ACCNV presents

Logo for Desert Biennial Project. Features letters "D B P" surrounded by a barbed wire ring, all enclosed in a wax stamp shape. The color scheme is bright red, with stamp details, the letters, and the barbed wire cut out of the stamp shape.
Written logo for Desert Biennial Project. Spells out "Desert Biennial Project". The color scheme is bright red.

The Nevada Art Biennial

The Desert Biennial Project is an exhibition-based catalog of artists based in Nevada. Inspired by the Bullfrog Biennial, artists join from all corners of the state to celebrate the power of community, and the beauty of the landscape and environment. The DBP serves as a home for artists to come together, experiment with installation and performance, and enjoy our state's cultural richness and incredible beauty. Established in 2023, the DBP presented Stone Soup, and is excited about the upcoming exhibitions in 2025.

Image of Stone Soup event poster with coordinates, date, and time. Coordinates are 35.79060 degrees north, 115.26038 degrees west. Date is November 11th, 2023 time is 4 to 10 pm. "Stone Soup" with border in bright red on image of amoeba under microscope.

2023 // STONE SOUP

The inaugural project, Stone Soup held at
Jean Dry Lakebed on November 11th, 2023.Based on the folktale, the Desert Biennial Project
featured the work of 32 artists. Spanning concepts of the future, land ownership, land in Nevada, home, togetherness and apartness.

2025 // COMING SOON

Announcement coming November 2024!

Graphic featuring gradient from top to bottom of blue to purple with the words "Coming Soon" in yellow listed vertically and stretched edge to edge 11 times.
Graphic featuring gradient from top to bottom of blue to purple with the words "Coming Soon" in yellow listed vertically and stretched edge to edge 11 times.

NEWS!

Read about us!

Stone Soup, by Ellie Rush

Stone Soup, by D. K. Sole

2023

"Stone Soup" in western font in bright red.

The inaugural iteration of the Desert Biennial Project, inspired by a folk tale about community.

Artists include:

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTThe Desert Biennial Project wishes to acknowledge and honor the Indigenous communities of the region, and recognize that our event site was situated on the traditional homelands of the Nuwu, Southern Paiute People.We offer gratitude for the land itself, for those who have stewarded it for generations, and for the opportunity to exhibit art and be in community with this land.We encouraged everyone in the space to engage in continued learning about the Indigenous peoples who work and live on this land since time immemorial, including the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe and the Moapa Band of Paiutes.As a project inspired by building community, the Desert Biennial Project believes it is important to recognize and appreciate the use of Southern Paiute land as part of its mission to be a welcoming and inclusive project.

THANK YOUBureau of Land Management
Sierra Slentz and the Bullfrog Biennial
All of our donors across Nevada, all donations big and small

Image from Stone Soup event from 2023 Desert Biennial Project. Features bright orange diamond sign with black lettering spelling out Desert Biennial Project behind a sign made from dimensional lumber with Stone Soup painted in red on front of sign.
"Stone Soup" in western font in bright red.
Image of sculpture by Abney Wallace. Features vertical pieces of dimensional lumber painted various shades of white and blue arranged in a crop circle with circular lines scratched into lake-bed.

ABNEY WALLACE

Circle

String Line, 16d Nail, Dimensional Lumber, Upcycled Exterior Latex House Paint, Solar Flood Lights

Artist Statement

Circle is a site-specific installation, referencing in both material and form, the ubiquitous mascot of urban desert sprawl- the cookie cutter cul-de-sac. Rapid encroachment, shifting urban growth boundaries, water reallocation- despite its perception as an empty void, the fragile desert is finite. Yet overhead and all around, time marches on. Using common residential construction materials, Circle aims to demonstrate perceptual shifts in light over the course of a day, and in so doing asks how we can live in greater service to the infinite?

Between the deserts of Oregon and California, evidence of humans having come and gone dots the landscape. Ancient and modern, these sites narrate relationships to the natural world. As western deserts become drier, our stories grow louder. My practice addresses gestures born of place, climate, utility, and impulse, acts of traversing, inscribing, and demarcating as cultural signifiers. I appropriate the deserts' observable and sensed aesthetics, both natural and introduced, my marks and moves mimicking those on the landscape. Future existence relies on reckoning with our past and present. We are the tellers of our own stories. Will we author a future with intention or willful ignorance?

