Stephen Rock Original Artwork

Hammers, Nails and Audience Interaction Build One-of-a-Kind Exhibition
Pacific Lutheran University's October Show Explores Life as Process
Exhibit Photo Credit this page Nichole DeMent or Kathryn Sparks

Tacoma, WA October 24, 2005 - Two bodies of work, Nichole DeMent's, "Essence of Being," and Stephen Rock's, "Alchemy of Life" series, come together in this two-person exhibit to merge process and technique with intent, and explore the inspiration and motivation of creating.

Furthering the concept of life as process, the artists invited the audience to collaborate on an interactive installation where visitors to the exhibit's opening reception were asked to drive nails into a 6' by 3' wooden table, handcrafted by Stephen Rock and his brothers, Doug and Jeff Rock. The 'Awakening' Rock and DeMent aimed to create through this exhibition is a personal one. Nichole DeMent, creator of the "Essence of Being" series, says that the artists hope to help their audience awaken from the disassociation and desensitization of the creation of art, in life and our effect on one another as people.

The response and creativity of the crowd at the event went well beyond the artists' expectations. Along with a multitude of nails, audience members pulled various objects from their pockets: a long held Michigan game token that had brought years of good luck, a key waiting for the lost lock the owner knew would not be found, a pocket dictionary from childhood. The evolution from artistic statement, to academic exercise, to personal gestures of reconnecting and creativity, is now evident in the various objects that can be found in the installation.

"The perception and experience that the viewer leaves with is as important to the life of the work as its creation" said Rock. "It was great to see people interact on a personal level with the table."

DeMent finds that the installation piece brings both bodies of work together through the intrigue of the surfaces, "The various objects and textures on the surface call out to be discovered, both in our different series and now in the table." DeMent describes her conceptual series on human nature as representing "the inherent triumph within the historical struggle." The human figures in her work are depicted in expressive physical stances and surrounded and filled with organic layers, both photographic and three-dimensional. The mostly unrecognizable shapes and colors layered in human shapes imply an inner dialogue. Due to her use of transparent human figures, it also implies the absence of a physical body. Appropriate to her deconstructionist style, her marred surfaces; cut-up, roughed, with drippy paint and wax, or soot adhered; are atypical to the traditional pristine surface of a photograph.

In contrast to DeMent's layering of images, Rock works with representations of singular objects surrounded by an artistic treatment of their surface. Rock's creation intrigues its viewer to question, and more deeply explore just what they are seeing in his work, however, Rock's titles for his work are clues to his interpretations of the images. His 36x48" image of a long, slender paintbrush covered and surrounded by a playful hodgepodge of paint drips and marks is titled, "Tip Top Brush (4 rooms, a garden fence, 7 canvases and a stool)". True to their utilitarian beginnings, these objects have gone through the process of experience and time. Now Rock has imbued them with his own personal history.

The exhibition is set to close on November 11th. For updated information and images for publication, please contact the artists at the following numbers and addresses: Stephen Rock, 206.935.5788 or sarock@.rockeditions.com and Nichole DeMent at 206.778.3157, emailme@nicholedement.net or www.nicholedement.net.