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NeverWhere : | : Visions of Alternate Worlds

I’ve been working on these slow animation tests for a physical and digital installation. Each video is a portal, a window, a glimpse into an alternate world ruled by light even as one seeks the darkness. Glimpses into alternate worlds Inner places of membrane, corpuscles, cells, genes… Non-terrestrial visions of star systems, of the unknown sublime and inexplicable…

Immersive Space with Diane Thater

November 11, 2016 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago If you know my work, then you know why THIS is the show of the year! How wonderful to experience Diane Thater’s The Sympathetic Imagination, as I am just beginning to work with projections and immersive environments. To quote the MCA introduction, “At the heart of Thater’s…

A New Killer Star

Light and Space Channeling my love of alternate dimensions and outer space to convey a sense of sublime alienation. All photographs are the sole property of Valerie Xanos In-Camera Editing The Process All of these images are straight from the camera, no post-production work in Lightroom or Photoshop other than some cropping. The color intensity…

Inspired by 3hund’s “Lucid”

Light Installation by 3hund Oh my! This is right up my alley… “Installing beacons in scenes of thick forests and milky lagoons, German duo Tarek Mawad and Friedrich van Schoor of collective 3hund produced the film LUCID in order to capture the melancholy mood of these displaced works. The short film is a surreal tale…

Light – what are others doing?

I have loved looking into other artists who use light. Right now, just watching, listening, and absorbing. Consolation: Smoky, fiery performances. Beautiful sculptures of smoke, soft colors and intense colors. Then come the explosions of lights inside the layers of chromatic clouds. Sublime, Beautiful, terrifying, apocalyptic, and heavenly. Cai Guo Qiang Sky Ladder Revisiting materiality:…

OH! “This blog is about my studio practice?”

I’ve begun my MFA, 30 years after starting my BFA. It’s good to be back at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. We are asked to keep a blog about our studio practice. What is my studio practice like? Well, it is multi-faceted. That is because I am an artist, AND an activist, AND…

Flexibility, Risk, & Precarity

In reading Jackson’s article about “Just-In-Timer’s”, I am stuck on the comparison of the contemporary artist and the current state of worker’s conditions. I find it troubling to view the global worker’s plight (excepting Scandinavia I guess) as some kind of “healthy” risk. It troubles me to view our state of precarity as “flexibility”, as…