Artist bio

Born in South Carolina, artist and educator Abney Wallace spent his childhood looking under rocks and seeking solitude in muddy creek beds. Following a formative stint in the mountains of North Carolina, he and his young family chased the setting sun to the open spaces of the dry American West. Informed by the slow emptiness of the Great Basin, Wallace works in printmaking, drawing, mixed media, and sculptural installation. He holds an MFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. His work has been included in exhibitions throughout the Northwest and beyond. He’s still looking under rocks.

Still from durational performance by Adriana Chavez. Features Adriana dressed as her character Juan Chico with cigar in mouth, walking with cardboard sign that says "claimed" on it in black letters.

ADRIANA CHAVEZ

Claimed!

Performance Art and Sculptural Installation; Wood, cardboard, paint, hammer

Artist Statement

Juan Chico investigates difficult topics through humor and play at the forefront. He does this by making up silly and sometimes audacious games to perform in front of an audience. In Claimed!, Juan Chico played an irreverent game of claim-jumping and settler colonialism. Carting around cardboard signs with “claimed” written in black paint and attached to wooden stakes, he sought to claim the spaces and the spaces between spaces that other artists occupied with their art. For what use? Who knows! Who cares! Does Juan Chico need a reason? He wanted it for himself because he felt entitled to it.

My purpose is to investigate identity and belonging through a complex practice that incorporates performance art, mask making, collage, movement, and sculptural installation. One of the main focuses of my work is a clownish character I developed, named Juan Chico. This disruptor and wild-card of a character is inspired by the tender and messy men in my family; the drinkers, the dreamers, the cheaters, and the mustached macho men. Like the archetype of the trickster, Juan Chico has the potential to challenge social norms, press against and subvert hierarchical systems, reflect the flaws of human nature, and reveal humanity's potential for growth, goodness, and change. As Juan Chico, I embody protagonists of non-linear narratives connecting the sacred and the profane, the grotesque and the transcendent. I use humor and play as devices for exploring nostalgia, myth, metaphor, and the absurd. Staging Juan Chico either as the main actor of audience-engaging, secular rituals, or as the irreverent, substitute cast of historical paintings and other modern imagery, I seek to re-appropriate and unsettle cultural stereotypes. Reclaiming cultural and familial heritage through the use of my alter ego, I affirm joy and resilience while actively building empathy and connection.

Artist bio

Adriana Chavez (she/they) is a performance and visual artist based in Las Vegas, NV. Inspired by her Mexican family and driven by her identity as a Queer Latinx artist, Chavez seeks connection and belonging through her performances and art making. Adriana is a graduate of the MFA program at Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre. She has performed and exhibited globally. As an actor and director, Chavez has worked with various theatre companies including A Public Fit Theatre Company, The LAB Experimental Theatre Company, Vegas Theatre Company, Majestic Repertory Theatre, Dell’Arte Company, Elke Rindfleisch Dance, Jonah Bokaer, Homunculus Mask Theatre, and Naked Empire Bouffon Company. Her visual art has exhibited at several art venues, including The Format Festival in the UK, The Momentary, The Lilley Museum of Art, Holland Project, Goldwell Open Air Museum & Red Barn Art Center, Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery, Charleston Heights Arts Center, Winchester Dondero Cultural Center, Gallery Mesa, Nuwu Art Gallery, La Matadora Gallery, and UNLV’s Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, where she was artist in residence from 2020 - 21. Adriana currently works as a teaching artist for the Smith Center for the Performing Arts where she teaches social-emotional learning through theatre to students in grades K-8. This summer she will be polishing her acting chops at a devised theatre residency with Fizgig Studio in New York.

Image of sculpture by Alisha Kerlin. Features numerous Christmas decorations of various sizes tied together and to an anchor point on the lake-bed.

ALISHA KERLIN

BAWLING

Ornaments and other materials
2021-2023

Artist Statement

After several futile attempts to make compositional arrangements, BAWLING became an open-ended experiment made of hundreds of windblown and sun-bleached ornaments. The balls were gathered from The Avi Kwa Ame (Spirit Mountain) National Monument and subjected to years of study and weathering in a fenced-in environment.

I collaborate with artists and writers. Childhood memory is a big part of the work as is my role as a mother. My job as museum director leaks in as well. All of this shapes what I make—imperfect, quick, gestures made to acknowledge the roles others have in my life.

Artist BIO

Alisha Kerlin is the executive director and head curator of UNLV's Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art. Her background as a practicing artist brings a unique empathy to her work with artists, curators, scholars, and visitors. A graduate of the Milton Avery Graduate School of Arts, Bard College (MFA), and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (BFA), Kerlin’s artwork has been shown at institutions ranging from P3Studio at The Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas, to the Museum of Modern Art’s PS1 Museum in New York. She lives and works in Las Vegas, NV with her daughter Faye .

