The City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs presents You are Safe, a Piccolo Spoleto Festival exhibition at Rick Rhodes Art Gallery. You Are Safe is a multidisciplinary exhibition focusing on the collaboration between three artists: Tina Christophillis, Justin Nathanson and Brit Washburn. You Are Safe will be on view from May 20, 2011, through June 25, 2011, and the public is invited to an opening reception on May 20, 2011, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The beginning of the collaboration was sparked by a chance meeting between Brit Washburn and Tina Christophillis. Both artists were participating in a singer-songwriter event at the Charleston Pour House. Christophillis was able to graphically capture the text, tone and imagery of the musicians’ lyrics and the poets’ words in a wholly unmediated and captivating way. Through this meeting a project was initiated with the impulse to explore city life, relationships and their connection. It wasn’t long before filmmaker Justin Nathanson was asked to join the group and an artistic cross-pollination happened, as though one had infiltrated the deep sub-consciousness of the other and in so doing transformed the very molecular structure of the other’s aesthetics to a startling effect. Only in a state of complete dis-inhibition is such a collaboration possible and it is in this respect an enactment and manifestation of the concept You Are Safe came to be.
The issue of safety rose out of wanting to share artistic visions freely, and honestly. Nothing was to be judged, and everything was to be imagined. The realization arose that each of us has complete creative freedom at any given time, and that the only thing which comes in the way of that is thought. Working to rise above the intrusion of thought, the artists worked against reason, and in service of intuition. Working from this place of safety and non-judgment, the artists began working independently, inspired by their interaction.
As the collaboration moved forward, Christophillis was inspired to move inward. She began to explore the figure in timeless situations, alone in a city, room, or corridor, under a tree, holding an animal, stepping out into the light. In eliminating detail in her paintings, her figures become “everyman,” and emanating something we can all connect to on an intuitive level. This collaboration offered Christophillis safety to explore imagery that is evocative, suggestive, and relevant to all.
By video and audio taping every meeting, Justin Nathanson began to work directly with the collaborative dialogue. Playing further on the issue of safety, Nathanson began photographing figures in the dark, almost running from and moving towards their shadows – or, themselves. Several main photographs riff even further on the theme of safety, moving into the literal – personal safety. Nathanson will have avant-garde video installation and several smaller audio pieces that will accompany his photography.
Over the course of Brit Washburn’s acquaintance with Christopholis, Nathanson, and their work, Washburn found herself preoccupied with the artists’ images and questions posed in conversation with them. Her poems of the past several months investigate the concept of “safety” in various forms, delineating the experience in a lyric-narrative style reflective of the artists’ influence.
