Randall Scott Gallery in Washington, D.C. is currently showing new photographs by one of PDN Magazine‘s “30 Under 30 To Watch” (2007), Sarah Wilmer. Influenced by 16th and 17th century Dutch painting as well as the more modern medium of film, Wilmer’s photographs evoke a sense of mystery and other worldliness. Her settings provide a vague framework for the imaginary story which she is documenting.

Wilmer begins with a general sense of imagery, subject, and cast of characters, but responds to her photographic surroundings upon arriving to each shoot. She uses props to create loose narratives of enchanted settings and transcendent realms. After processing the film, she employs saturation of color and printing techniques to create emotional presence and a sense of heightened reality. Her technical skills are crisply apparent, producing a presentational polish in each still.

Wilmer currently lives and works in Brooklyn and her work has been featured in various publications including V Magazine, Nomenus Quarterly, and Surface. Her work will remain at Randall Scott Gallery until July 5, 2008.

Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, South Carolina is presenting a new solo exhibition titled Together by sculptor/installation artist, Susan Meyer. The exhibition, which opens this evening, is part of the 2008 Redux Artist-in-Residence program.

Meyer makes environments for us, and for the tiny people that inhabit her structures of undulating platforms. Her work might resemble the interior of a cave, strands of DNA, futuristic buildings, a space colony, or a shopping mall, but its inability to be classified as any real object sets it apart from this literal representation. Her work seems to be a social structure we can view, a conceptual model addressing our world, but making its own world in isolation. Read below for the full article by Celi Dailey.

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Ryan Trecartin casts, directs, films, edits, and often stars in full-length videos that are based on the proliferation of video documentation of today’s youth culture, primarily through the channel of YouTube. The artist has recently been acclaimed by Artnews as “the Matthew Barney of the digital generation,” referencing his surrealistic and sometimes disorienting use of scenery, costume, makeup, and characters. The artist successfully captures the way of life under the cultural aegis of the Internet, incorporating rapid scene changes that mimic the speed at which we click from site to site. Trecartin targets blogs, MySpace, match.com, and camera phones in his latest full-length video I-Be Area, which takes aim at the poseurs, self-promoters, and fictional characters that populate the world wide web today (watch clip). Trecartin has previously been featured on DailyServing for his sculptural and installation work.

Trecartin was a video major at RISD and upon graduation in 2004, moved to New Orleans where he created his first major work, A Family Finds Entertainment, on a budget of $1,000. He relocated to Ohio due to Hurricane Katrina, and later moved to Los Angeles. Despite these setbacks, his videos were already circulating the Internet and were seen by video artist Sue De Beer at a party in Cleveland. She brought his work to the attention of the Whitney Museum curators which led to his inclusion in the 2006 Whitney Biennial as the youngest artist ever to exhibit. He has since shown at New York’s Underground Film Festival as well as the Walker Art Center and Miami’s Moore Space. He is represented by Elizabeth Dee Gallery in New York and has an upcoming solo show at UCLA’s Hammer Museum. His videos now sell for more than $30,000, but he continues to distribute clips through the Internet.

Craig Norton began his career in art by selling decorated flowerpots in front of nightclubs while working as a bouncer. This self taught artist now utilizes drawing, photography, and collage in his exploration of controversial issues in history, politics, and religion. Lacking any formal artistic training, Norton’s work has a sincerity that shuns conceptuality in favor of a more honest and direct approach.

Norton’s exhibition, Bitter Crop, investigates social injustices that took place throughout the American Civil Rights Movement and is now on display at OKOK Gallery in Seattle. This mixed media installation confronts historical acts of inhumanity such as lynchings, segregationist rallies, and Ku Klux Klan activities. The main wall of the gallery is covered with a collage of over fifty individuals in the midst of protest, complete with familiar scenes of police brutality and civil unrest. The artist draws the faces of the figures, often in the midst of screams, with a cheap Bic pen. He then attaches these photorealistic portraits to bodies composed of wallpaper samples. The unconventional mix of materials creates a palpable tension that mimics our emotional guilt and unease surrounding those circumstances, which is now intensified given the advantage of our historical perspective.

Norton cites the text Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America as one of his main research sources. His previous work includes a large series based on the genocide in Rwanda and the Holocaust. Norton has exhibited at outsider art fairs in New York and Chicago. Portions of this body of work were first exhibited at White Flag Projects, a non-profit art space in St. Louis, Missouri where the artist currently lives and works.

Ceramic artist, Vipoo Srivilasa‘s latest exhibition, Roop-Rote-Ruang is currently on display at Gallery 4A: Asia-Australia Arts Centre. Translating as Taste-Touch-Tell, the exhibition coincides with several dinner parties the artist will host within private Sydney residencies throughout the exhibition’s duration. Srivilasa created ceramic dinner sets especially for this project, which the guests will eat from. He will prepare a four course meal and get the audience to engage in a range of activities that reflect his Thai heritage. The exhibition is also interactive in nature, focusing on issues regarding environmental damage. Tickets to the artist’s dinner parties are able to be bought for $150 a head.

Srivilasa was born in Thailand, before migrating to Australia as an adult, where he currently lives and works. He has studied at various institutions including Rangsit University, Bangkok, Monash University, Melbourne and the University of Tasmania, Hobart. His work has appeared within numerous group exhibitions on an international scale, including at SOFA, Chicago, Gallery Twenty Five, New Delhi and Brisbane City Gallery, Queensland. He has also had several solo exhibitions within Australia and Thailand. He received first prize at the Golden Teapot Awards in 2003, and an honourable mention at the 4th World Ceramic Biennale, Korea.

A conceptual video work by acclaimed artist, Bill Viola is currently on display at The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Entitled The Tristan Project: Fall into Paradise, the work was created in response to the Celtic tale of Tristan and Isolde. Viola created four hours of video footage to accompany an operatic production of the legend that was directed by Peter Sellars. From 2004-2005 it was performed at institutions including the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles and Opera Bastille, Paris. Incorporating the use of water, many of the scenes involved underwater filming techniques.

Viola lives and works in Long Beach, California. He studied at Syracuse University, New York where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in experimental studios. His work has been exhibited widely on an international scale at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Wien Modern, Vienna and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. He has received numerous awards for his art practice including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, as awarded by the French Government.

Clayton Brothers, Rob and Christian, take root in the artists’ immediate environment, referencing local business, neighborhood characters, overheard conversations and local signs that exist outside of the artists’ California-based studio. Dense with information, these fractured narratives come to life through a unique collaborative process. The brothers rarely work on the same canvas at one time or even discuss the work while it’s being created; instead they work through improvisation, adding to, editing and reconstructing the work as it develops through their independent approaches. The artists’ co-creation is completed without ego and is thoroughly organic, allowing the final production to be ambiguous and developed directly from the employed process. Both brothers are graduates of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. The Clayton Brothers have exhibited in numerous national solo shows including “Wishy Washy” at the Bellwether Gallery in New York (2006) and “I Come From Here” at the Mackey Gallery in Houston, Texas (2004). The artists have also exhibited in several exhibitions with the La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, such as “Six Foot Seven” (2003), “Candy Lackey” (2002) and “Lucky 13″ (1995).