Image of sculpture by experimental foundry group Aluminati. Features cast aluminum object with three tendrils stemming from a core, created during a public event where visitors made their physical mark into a sand mold to create the impressions on surface.

ALUMINATI

Aluminati: To The Core

Cast recycled aluminum social monument

Artist Statement

A rhizomatic social monument in which molten recycled metal captures and documents a gathering united for change.

Getting to the Core means connecting to our roles in the future care of the Earth. Going as deep and transformational as the molten Core. Building community actions from the ground up to grow our power to define the future. Using all recycled aluminum and reusable materials, Aluminati facilitated the casting of a collaborative sculpture that documents the community who gathered that night for Aluminati: To the Core, in November 2023.

Aluminati is an inclusive and experimental foundry project that aims to expand on the collaborative potential of hot metal casting techniques. An evolving group of Sculpture students and artists use the foundry to cast social monuments that embody change and define new futures. Aluminati encourages women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ folks to embrace and practice the powerfully transformative process of making art with molten metal. Aluminati was founded in 2021 by artist and Aluminati director, Emily Budd, and operates in Las Vegas, NV.

Image of photos by Anna Newman. Features three photo prints displayed on wooden temporary wall, of AI generated images of Reno houses.

ANNA NEWMAN

photo-of-a-modern-house-very-large-glass-windows,

old-house-with-pipes-and-giant-factory-in-blue-photo,

photo-of-a-modern-concrete-house-round-windows-in-blue

Three digital composite documentary photo images with additional generative architecture provided by Dall E 2

Artist Statement

My composite works begin with documentary photos of my gentrifying Silicon Valley neighborhood. I invite AI to insert generated architecture into my images, and the result is not only an alternative reality, but a doubling down of the liminal quality of neighborhoods in transition. Through the incorporation of AI, I expand the timeline, bringing other places and moments together.

As the built environment expands, we observe the daily facts of consumer waste, the disruption of natural environments, and the demolition of traditional modest family homes and businesses. Some changes seem positive, but most feel like a loss. I continue to witness through my art, inspired by documentary photographers like Robert Adams. “The goal,” Adams explained, “is to face facts but to find a basis for hope.”

Leaving a software career in Silicon Valley to focus on a career in art, Anna Newman is a PhotoLucida Critical Mass Finalist and the recipient of two Weston Scholarship awards in photography. Her documentary films have been exhibited at film festivals and museums in the United States and Canada. Anna is a project-based artist whose work resonates with history even as she creates fresh objects and images with beauty and power of their own. A graduate of Mills College, Anna is a MFA Candidate in Interdisciplinary Visual Arts at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she is currently developing work about Nevada’s giant sand dunes and the language of plants.

Image of sculpture by Bailey Anderson and Iulia Filipov-Serediuc. Features seven unique cast brass spheres suspended vertically in welded steel chain, of various heights.

IULIA OCTAVIA FILIPOV-SEREDIUC BAILEY ANDERSON

The Ol' Ball and Chain

Cast mixed caliber shell casings, welded chain

Artist Statement

The Ol’ Ball and Chain (Elegy for a Deluge) is a sculpture created by collaborative duo, Bailey and Iulia. The Ol’ Ball and Chain is a nod to the figure of speech when a man refers to his wife.
The cast brass spheres are recycled mixed caliber shell casings collected from the regional desert. Inspired by the transformative qualities of metal, the duo also created this work in resemblance to underwater minefields. As these minefields still float, it is a reminder of the ancient oceans that existed in the American Southwest, and remind us with their fossils left in the sand from so long ago.

Anderson and Filipov-Serediuc are the co-founders of My Boyfriend’s Out Of Town, a feminist collective and fabrication studio.

Artist Bio

Working between foundry, moss, painting, illustration, and the discarded, Filipov-Serediuc investigates the boundaries of form and time. Filipov - Serediuc enjoys building within her community, most proudly as a co-founder of the Desert Biennial Project and My Boyfriend Is Out of Town. Her work has been shown in Nevada, California, New Mexico, Arizona, and New York. Filipov-Serediuc graduated with her BFA in studio art from the University of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Bailey Anderson is an interdisciplinary artist critiquing masculinity and patriarchal structures. Through paint, fabric, and cast metal, Anderson untangles systemic violence using humor, emasculation, and cultural reference. In community spaces, she generates room for discussions surrounding gallery spaces, expectations of studio practice, and encourages failure, most proudly in a curatorial project OOPS! 2023, 2024. Anderson is one of the co-founders of the Desert Biennial Project, participating in its first iteration, Stone Soup. Anderson is from Las Vegas, and graduated from Arizona State University with a BFA in intermedia and a BS in psychology. Her work has been shown in Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Ohio.

