School days revisited
IAO exhibit blasts back to artists' pasts
Over the shoulder of one the ceramic corsets that have brought Nicole Moan international attention, a painting of a human skull elaborately adorned with feathers bears the signature of her past — Nikki Riddle, which was how she was known back during her Putnam City High School days.
“I'm still kind of proud of that, because I've only painted like three paintings in my life,” Moan said
looking at the 20-year-old canvas. “I'm not really a painter in general. I think it's because my mother and father are. ... So, I felt really drawn to clay more than I did everything else.”
The Oklahoma City ceramicist whose corsets have appeared on magazine covers, runways and red carpets as far away as London is among more than 20 local artists who are exhibiting work from their high school days alongside their current pieces in “A Little Bit of History” at Individual Artists of Oklahoma Gallery. The exhibit is part of the nonprofit arts organization's 40th anniversary celebration.
“It's fun to see, like, `This is what you did in high school, and this is what you're doing today.' And it's kind of fun how similar some of it is, but some of it is so different,” said spontaneous bob, a visual artist and poet who serves on IAO board of directors. “We want it to be fun and an adventure and little exercise of traveling through time.”
The exhibit is on view through March 8, but a closing reception is planned Saturday night that will be followed by a grown-up version of a high school dance complete with a disco ball and disc jockey.
Artistic home
IAO's mission is to support experimental and thought-provoking artists of all disciplines and create space for artists to impact the community.
“I've been with IAO since I was 14. To me, it was sort of an incubator. … My mom would drop me off at poetry readings and they were in the gallery. So, I'm exposed to all this new visual art. IAO has always been very good at showing things that aren't in all the other galleries. It's a new or unique way of doing things. That's sort of our mission is to show unique views, so I was exposed to that visually as a little 14-year-old depressed poet kid. So, it has influenced by visual work. And I hope that we can continue to do that,” said spontaneous bob, also known as David Dennis-Smith.
He said each participant could submit up to three high school pieces and one current work.
“So, it's fun, it's nervewracking, it's a little awkward, because you work really hard. `This is my current body of work, and I am proud of these pieces.' And then you're like, `Oh, yeah, I did the green people,'” DennisSmith said. “At the same time, (the new one) it's weird blue people with one eye. Some of it that's not really changed that much.”
OKC artist Allin KHG, who curated the exhibit, said it has been interesting to see how the participants' style, media and processes have evolved over the years.
“When we were just talking about it, it was a fun idea. But then the educational aspects started coming in, because you know the names of the people here, you know a lot of their current work … it really shows that some people didn't connect with certain processes or media very well. But other people had it right from the start,” he said.
High school rebels
Two of KHG's highschool pieces are actually art class projects that involved experimenting with printing techniques, including a colorful work that involved masking tape and rope.
“Because I was a high school kid that loved social science classes, I was taking psychology classes at the same time, and it turned into a study of subliminals. So, you have S-E-X,” he said, pointing out the letters hidden in the work with a grin. “And even when she found out, (my teacher) she was like, `I'm not mad.'”
He wasn't the only one to use his fledgling artwork to express teenage rebellion: spontaneous bob admitted he sneaked the same three letters into one of his high-school pieces, while comics artist Allie Drew Caesar recalled that he was almost thrown out of Heritage Hall when a parent was offended by a weird line about dead dogs scrawled in the corner of one of his strange pictorial narratives.
Silversmith Johnny D. Antonelli II also got in trouble in high school for using an art class project to create a collage that campaigned for the legalization of marijuana.
“So, I never have shown this piece anywhere,”said Antonelli, whose new piece is a painted cow skull adorned with a turquoise and silver pendant. “High school was awesome. I had a good time. I did get in a lot of trouble, though.”
It's not just once-hidden pieces of history that are getting their first big showcase in the exhibit: Moan's 15-yearold daughter Aztrid Moan was chosen to represent the younger generation in the show. Among her works is a colorful red painting adorned with yellow and blue flowers.
“That's my mom's old shirt that she always wore, and now I have it,” she said. “I wanted to paint it, and I wanted to put it in a gaudy frame because I love gaudy things. I probably get it from my mom.”