recalls Constantin Brancusi or Dan Flavin suddenly realizing that their support materials, whether carved wooden pedestals or fluorescent tubes, sufficed as art!

Riddle is exhibiting three new drawings that combine delicate comic figures, quirky narratives and sporting metaphors. A recent graduate of Towson University's MFA program, Riddle is one of three co-founders of Sofia Jacob, Baltimore's newest gallery.

James Rieck (nominated by Area 405)
Lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland

Deluxe Ensemble
2011, Oil on canvas

Old Fashioned Sweetness
2011, Oil on canvas

Black Belt
2011, Oil on canvas

Cockblock
2011, Oil on canvas

Known for producing sexy paintings of headless figures, Rieck's paintings seem photo-realist at first glance, but one soon notices their figures' roundedness and soft (to the touch) edge. Hardly flat like photo-realist paintings, these curvy, plumped-up, velvety figures seem to be today's Botox-injected response to Alex Katz's sleeker, stark characters from decades ago.

Included here are four paintings from two series, including the "Conservatives" and "Internet attention-seekers" Although Deluxe Ensemble isn't technically part of either series, something about its majestic yellow walls and myriad pink and black bathroom accessories suggests a grandiose concealment of someone's private affairs. Although Black Belt and Cocblock feel culled from real life, these paintings are no less constructed than the alluring poses and toughie attitudes these gals display. Old Fashioned Sweetness is a fashion shoot from a different league.

Rieck, who exhibits regularly with Lyons Wier Gallery, New York City and Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington, D.C., teaches at MICA and Corcoran School of Art + Design.

Jimmy Joe Roche (nominated by Nudashank)
Lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland

Sound the Alarms
2012, Single-channel video installation

Best known for creating intricate, large-scale, layered, hand-cut paper sculptures positioned on the wall, Roche also creates abstract, single-channel videos using the latest computer technology. With this single-channel video installation, he presents a perceptual double-take, as the image gets split between two screens. With its rapid-paced growth spurts, explosions and dissolves, Sound the Alarms presents video imagery that resembles that of Nam June Paik's "psychedelic" videos displayed on television screens.

Roche's optically-sensitive, immersive environment recalls sixties-era works like Gustav Metzger's six carousels projecting morphing liquid crystals, USCO's strobe rooms, Yayoi Kusama's free-standing mirror box, Thomas Wilfred's moving-light installation or Abdul Mati Klarwein's densely imagistic Plexiglas house, all included in the Whitney Museum of American Art's "Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era" (2007). Although immersive works from the sixties typically overwhelm spectators' senses, coercing bodies into passive roles, eventually shutting them down rather than opening them up or actively engaging them; Roche's immersive installation proves to be more balanced, as it invites viewers to figure out what they're actually experiencing.

Roche, who teaches Video Production at Johns Hopkins, has had solo exhibitions at Rare Gallery, New York City, as well as the Rocky Mountain School of Art and Design. His work was included in "New Psychedelia" at MU in Eindhoven, Holland. He will have a large two-person show at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 2013.

Nicole Shiflet (nominated by Area 405)
Lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland

Fox's Misunderstanding: 201, 2012, Single-channel video, paint

Known for abstract animations that are exhibited either as digital prints, computer animations or vinyl wall works, Shiflet's newest strategy entails creating wall paintings to accommodate her video animations.

In addition to exhibiting at Area 405, Shiflet has had recent solo exhibitions at the Temporary@MICA (2011) and Theatre Project (2010).