Image of sculpture by Clara Tang. Features quilt composed of individually sewed on fabric photo prints. Quilt is draped over wooden pedestal.

CLARA TANG

Heaven on Earth (Quilt)

Cotton

Artist Statement

This quilt is comprised of photos from the artist’s iPhone camera roll printed onto cotton. These photographs provide a glimpse into her view of the world, and capture moments of bliss, beauty, and intimacy.

Artist bio

Clara Tang is a soft sculpture artist who works primarily with fibers and textiles. Her work utilizes repetition to emphasize the repetitive nature of domestic work that is often overlooked, as well as how individuals act as smaller parts that come together to create a larger whole. The organic forms that she creates through this repetition are often reminiscent of nature, whether it be mountains, clouds, or waves, as she strives to capture moments of nature’s ephemeral beauty before they inevitably fade. She also often pays homage to her Korean and Chinese culture by referencing ancient imagery and proverbs in an effort to preserve these as modernization threatens to erase them.Tang is currently studying acupuncture and dreams to open a clinic with walls lined with art from those within the surrounding community.

Image of sculpture by Clarice Tara Cuda. Features plaster casting of artist's vulva, separated in four pieces creating an organic curving shape, displayed on a wooden board. Sculpture is hanging on temporary wall.

CLARICE TARA CUDA

Petals

Sculptural painting, plaster life cast on wood

Artist Statement

This piece is symbolic of the various expansions experienced by the female form. There is something beautiful in the way we continuously break apart in order to become something new.

As an artist, much of my body and my personal identity have been bound to my creative practice, to my productivity. This is how I have navigated, as an artist, always in research and observation. Even in moments where stagnation grips and binds, I am in observation of my body in relation to the rest of the world. Now my body has been split, my identity re-oriented, in the most natural and complex way. I am now a mother, not only of my work, but of another human being. I have given birth to drawings, paintings, sculptures, performances, words, rhythms– weird things, uncomfortable things, controlled, unraveling things, things that I define both as beautiful and grotesque. In this way I feel that all creatives are mothers, birthing something new into our shared reality. I don't mean this in a gendered sense. The creative motherforce has nothing to do with genitalia, and everything to do with generative energy.

Artist bio

Clarice Tara Cuda is a multidisciplinary artist who thrives in meticulous processes, exploring female narratives and journeys into motherhood through process-driven work. She received her BFA in Sculpture and Painting from the University of Nevada where she is currently working towards her MFA in Art. She has exhibited her personal and collaborative work nationally. Her installations and performances have been shared in festivals including Life is Beautiful and Art Basel Miami.

Image of sculpture by Dan45 Hernandez. Features skateboard attached vertically in ground in the shape of a tombstone. At the base of the "tombstone", there are flowers and artist's shoes cast in aluminum. Skateboard includes memorial inscription.

DAN45 HERNANDEZ

Faithful Companion

Skate deck, aluminum, Flowers, LED puck light, paint markers.

Artist Statement

Each pair of shoes I wear,
A connection strong and true,
A part of who I am,
They take me on adventures new.They're there on dates with my love,
And when I skate and fall,
We do it all together,
These shoes, my constant call.When it's time to say goodbye,
I hold on tight, I should let go,
The loss of each shoe hurts,
But in my work, their legacy will show.So here's to my trusty shoes,
Who've been with me through it all,
Forever in my heart they'll stay,
As memories, big and small.

I create mixed media artworks incorporating whimsical references to cartoons, toys, movies, cassette tapes, pizza slices, Coke, and cupcakes to remind us of the persistence of childhood nostalgia. Growing up in a peripatetic, low-income military family, I saw how intense memories can attach themselves to cheap, transportable pop culture objects, such as Pez dispensers, comic books, Kool-Aid packaging circa 1990’s, punk and hardcore band tee shirts, toys from 1984-1995 and punk and alternative music cassette tapes. My work is informed by an awareness of the emotional weight of these mass-market product

Artist Bio

Dan45 Hernandez works and lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dan has a BFA focused on sculpture from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. He considers the different social and environmental forces that shape our self-perception through his drawings and sculptures that layer references to pop culture and childhood. He has exhibited in galleries and museums in Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Illinois, and California. Currently exhibiting Contemporary Ex-Votos: Devotion Beyond Medium curated by Dr. Emmanuel Ortega at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art. Hernandez is the creator of SOCIAL COMA zine. Co-creator of LovervilleUSA.com, a fashion/art brand, with his wife.

