grayDUCK gallery is pleased to present Objectivity, an exploration of all things object: object memories, objectification and the deconstruction of objects. The exhibition features mixed media and photography by Annie Feldmeier Adams, Jennifer Leigh Jones, Nadine Y. Nakanishi and Scott Wright.

Annie Feldmeier Adams

Louis Marx & Co. introduced the Campus Cuties toy figurines in 1964. The six-inch tall, flesh-toned beauties inspired this photograph series. The alabaster plastic and the proportions of each Cutie make them simultaneously beautiful and unsettling. The Campus Cuties prints have three styles: individual portraiture, group psychological battles and individual cuties in front of travel postcards. The figurines are placed in silent group battles, gossiping and gazing, approvingly or disapprovingly at each other. The travel dolls stand-alone, they dominate the postcard backdrop making male dominated public landmarks and landscapes submissive to a female presence and gaze.

Jennifer Leigh Jones

Jennifer’s work revolves around memories of family and loss. Each piece serves as an exploration of her childhood and an outlet for her thoughts and emotions. Using a range of different materials on each piece delineates the objects from one another as well as time and place. Her work has found a calm eye in a chaotic storm and each piece embodies both pain and a reflective, tranquil place that can be found in the aftermath of struggle.

Nadine Y. Nakanishi

Nadine’s interest lies in developing a contemporary dialog between the principles of form and color. That means carrying on the tradition of the abstract expressionists, while forming her own approach and aesthetic in response to it. She concentrates on overcoming the ambiguity that abstract imagery evokes. Clarity is her goal and reduction is the means to accomplish it. The process of simplification allows her to de- and reconstruct, creating a space where form, texture, line, composition, color and perspective are no greater part without the other. Abstract art that invites rather than alienates.

Scott Wright

Scott’s intent is to draw out the memories of aged and battered objects, imbuing them with new life, re-imagining their purpose and meaning, while paying tribute to their history. He plays with those memories, juxtaposing them against one another in an attempt to subvert the ostensible object, while harnessing its respective power in a new relationship. In combining contradictory vocabularies, the goal is to achieve a meaning beyond, or between the boundaries of its individual language.