IDRPP Celebrates 50th Anniversary at Logan Gallery Walk
This Friday in Logan, the Institute for Disability Research, Policy & Practice celebrates its 50th anniversary by featuring two artists in the Gallery Walk. Their works can be viewed at the Presideo Real Estate Office at 19 W Center Street from 6 to 9 pm on September 23.
The Gallery Walk is a free event sponsored by the Cache Valley Center for the Arts. More about the artists below:
Kelie Hess
Kelie Hess is an artist and an Institute employee who specializes in transition to employment for young adults with developmental disabilities.
“My strongest focus for the last couple of years has been exploring abstract style,” she said. “Abstract is tricky for me, it really kind of pushed me out of my comfort zone. But I also love it because I think through the style of abstraction, you can evoke emotions without being so obvious or literal. And I like that. I like people to pull out their own meaning when they view my art, but for myself, when I'm creating, I want people to feel joy and happiness.”
Some of her featured works are from her Consciously Breathing collection. “I think a lot about air. I have a very compromised respiratory system. So I think about the literal elements of breathing in and out a lot more than typical people probably do. And so in this series of paintings, I've tried to suggest air or light, or wind, using color and design. I try to express different emotions connected to a meaningful life.”
Reinier Domínguez
Reinier Domínguez, husband of IDRPP employee Martha Reyes, brings some rich art experience to the Gallery Walk. He was born in Cuba, where studied art and earned two degrees.
He is part of an art collective called Los Transferencistas that have participated in various exhibitions in galleries and museums in Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, Italy, the United Arab Emirates and the US. Members of the collective work together, sometimes collaborating on a single canvas.
The Transferencistas’ philosophy is all about the death of the ego, he said, “to diminish the sense of the ownership of the art.” Paintings are not given titles, but numbers and letters.
“Each person will interact with the artwork according to the knowledge that they may have,” he said through an interpreter. He wants everyone who views the art to have their own experience.
Domínguez holds a bachelor’s of fine arts from the Escuela Pedagogica Enrique José Varona and a degree in engraving from Academia de Bellas Artes San Alejandro.