ART ON THE MOVE: Momentum Tulsa Spotlights Oklahoma’s Young Artists by Kelsey Karper
Highlighting Oklahoma artists ages 30 and younger, the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition presents Momentum Tulsa: Art Doesn’t Stand Still on Saturday, October 13, from 8 pm Midnight at Living Arts, 307 E. Brady. While the juried exhibition represents a snapshot of Oklahoma’s up-and-coming artists, the Momentum Spotlight commissions allow three artists to fully realize ambitious ideas. The $2,000 Momentum Spotlight awards were selected by the curators from an open call for proposals. The lead curator for Momentum Tulsa is Raechell Smith, director of the H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute. Laura Reese, a University of Oklahoma student, was selected as Emerging Curator. Momentum Spotlight artists are Samantha Dillehay of Norman, Amanda Sawyer of Stillwater, and Libby Williams of Tulsa. Secrets Dillehay’s project, titled Secrets, employs text in a visual manner to emphasize the message in her conceptual installation works. Working with materials such as mirrors, cassette tapes, and clothing hangers, she expresses a very personal narrative in the very public exhibition setting. These “visual journal entries” offer the viewer a glimpse into the artist’s hidden emotions. “When I was a child, I read a lot of children’s books that were abridged from classic literature,” said Dillehay. “I was really drawn to metaphors that I could relate to. Looking back on that now, I believe that it had a huge impact on how I viewed my world. When I started making art, the visual metaphors that I utilize just seemed to fall into place for me.” Dillehay discovered writing before exploring visual art. It wasn’t until she studied the work of artists like Barbara Kruger and Tracey Emin that she found a way to unite the metaphors she was creating in words with the visual metaphors in her artwork.
Amanda Sawyer, Stillwater, Immulato, Pen and ink, 22” x 19”
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“I expect that the viewers will have a lot of questions about the meanings behind the phrases [in my Spotlight project],” she said. “The nature of my work lends itself to voyeurism and identity. People want to know things about other people. I think that is the society we live in today. By seeing my work, it raises curiosity about the language as