What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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6 WHAT'S UP! OCTOBER 16-22, 2022 FEATURE Something's In The Water Art Ventures exhibit examines plastic's toll on life MONICA HOOPER NWA Democrat-Gazette W hen you walk through the door of Art Ventures, the first thing you might hear is a relaxing, oceanic sound. Head to the right, through the converted dining room to the room just beyond, and you'll see strips of plastic bags, suspended from the ceiling to the floor, creating a thick, swaying, cube made up of thousands of pieces of plastic. At first, the installation is calming and inviting. The plastic sways lackadaisically, swishing in the soft breeze, inviting the viewer to enter. Once inside the installation, the exhibit becomes claustrophobic. Barely any light makes it way through the thousands of strips of plastic engulfing the viewer. "I try to make the people feel how it could be to 'swim' in the sea that is full of plastics. You can't see anything outside, you need to go through and experiment with what happens inside," says Lourdes Valverde, who created "Under the Sea" with fellow artists David Gómez, Briseida Ochoa and Dexta Rodríguez for the "Goal 14 Water for Life" exhibit on show until Oct. 30 at Art Ventures in Fayetteville. "The idea for this piece was born from an experience when I lived in Mexico City. I saw a similar installation but with different elements and with a very different purpose, but visually I loved it," says Valverde. "Goal 14 Water for Life" alludes to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the United Nations in 2015, considering specifically the 14th goal, Life Below Water. The exhibit itself "focuses on our necessary symbiotic relationship with water and the way unsustainable production practices and contamination greatly threatens that relationship." While the artists share a focus for this exhibit, the styles presented differ significantly. "We are artists, and our mission is to communicate what we see and how we feel through our art," Valverde says. Briseida Ochoa — a recent Artists 360 Project grant recipient who works in photography, painting, mixed media and printmaking — incorporates plastic and cyanotype onto her canvases for this show. Her piece, "#plasticpollution #loveplastic" looks like a scan of a plastic bag with the phrase "Thin plastic is everywhere," emblazoned over the image like a warning to the viewer. She also explores the dehumanization of coffee production, touching on how the ongoing crises affects the world at large, through her photos of coffee workers that are printed on coffee filters and presented in glass carafes or on shreds of single-use coffee cups. Her other work in the show includes photography presented in varying formats. On canvas, David Gomez's "Cafe No Me Late" ("coffee does not beat me" in English) and "Popotitos" focus on what's leftover after that cup of coffee. "Popotitos" has a large straw in the center surrounded by colorful chaos. "Cafe No Me Late" follows a similar theme with a coffee cup shape embedded in the center of bright, neon-hued graffiti and slogans such as "soil erosion" and "pon atenciòn" seen in tire tracks and discarded signs, creating a chaotic immersion one would expect in a landfill. His other paintings in the show seem to have more of a basis in over- industrialization and are examples of his style, which often contains graffiti inspired art, stencils and lots of vibrant color. Dexta Jean Rodriguez's paintings tend toward a celebration of waterways. She uses a lot of cool and warm colors creating beautiful landscapes with scenes from the Buffalo and Mississippi rivers. On first glance, her painting "No Room in America" seems like a celebration of life with a beautiful baby staring out of a window, but then you notice that the window is lined with barbed wire over an American flag. Another painting focusing on a toast of wine glasses would normally be a celebration, but in the context of the show, there's nothing to celebrate. However, she remains hopeful, writing "my paintings celebrate the rich water resources we have in Arkansas, and somehow I have to believe that we will all become better stewards of our waterways and each other." For her part, Lourdes' paintings "The piece 'Fake Food' is about the problem we have with the birds close to the sea that are taking the plastics from the sea to feed their chicks. Obviously, the chicks die," explains Lourdes Valverde of her painting. The artist uses plastic waste in the painting to illustrate her point. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Monica Hooper) FAQ Goal 14 Water For Life WHAT — An art exhibit featuring individual works and a large inter- active installation by artists Lourdes Valverde, David Gómez, Brise- ida Ochoa and Dexta Rodríguez based on the "Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Devel- opment" by the United Nations which outlines 17 goals for sustainable development. The 14th focuses on ocean and waterways. WHERE — Art Ventures, 20 S. Hill Ave., Fayetteville WHEN — On display until Oct. 30; gallery hours are noon to 6 p.m. Wednes- day through Sunday INFO — artventures-nwa. org; goal14nwa.com BONUS — See video of the installation "Under the Sea" at nwaonline. com/1016under.