Eight performers and two musicians will engage and entertain visitors throughout the Langford gallery in Phoenix on Friday

By Art Van Kraft for Ashland.news

Over a dozen contemporary Ashland artists will join other regional artists in a unique art show at Langford Art Gallery in Phoenix. 

The NEOTERIC Vernal X Group Art Exhibition and Performance Art featuring more than 24 participating artists opens with an opening reception at 5 p.m. Friday, April 4. An artists’ reception is set for Saturday, April 12, and a live performance event takes place Saturday, April 19. The exhibition closes April 26. 

Organizer Becca Blake said the show is a step toward creating a notable contemporary art gallery in the region. She is credited with furthering the goals of art exhibits in the area and cultivating local talent.

“We have reached out and cultivated local artists, each with incredible personal and professional accomplishments, backgrounds, and journeys,” Blake said. 

The show will begin with a two-hour live performance by an Ashland artist troupe. The eight performers and two musicians will engage and entertain visitors throughout the gallery. 

Performance artist Aurora Quinn says the group will give a different kind of experience to the opening. 

“Traditional theater puts the audience in a very passive role of, just, ‘you’re here to watch the performers do something for you,’ and there’s a safe distance between the separation of stage and audience, and I find that to be very limiting,” Quinn said. 

“Theater for me is an opportunity to create much deeper, more interactive engagement between people at Neoteric. We are exploring new forms of arts and art that reflect our experiences in the 21st century,” Quinn added. 

Quinn says the immersion of art and performance will give the both visitors and artists alike, a “very unique experience.”   

Missy Galore, Aurora Quinn and exhibit organizer Becca Blake. Art Van Kraft photo for Ashland.news

Missy Galore describes herself as “a shamamatrix from Ashlandis,” or “someone who creates,” she says. 

“I create Crystal fluff wands, it’s smile stimulation technology.” 

Galore has one of the more colorful exhibits that, she says, has very special meaning.

“They are cosmically designed to empower your heart chakra or heart healing. It’s what I call ‘loveution,’ or the ability of art to create and shape a culture, thereby creating experiences and objects that help create a frequency for people to experience their body and joy.”

Mori D. lifelong is an artist who lives and works in Ashland. She is now working with “empowerment and expression,” and uses bold colors and striking images to show her vision. 

“We are all different, but we are the same. I do a lot of women empowerment work. I have a full series on women and goddesses. Now I’m doing abstract and I’m taking another artist’s (John) photos of his lamps and doing abstract work with that,” D said.

Jack Langford is a sculptor who owns and operates Langford Gallery in Phoenix. He runs a casting and molding studio that also functions as an art center for the region. He is known around the valley for holding live bronze casting pours, a nighttime event that brings artists and the curious to watch. Langford is also responsible for giving numerous artists in the area the rare opportunity of showing their work. 

Langford is also an educator who he said “welcomes a community of creatives, among them sculptors, ceramicists, painters, and those interested in exploring mixed media.” 

John Garloff (pictured at top) is an Ashland sculptor who’s “Common Thread” submission is a recurring theme in his work. 

“There is sheet metal in here, I like to incorporate body work techniques that they use to repair auto bodies. Illuminated metal sculptures,” he said.

“For me it’s a form of therapy, I like working with my hands. I’ve got some childhood trauma that I’ve been healing. This allows me to go back to that little kid and do some damage repair,” Garloff said. 

Former Google employee Robert Quattebaum of Ashland (pictured at top) has an interactive sculpture that responds to light. 

“I used the image of how soap bubbles connect. I was playing around with that idea and I ended up these designs. 

“They are designed with hand detection. I designed all the electronics and software for these. Some of the cells are omitting red light and other cells are paying attention,” Quattebaum said. 

“I worked on Google’s operating system they call FUCIA. Wireless networking technologies. Completely different that this,” he said. “It got old, so I wanted to do something different.”

Art Van Kraft is an artist living in Ashland and a former broadcast journalist and news director of a Los Angeles-area National Public Radio affiliate. Email him at [email protected].

April 4: Corrected date of performance art event to April 19 (not April 12).

April 8: Corrected spelling of Missy Galore’s name.