March 4 - April 13, 2022
From Lydia Street Gallery:
“There are many parallels between these two Austin-based artists. Both seek connection to something deeper, whether it is through shamanic practice or finding truths in nature to feel less alone in struggle. May uses outright symbols, mathematics, and language while Swec uses landscapes as the symbols themselves. May plays with materials: oil, encaustic, collage, and more recently mosaic in a happy marriage. Swec simply uses acrylic like the master painter she is, creating sweeping vistas that do well more than remind the viewer of their own insignificance. We are just the lucky bystanders who get to soak it all up, feel the feelings without all the labor.
JACQUELINE MAY
“I have been taking a deep look at the marks made by our early ancestors, whether runes or sigils or cracks made on tortoise shells. Early music notation, early numeric symbols, early divination practices…I am looking at them to see where emotion meets mark-making. Not actually using runes, you understand; rather, I am looking at the mark-making impulse that caused people to begin to create; looking at a time when people could not even conceive of a consciousness without feeling. Emotion is at the roots of magic, of math, of music, of language. Emotion, and a deep connection to nature, plants, rocks, the movements of all the celestial bodies and the clouds, the sky, the wind. Smoke and stars and plants and fire and lightning. I am trying to re-unite math, language, music with these things, to find something spiritual, sacred, and meaningful in visual expression. There is a dialogue between intellect and heart that I feel is sorely needed at this time. It is the artist’s role.
I was taught semiotics in school and played some games trying to make symbolic language work. But I had to walk a long path to grasp what it was all about, on a level deeper than intellectual gamesmanship. If I can create work that feels like it has always been there, that it was meant to be, then I will be well content. Or if somebody smiles that might be enough too.”
– Jacqueline May
JANA SWEC
Jana attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and graduated with a BFA in 2001, with a concentration in studio arts. She moved to Austin shortly after graduation, where she participated with other artists in the conversion of a warehouse into combined living and studio space, later known as Bolm Studios. She joined with fellow artists Shea Little and Joseph Phillips to make collaborative artwork under the name Sodalitas, focusing on the process of working as a group, including painting, performance, community collaborations and permanent installations.
Jana conceived and helped organize the first East Austin Studio Tour in 2003, which has become a major annual event continuing to this day. In 2007 she co-founded a non-profit for support of artists and the visual arts named Big Medium, which provides a variety of programs in both Austin and across the state, including the East and West Austin Studio Tours, and the Texas Biennial survey of Texas art. She currently serves as a board member of Big Medium. Since 2019, she has been a member of the ICOSA art collective.
In addition to creating paintings that have appeared in many local gallery exhibitions, she has completed many large-scale murals throughout the greater Austin area, and her art is present in many private collections.
Her style is a unique blend of formal abstraction and representational depictions of landscape, seascape and organic elements. Her inspiration is drawn from natural elements, such as water, fire, earth and nature and her themes deal with interpersonal relationships, conflicts and progress in our world and the beauty and energy they conjure.
As we are now in stage 5, the gallery asks that all visitors during the reception keep properly masked inside. We’ll keep beverages outside so people can drink socially distanced. Thank you for helping keep everyone safe and supporting the arts.”
Reception: April 5, 2022 | 6–9 pm
1200 East 11th Street #109
Austin, 78702 Texas
(512) 524-1051
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