Steve Wanna installation at Fisher Gallery. Image courtesy of the gallery.
Opening Reception: Saturday June 22 from 2 to 4pm
Margaret W. & Joseph L. Fisher Art Gallery at the Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center is pleased to announce the solo exhibition “The Eternity of an Instant: Mixed Media Works by Steve Wanna. The exhibition runs from June 15, 2019 to August 18, 2019 with an opening reception Saturday June 22, 2019 from 2-4PM.
Steve Wanna is a multi-disciplinary sound and visual artist whose work includes music, sound design for dance collaborations, sculpture, installation, photography, and works for mixed media. Born and raised in Lebanon, he immigrated to the United States with his family as a teenager, eventually receiving a doctorate in Music Composition from the University of Maryland in 2004.
Wanna’s work is driven by his belief that under the right conditions beauty can emerge without the need for direct intervention. He creates abstract, experimental fixed works and installations in a variety of mediums and formats that include sound, 2-D work, sculpture, video, and photography. His work is informed by the principle of emergence as defined in systems theory and Buddhism. His process often involves an element of controlled randomness, taking great care to prepare the initial conditions for a process whose final results are largely out of his control.
As a composer and sound artist by training, the perception of the passage of time is a strongly recurring theme in Steve’s work. Whether sonic or visual. he creates fixed works and installations that deal with mainly three different manifestations of this concept: fixed works that represent or capture a single moment in time, fixed works that are the result of a long process, and works that are themselves processes in perpetual unfolding. The works in this exhibit come from two ongoing series that fit squarely in the first category.
Some works highlight or capture the moment of their creation, a process frozen in time. Usually these mixed media works draw on experimental techniques and use materials like paints, powders, and wax in atypical ways. Other works are in constant flux, perpetually in states of becoming rather than being. These employ various electronic components driven by software he designs to create controlled randomness, which imbues the works with a sense of autonomous life.
Public hours are Monday through Friday 10am to 5pm and on weekends during public events. Weekend hours will be announced on the gallery Instagram @fisherartgallery . The Schlesinger Center is located at 4915 East Campus Drive, Alexandria, VA, 22311.Public hours are Monday through Friday from 10AM – 5PM. For additional information about art shows and concert hall events, contact the Gallery Director, Mary Welch Higgins at mhiggins@nvcc.edu.
