Your Pleasure showcases the visual peculiarities of photographer Bryan Martello, painter Annie Miller, and sculptor Anne Rogers. Working in independent mediums, the artists evoke playfully dark narratives that stem from a shared interest in the complexities of the human body and the human condition. Your Pleasure looks as to what is exposed and what is concealed to elicit both an internal and external corporeal presence. Contrasting the use of refined and polished against the awkward and handmade, processes of wrapping and transparencies reference the fragility of skin, while orifices appear as a form that is representative of the passage between the interior and exterior. Your Pleasure invites the viewers to be voyeurs and to confront and reflect on these three artists’ curious worlds.
Bryan Martello / Making photographic work about a disconnection and discomfort from the unseen parts of the human body, I create a visual association abstractly without the certainty of science. I am interested in what is hidden beneath the surface, and questioning the truthfulness of the photographic images.
Annie Miller / This work began with the absurd notion of taking a moment of humiliation, dressing it up in hot pink and then painstakingly trying to cover it up. I am interested in using visual ambiguity to take the affect of shame and place it on the viewer.
Anne Rogers / My process is rooted in the boundary between the hand and material. Though the sculptures are simply accretions of the inanimate, they take on human narratives. They are wrought with imperfection from the human hand while at the same time referencing its absence.
Your Pleasure is organized by Center Space Project, the student arts organization of the VAC which, among other initiatives, oversees Center Space, an exhibition space within the VAC that showcases the artistic and curatorial work of undergraduate and graduate students at The University of Texas at Austin.
Bios
Bryan Martello (born 1988, Franklin, MA) graduated with a BFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2010 with Departmental Honors. He is currently an MFA candidate and Russell Lee Endowed Presidential Fellow in Photography at The University of Texas at Austin. Martello has been invited to participate in numerous national juried exhibitions, such as the Onward Compe 2013 in Philadelphia and the 15th Annual Juried Exhibition at the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, juried by Mia Fineman Senior Research Associate of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His work is featured in many online and print publications, such as Flak Photo and The Boston Globe. He recently worked as an assistant for photographer Alec Soth and writer Brad Zellar’s “Texas Triangle” dispatch, which was exhibited at the Harry Ransom Center in December 2013.
Annie Miller (born 1986, Phoenix, AZ) received a BFA in Painting and Drawing at California State University Fullerton in 2011. She is currently an MFA candidate at The University of Texas at Austin and has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the William Randolph Hearst Fellowship at Anderson Ranch Art Center, The SPI Scholarship at Tyler School of Art, and David Bruton Jr. Endowment for Graduate Fellowships in the College of Fine Arts. Miller’s work has been featured at The East and West Galleries at CSU Fullerton, Lord Windsor in Long Beach, The Ice Box Gallery in Philadelphia, and The Slocumb Gallery at East Tennessee State University. She recently exhibited at The Ox-Bow School of Art in Saugatuck, Michigan where she was a Summer Fellow and has a forthcoming show at Pump Projects in Austin.
Anne Rogers (born 1986, Saint Paul, MN) holds a BA in Art History from Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin. Upon graduation, she was awarded a post-degree honors term for her project “Cultural Dyslexia.” Rogers is currently an MFA candidate in the Sculpture and Extended Media at The University of Texas at Austin and a David Bruton Jr. Endowment for Graduate Fellowships in the College of Fine Arts recipient. She has exhibited in numerous galleries including The Nightingale-Brown House at Brown University and has participated in “Proudení / Strömungen” symposium at the Kulturní centrum Rehlovice, in Rehlovice, Czech Republic.