UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art
Las Vegas, Nevada
We believe everyone deserves access to art that challenges our understanding of the present and inspires us to create a future that makes space for us all.
MessageMikayla Whitmore: Between a Rock and a Cliff
- January 13, 2020 - February 08, 2020
- Exhibition
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- Artwork
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- Artists
Mikayla Whitmore
"Laughing When Sad," 2019
Archival metallic print
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
This ice was found in an unexpected place — the front yard gutter in a Las Vegas neighborhood. Natural ice in the city is fleeting and rare. “By the afternoon,” writes Whitmore, “it had mostly melted away, much like the casino façades and family members lost over the passing years. Nostalgic for a sense of home, in a place that changes identities daily.”
While the ice was still fresh the artist decorated it with food dye. She expected the lines to stay sharp, but the smiling face she drew quickly dissolved into a slightly off, very somber expression. She tried a few other shapes but “nothing felt as genuine as that face … Laughing When Sad comes from a place I think some can relate to — the feeling of having to put up a front or face to the outer world, even when we feel a completely different emotional state internally.”
- Created: 2018