Exerts of this article are taken from the Campus Times article Narrative art mixes myth and history​ by Claudia Ceja, Jocelyn Arceo on March 2, 2018. Read Full Article at lvcampaustimes.org

The University of La Verne held an artist panel on the works presented in “Biomythography: Reflexive Remix” Tuesday in the Harris Gallery. The exhibit, curated by Chris Christion and Jessica Wimbley, featured works from artists Andrea Chung, Vanessa German, Todd Gray, Tarrah Krajnak and Suné Woods.

Biomythography is the weaving of myth, history and biography into a comprehensive and narrative form.

“It was really to contextualize how artists individual practices are using myth, biography and history as a conceptual means within their practice,” Wimbley said.

“We also apply it to how we can think about how artists are using remixing within their artistic practices, so, how are they pulling from different source materials and then remixing the content to create new works,” she said.

Both artists and curators want to move from the typically written art of history and mythology into more visual arts, Wimbley said.

The reflective remix aspect is simply taking fragments of art from original pieces to incorporate into new content, such as when a DJ creates new content out of samples from archived records.

“The idea is that the two are not whole until it’s completed by the audience,” said Christion.

Krajnak’s piece, where she took pages from Ansel Adams educational book and placed her own photography over his while also redacting much of the words in his text to replace them with her own meaning, was inspired by the mainstream photographer who she claims is a master of photography.“He kind of transcends in a way. Even though he’s a very well-known modernist master, he’s also one of these very popular photographers who is embraced by all kinds of people,” Krajnak said. “I was thinking about these ideas of the modernist master and what that means.”

Her project is still ongoing, and she considers it to be fairly blunt and conceptual.

Everything is meant to be easily understood and accessible, similar to how accessible Adams’ photography is.

“Encountering the archive as a woman of color thinking ‘No I’m going to erase these technical terms’ and what’s left emerges my emotional reactions to his (Adams’) work and the more subjective experience,” Krajnak said.