The Flesh Assembly by Kimberly Phan
Who We Are by Fleming, Gonzalez, Lomnitz, Phan, Romano, Sellers, Senan
Who We Are is an exhibition by the collective group of 621 interns. The artists on display are members of the 621 family and driving forces behind the continue success of 621. Abbey Fleming, Mia Gonzalez, Erica Lomnitz, Kimberly Phan, Ava Romano, Caleb Sellers, and Alexa Senan are the artists on display.
Abbey Fleming
Through study of shapes and forms I aim to find life through my art. It is important to grasp the concepts of structure and formality mixed with the organic sense of nature. Through working with ceramics and sculpture, process-based work, I find the shapes come to me as I meld with the materials. Taking forms of natural elements and restructuring them into my art practice I can find the final piece. My work focuses more on how I get to the outcome rather than creating a plan to get there. I like to go into a new project with set goals, but no structure. I give myself space to create without boundaries. The process is what I enjoy. I take the time to see the piece within the materials and find the outcome as the piece becomes more complete.
I am currently studying for a bachelor’s degree at Florida State University in studio art with a focus in graphic design and sculpture. I aim to push myself to better my art. I think it is important to continue on a path that focuses on my internal thoughts and progression of a positive tone with my relationship to art. My goal of my practice is to study the organicness of process-based work.
View the artist here: https://www.instagram.com/abbeyfleming_/
Mia Gonzalez
Influenced by editorial photography and commercial fashion illustrations, I use digital software to create illustrations that reflect my appreciation for fashion, woman portraiture, and pop art. With the use of various textured brushes, I attempt to capture the touch and appearance of knits, textiles, and materials through portraits of women. My passions originated through my mother’s work as a photographer. I would eagerly put together outfits and create sets which would reflect my inspirations and style at the time; our shoots and my clothing becoming a sort of documentation of my growth as a woman and individual. Pop art’s relation to advertising, magazines, and mass culture is why I have a particular admiration with the movement and is present within my works through heavy shadows and bold outlines.
I will be graduating this semester with a Bachelor’s in Business Management with Minors in Museum Studies and Art History. In September, I will be studying Curation of Museums & Galleries at the Sotheby’s Institute in London.
View the artist here: https://www.instagram.com/m.i.a.gnz/
Erica Lomnitz
Erica currently studies art history and studio art with a minor in museum studies at Florida State University. Her work is inspired by German expressionism, New Objectivity, and her German Jewish heritage. Since she was a child, she would sit in her grandmas closet and grandfather’s office and try on clothes, look through photographs, and her grandfather’s art books including work from Günter Gras, George Grosz, Lucien Freud, and M.C. Escher. Erica’s portraits are influenced figuratively by her friends and the portraits from the New Objectivity. Mixing her interest of art history and the absurdity of the present, her work pulls themes from the internet as she has spent much of her time scrolling and investigating reality through objects on eBay. She works to explore reality through dreams, objects, and her family’s history.
View the artist here: https://www.instagram.com/eri.ca/
Kimberly Phan
Mental health is a deciding factor in overall wellness. To deal with isolation, l spent my year in quarantine in a bubble of escapism. My routine was dictated by comfort. l ate, bought, played, whatever, whenever l wanted. It was paradise for an introverted oaf, such as myself. But it was unfulfilling. The works l present represent the coping mechanisms I adopted to fill a void that was always there, but grew even greater in seclusion.
Kimberly Phan is a Vietnamese-American artist from Port Saint Lucie, Florida. She is currently a senior at Florida State University majoring in Studio Art. She mainly works in digital illustration, graphic design, and animation, but also dabbles in sewing and prop-making. She grew up with an admiration for cartoons, comics, and anime, all of which heavily inspires her work. Her work experiments with themes of femininity, horror, and kitsch.
View the artist here: https://www.instagram.com/kimbohpeep/
Ava Romano
My work deals with memory, the ephemerality of that memory, and the symbolic representation of my personal and familial identity associated with the idea of the sublime. Mainly referencing elements of my childhood through playful composition, overwhelming color, and symbols of my youth, I also address the distancing of myself and those close to me over time from those symbols, which may or may not be tangible. The past and present are very much tied together, and one’s future is characterized by the previous and how it is remembered.
Ava Romano is a current third-year studying Art History and Studio Art at Florida State University. Growing up in South Florida, the sun-bleached capital of the world, she was always in search of the colorful and contrasting and continues to return to the Midwest where she visited for much of her childhood and where the colors are more vibrant and the planes and skies are even more vast. Mentally, and through photographs and writings for now, since it is difficult to travel as a full-time student in a pandemic. Memory plays an important part in Ava’s work and personal identity, and she has always found intense and unique connections where she has spent time. Her work is heavily influenced by academia and draws from art history, especially from the Ukiyo-e and graphic arts of Japan and the American Regionalists. While most recently working with mixed media on an increasingly large scale, Ava’s focus is primarily on drawing and printmaking. Ava has exhibited her work extensively in South Florida but this is her first exhibition since moving to Tallahassee, and she is looking forward to using her remaining time in school to explore the local landscape more deeply and see what connections can be drawn between here and wherever she ends up next.
View the artist here: https://www.instagram.com/alrightava/
Caleb Sellers
I don’t plan on pushing myself to hurry. I’m simply in the passenger seat and allowing myself to experience any stops that come my way. I will receive greatness in time.
I am a 20-year-old senior at Florida State University majoring in literature/media/culture and African American studies, and I will be graduating with my BA on April 29th. I plan on pursuing a masters and doctorates to become a professor and teach African American literature with the companionship of prominent albums from black artists. By challenging what media can be used for education, I fully believe that music is the mediator between different communities, and with a media that students are familiar with, they are bound to become intrigued and appreciative of this beautiful journey in American literary history.
View the artist here: https://www.instagram.com/calebcsellers/
Alexa Senan
Since high school photography has been my means of self-expression and a way to cope with my environment. Throughout time,I have fallen in love with the pieces and the thought of myself being able to curate my own work into exhibitions. There is a passion for history and curation and integrating it into my art, as history is not exclusive to the written narrative, art can play an important role in narrating stories and events. My artistic style can best be described as a fantasy staged narrative. I create photographic scenes to reveal certain narratives and evoke emotion. My current body of work derives inspiration from my childhood, growing up in the south, and vintage nostalgia which is best exemplified in my last two pieces Fantasmas and Barbed. Growing up a child of divorce with the rest of my family being overseas, I always longed for family connection and became inspired by Victorian Post-Mortem photography, where families still have the ability to remain close even in the afterlife. In Fantasmas, early photographs of my deceased grandmother were projected onto a living model as an attempt to memorialize a loved one by posing the living with the dead. It is an exploration of the subject of the afterlife, and the longing for any family connection. The installation Barbed is a reflection of motherhood, particularly highlighting my own mother and my deceased abuela who have greatly shaped who I am. Although my pieces emanate from deeply personal experiences, they are a subject of open interpretation.
I am currently in my last semester at Florida State University studying Studio Art with a minor in Museum Studies. In the fall, I will be attending Hunter College in New York City earning my Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Studio Art.
View the artist here: https://www.instagram.com/deepsplinter/