Salina Art Center

Artist Talk:  Carrie Scanga

Salina, Kansas – In conjunction with her exhibition, Allegories and Architecture, on view at the Salina Art Center from March 6 through May 17, 2009, New York artist Carrie Scanga will present a talk at the Art Center, 242 S. Santa Fe, on Friday, March 6, at noon.  This event is FREE and open to the public.

Currently living in the Hudson Valley of New York and working in Philadelphia, PA, Carrie Scanga has received numerous residencies, awards, and fellowships including those from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the MacDowell Colony, Artspace, Sculpture Space, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. Recent solo exhibitions include As Was Told at The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA,  and Pastland at the Hudson D. Walker Gallery, Provincetown, MA.  During the past year, Scanga’s work has also been exhibited at the International Print Center New York, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY, and at The Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA. Scanga’s current studio practice is supported by a grant from the Pollock Krasner Foundation.

Enigmatic and uncanny, Carrie Scanga’s images are both hauntingly familiar and strangely other.  These pictures grow out of and suggest stories, which Scanga sees as having the power to link “all that’s personal to something more universal.”  Beginning with a feeling that she wants to pinpoint, the artist consciously sifts through “fictional and true, personal and cultural stories and settings,” seeking out scenarios that will visually express her sensation or emotion. Of particular interest to her are those “buildings and cultural myths,” architecture and allegories, that are “saturated with people’s stories through use and circulation” - a home that has absorbed traces of its inhabitants, the traditional tales that become richer with each retelling. Drawing upon these tangible and intangible repositories of meaning, Scanga creates scenes dense with potential interpretations.  Conveying more than just her personal feelings, each of Scanga’s images prompts viewers to invoke their own memories and imaginings.

Carrie Scanga will return to Salina in the spring of 2010 to complete a residency as part of the Salina Art Center’s Artist-in-Residence program. 

Carrie Scanga’s exhibition and her future artist residency are made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, and by the R.C. Kemper Charitable Trust, UMB Bank, n.a. Corporate Trustee.
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For more information regarding Carrie Scanga’s talk, exhibition or residency contact the Salina Art Center at 785-827-1431 or visit http://www.salinaartcenter.org. The Salina Art Center galleries are open Wednesday through Saturday from noon – 5:00 pm, and Sunday from 1:00 – 5:00 pm.  Business office hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.