Rock Hard / Soft Rock is a collection of work by graduate studio art students Olivia Moore and Richard Yanas utilizing various materials, media, and content that engage in a lateral slide of associations tied together by a single word: ROCK.
The fluid nature of the real and imagined in our contemporary visual environment plays a major role in the exhibition. Yanas’ unaltered and digitally manipulated photographs both inform and confuse, causing the viewer to call into question the authenticity of every image. Like Yanas, Moore plays with fact and fiction through the reproduction of objects, which reference the landscape. Framed by Yanas’ two-dimensional images, her discrete objects become more real than the images of the “real,” even though they simultaneously act like props. Rock Hard / Soft Rock highlights the two artists’ separate working methodologies, as well as their influence on each other’s practice.
Olivia Moore and Richard Yanas will receive their M.F.A. in Studio Art at The University of Texas at Austin in May 2011.
Center Space Project is grateful to the University Co-op for its generosity in supporting Rock Hard / Soft Rock.
