Kartz Ucci
Partnering with Portland Community College Rock Creek's Helzer Gallery, Jenene Nagy and Josh Smith are pleased to announce the opening of the solo exhibition TILT Export: kartz ucci. Kartz Ucci is an installation artist working with relationships of theory, material and concept within an expanded field of visual exploration. In Ucci's piece an opera for one, the artist hired the young Canadian opera soprano, Deanna Pauletto to sing a capella, Pablo Neruda's book of poetry, "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair". The piece was recorded in a cement-encased stairwell, 16 stories high. A colour coded score was composed based on Ucci's interpretation of the relation between colour and its emotional vibration. The resulting installation is a hauntingly romantic response to this effort.
TILT Export: kartz ucci runs September 21-October 30, 2009 at the PCC Rock Creek Helzer Gallery, Building 3, 17705 NW Springville Road, Portland, Oregon. There will be an artist talk Friday October 2 at 3:30pm in the Forum, Building 3. A reception for the artist will follow later that evening in the gallery from 7-9pm. Regular gallery hours are Monday – Friday 9a-5p and Saturday 9a-3p.
Kartz Ucci received her MFA from York University in Toronto in 1995. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues in Soeul (South Korea), Limossal (Cyprus), Basel (Switzerland), Toronto and Montreal (Canada). The sound piece, 368 songs with the word sad in the title was included in Guy Schraenen’s anthology of his collection Vinyl Records and Covers by Artists and traveled with a related exhibition to Porto (Portugal), Breman (Germany) and Barcelona (Spain). The record is also distributed by Art Metropole in Toronto. Other projects include upcoming work as editor on Kent State, a feature film written and directed by Karen Slade. Ucci is currently an Assistant Professor in Digital Arts at the University of Oregon in Eugene. This will be her first solo exhibition in the US.