Art exhibit at Carson City Senior Center explores Nevada's geographic, cultural differences
The new renovations at the Carson City Senior Center opened the opportunity to host art shows to extend enrichment to the senior community. Carson City Senior Center presents “Geographical Divides: Finding Common Ground,” featuring 16 artists who were asked to explore the geographical and cultural differences in Nevada, if such differences truly exist.
The assembly of printmakers — eight from the north, eight from the south — produced two prints from each collaboration. Visually exploring connections and disconnections between Southern Nevada and Northern Nevada cultural attitudes, aesthetics, and geographical distinctions — these 16 artists communicated and visually responded to each other’s unique economic, environmental, political, and social settings — further dissecting this notion of a splitting geography and/or communion of Nevada’s polarities.
Exhibition Run: April 25 – July 12
Gallery Name: Carson City Senior Center, Sagebrush Dining Room, 911 Beverly Drive Gallery Hours: Monday – Wednesday, 9-4 p.m.; Thursday, 9-1 p.m.; Friday, 9-4 p.m.
“Geographical Divides” examines Nevada’s unique visual culture. It is a state labeled with cultural myths like “Area 51,” “The Biggest Little City in the World,” and “Sin City,” and one that commands the imagination of Postmodernism from the architecture of Las Vegas to the proliferation of the Burning Man Festival held once a year.
It is comprised of two major metropolitan communities — in the north and south — divided by 300 miles of vast desert. Nevada’s art communities are not separated by distance of travel alone. There are notable differences among artists throughout the state in what is important in their work, most of which connects with where they live. This traversal of Nevada has also led to the realization of how little dialogue there is between artists of the two dominant communities — Reno and Las Vegas — not to mention the artists living in remote territories of the Nevada outback that are sometimes overlooked.
Collaborating artists include: Maria Arango, Las Vegas/Lynn Schmidt, Reno; Erik Beehn, Las Vegas / Nolan Preece, Reno; Bobbie Ann Howell, Las Vegas / Galen Brown, Carson City; Daryl DePry, Las Vegas / Sharon Tetly, Carson City; Keith Conley, LasVegas / Sidne Teske, Tuscarora; Anne M. Hoff, Las Vegas / Vicki LoSasso, Reno; Jeanne Voltura, Las Vegas / Candace Nicol, Reno; and Juan D.Varela, Las Vegas / Ashlea Clark, Reno with Gallery Notes essay by Fred Sigman.
Curated by Anne M. Hoff and Candace Nicol and organized by the Nevada Arts Council, Geographical Divides: Finding Common Ground is part of the Nevada Touring Initiative, Traveling Exhibition Program. It was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Nevada State Legislature. The Nevada Arts Council is a division of the Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs.