Documentation - SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo
iPhone screen capture, 1242 × 2208 pixels, 2016
Memory Pore Installation
Axis Gallery, February 2014
Documentation - SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo
iPhone screen capture, 1242 × 2208 pixels, 2016
Side Board (after DKA), 2014
Side Board (detail of photo)
Documentation - SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo
iPhone screen capture, 1242 × 2208 pixels, 2016
Documentation - SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo
iPhone screen capture, 1242 × 2208 pixels, 2016
Crate, 2009
Acrylic with embedded photo, 45”x17”x17”
Crate (detail of photo)
Documentation - SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo
iPhone screen capture, 1242 × 2208 pixels, 2016
Documentation - SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo
iPhone screen capture, 1242 × 2208 pixels, 2016
The Swim Lesson, 2011
Acrylic with embedded photo, 30”x60”x12”
The swim Lesson (detail of photo)
Documentation - SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo
iPhone screen capture, 1242 × 2208 pixels, 2016
Winter Reveal, 2014
Acrylic and Aluminum, 80”x60”x22”
Documentation - SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo
iPhone screen capture, 1242 × 2208 pixels, 2016
Irish Twins, 2018
Acrylic and Aluminum, 80”x48”x32”
Documentation - SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo
iPhone screen capture, 1242 × 2208 pixels, 2016
A Model for Gaudi, 2018
Acrylic, Resin and Aluminum
Documentation - SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo
iPhone screen capture, 1242 × 2208 pixels, 2016
Jiayi Young
I joined Axis in 2008 with a kind invitation to apply from the then president Phil Amrhein. We were on 19th street then. In the Eight years I was at Axis, I had four solo exhibitions, each challenged me to explore new directions and to reach for new limits. I made life-long friends at the gallery, learned new skills to market myself as an artist, and established foundations for a new career. We co-operated the businesses of the gallery, it wasn’t easy, but we did it! Being with Axis was one of the most memorable and meaningful experiences I have had. I felt really free to create and experiment.
The last exhibition I had at the gallery was SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo in 2016. Instead of approaching the opportunity to exhibit as we have always done, I wanted to turn the space into an opportunity of creative genesis where work was being generated day and night in the space, other creatives in the community were invited to collaborate, and thus to create the condition for the public to ask questions about the nature of artistic practices and to think about the relationship between them and the creative activities.
Jiayi Young is an Assistant Professor of Design at the University of California, Davis. She creates installations and social interventions in cultural and public places with a goal of creating generative energy to engage the public in social dialogue. She sets up scenarios and creates conditions to make visible empathetic relationship between people in the presence of contemporary culture. Her work invites the public to participate to come in close contact with an experience that engages the rethinking of present-day experiences. Young has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Ars Electronica, the International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA); the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA); Hall of Science, New York; the United Nation’s Fourth Conference on Women, Beijing, China; the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; and Moltkerei Werkstatt, Cologne, Germany.
Benjamin Hunt
In 2009, I relocated to Sacramento from the San Jose area after finishing my MFA and doing a short stint teaching sculpture at Idaho State University. Before I could fully settle down in Sacramento, I reconnected with an old friend, Justin Marsh, whom I started to work with at the Crocker Art Museum. At that time, Justin had recently joined Axis Gallery to show his work and explore some personal curatorial projects. In 2014, Justin included me in an exhibition called “The Memory Pore”. Through this exhibition, I had the pleasure of meeting Phil Amrhein, Janice Nakashima, Sandra Beard, Ron Peetz and Dixie Laws. I had been interested in being part of a gallery, but not in a traditional commercial gallery. Axis offered a cooperative gallery model that I was drawn to. This collaborative structure to operating, participating and exhibiting allows members to explore and push the boundaries of their own work and studio process without the pressure of making commercial sales. To me, that was very attractive. With Justin’s encouragement, I applied for membership in 2016 and had the good fortune to have been accepted into the gallery. I have been an active member ever since.
Artwork: I have had a long time interest in seemingly ordinary everyday objects such as collectible and utilitarian items. I am fascinated by how an object such as a photograph, a piece of furniture or old toys can become a marker of time to a collector. My current work has been focused on creating objects that imbue a sense of captured time and nostalgia through their design, aesthetics and contents. Appropriated photographic imagery and reproduced cast metal objects have been incorporated into my current body of work to emphasize nostalgia and memory, both diminished and reconstructed. I am intrigued by the fragile and seemingly deceptive nature of photographic memory and recollection. The manner in which I work has been a reflection of my observations of passing time, growth and nostalgia contained within the framework of blurred memory.
Bio: Ben Hunt was born and raised in San Diego, California. He received a MFA in Spatial Art from San José State University in 2008. Ben has taught sculpture at Idaho State University and CSU Sacramento. He has worked as an exhibition preparator at the Crocker Art Museum. At present, Ben is a technical staff member in the Art Department at CSU Sacramento and is the preparator in the Universities Library Gallery. He lives and maintains a studio practice in Sacramento.