On view: October 20 - November 17
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 20, 7-10 p.m.
New media artist Julie Libersat is interested in the social and cultural relationships between people and the spaces they occupy. Libersat describes her experiences during travel as feeling both at home and out of place. Using these ideas of transportation within spaces as a process and a metaphor, the artist seeks to illuminate new perspectives on how built environments shape our mindsets and values. By designing interactive games and structures that invite the viewer to participate, Libersat creates spaces meant to reorient the viewer within the landscape, free of distractions or blemishes, abraded down to clean lines, matte colors, and uniformity. The outcomes of the viewer’s participation to her work is fluid and undetermined and intended to inspire critical reflection on the impact of the environment.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Julie Libersat is a new media artist and art educator whose work explores themes of home, utopia and disorientation through installations, videos, mazes and puzzles. Born in Kerala, India and raised in Philadelphia PA, Libersat received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2003. Libersat has exhibited in the US and abroad including shows at the Dallas Contemporary Museum, School 33 in Baltimore MD, and the Center for Art and Culture in France. She has received a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant and the 2014 CADD FUNd grant. She is currently pursuing an MA in Art Education and an MFA in New Media from the University of North Texas.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Travel and the idea of home have become central to my work as I travel and question my own relationship to location. Feeling simultaneously at home and out of place, I use navigation motifs and transportation as both metaphor and process. “Getting lost” allows me to highlight the ways in which the built environment directs orientation and cultural values. That is, as we construct spatial meaning around the buildings and places occupied within memory, dreams and imagination, our cities, neighborhoods and buildings reflect our personal, cultural and political histories and imaginaries.
Through architectural interventions, installations, and interactive projects, I investigate our embodied perception of space—our lived, perceived, and conceived experience of space. I strive to make immersive, interactive, and participatory environments that engage viewers and compel them to observe ways in which space is socially and culturally produced. I use transportation as a metaphor and process, a device to assist in time or space travel, making it possible to have a spatial exchange or new perspective. I utilize games and play to create space that welcomes participation and experimentation with roles that are fluid and outcomes, undetermined. Using an interactive game structure disrupts and reorients viewers to take on new roles within the landscape and seeks to assist them in finding a critical and reflective perspective.
ABOUT Ro2 Art
Mother-and-son partners Susan Roth Romans and Jordan Roth operate Ro2 Art, a contemporary fine art gallery located in The Cedars Neighborhood near Downtown Dallas, representing a diverse group of emerging, mid-career, and established contemporary artists – many with ties to the North Texas Region. The gallery regularly collaborates with organizations such as The MAC, Downtown Dallas, Inc., and The Town of Addison, as well as maintaining an exhibition program within the Magnolia Theatre at West Village and other satellite venues. Ro2 Art has been named Dallas Observer's Best Art Gallery and was presented with the 2012 Obelisk Award for small business by the North Texas Business Council for the Arts. Ro2 Art is a proud member of CADD, the Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas, and has exhibited at The Dallas Art Fair for four years. Most recently, Ro2 Art participated in Art Aspen 2017.
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