Close-up image of sculpture by D.K. Sole. Features numerous bottle caps wrapped in tin foil placed on ground huddled together.

D.K. SOLE

Metal Bottle Caps Discovered in Clark County And Covered With Tin Foil

Metal bottle caps, tinfoil

Artist Statement

A collection of silver-covered bottle caps arranged in two groups on the dry lake bed, catching the light from the sky.
I combine and repeat objects in the hope of discovering some kind of unexpected quality in them, something startling.

Artist bio

Australian. Graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts (Melbourne, Australia); now works in editing and curation at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art (Las Vegas, Nevada). As an artist, has exhibited work in Las Vegas and Denver, Colorado. Edits the art writing publication Dry Heat.

Image of framed painting by Ellie Rush. Painting has blue frame and white mat, and is hung on a temporary wall.

ELLIE RUSH

Partial Eclipse

watercolor, colored pencil, and chalk pastel on paper

Artist Statement

Through this work, I examine my relationships with my childhood home and upbringing, and how they have evolved over the years. I create a vignette of when my mother and I were recently in our courtyard watching a partial eclipse take place through a hole in a small paper, something we did when I was a kid. This is a bittersweet scene, full of things I loved growing up and still love now, but that I have a fracturing love for as I transition into adulthood and come to my own conclusions. My fondness for this place is partial.

I am an artist based out of Las Vegas who creates mixed media works using a variety of materials and methods, but who mainly employs watercolor, colored pencil, and chalk pastel. After graduating from the College of Southern Nevada in 2019 and continuing my education at the University of Nevada–Las Vegas in their year-long Bachelor of Fine Arts program, I've expanded my practice to include community-based acrylic paintings, photo collage, and experimental sound and video art. Through my practice, I enjoy exploring themes from my internal dialogue and asking the viewer to consider them alongside me.

artist bio

Ellie Rush layers watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, and chalk pastel to create densely-packed mixed media works. With this as a basis, she also experiments with multimedia elements, including handcrafted sculptural components, found objects, and sound. She bases her compositions on collages made from her own photographic references. Combining these aspects of her practice, she primarily explores themes of everyday life, internal dialogue, and the relationship between the individual and the universal. She takes and combines imagery that encapsulates specific feelings, experiences, or thought experiments, often seeking to place the viewer into her shoes and create a shared experience with them. Additionally, through community-based works such as murals, utility box paintings, and large-scale paintings, she explores themes of local pride, diversity, and inclusion. Using a more colorful, to-the-point visual language for these works, she seeks to craft approachable pieces that also put herself and the viewer on a level playing field.

Image of sculpture by Geo. Features wire flowers in glass cylinder vase filled with sand on burned and stained wood pedestal. To the right of the pedestal in the ground, there is another set of wire flowers. Surrounding the cylinder are wire bees.

GEO

East Las Vegas Golden Bearpoppy (and Mojave Poppy Bee)

Rebar wire, Mojave Desert sand, glass container

Artist Statement

This piece represents the endangered Golden Bearpoppy and its symbiotic and equally endangered Mojave Poppy Bee in the region of East Las Vegas.

My work is an exploration of self, culture, and the many societal -isms and -tions disguised under normality. My flat work usually begins in the digital realm and crosses over into the physical through print, mural, or drawn recreations. My sculptural work is grounded in earthly mediums such as ceramics, which require more labor intensive processes. This physical and hands-on approach resolves the impatience that comes with mediums such as drawing and painting. The visual language of my practice conveys dark undertones behind a veil of bright colors. Through an archival and research based lens, I curate, construct, and construe the nostalgia of my lived experience to form a broader imagination of what life could be.

Artist bio

geo (he/they) is a Chicano/e artist living in Las Vegas.
– currently attending UNLV for a BFA in sculpture and drawing/painting/printmaking
– co-curated a traveling show with Cesar Piedra of Reno titled Hija/e/o/x(s) de Su—
– participated in multiple group exhibitions, most notably; FUTURE RELICS: Artifacts for a New World and the 2021 Bullfrog Biennial
– illustrated The ABCs of Latinidad Coloring Book for Latinos Who Lunch
– designed and painted Tres Fases and Nuestras Máscaras murals
– working with design, muralism, installation, performance, and CultureStay Safe!

Image of sculpture by Haide Callejas. Features Otomi artisan embroidery on a suspended reclaimed fabric banner. The fabric is dyed pink and green and assembled in a garden-scape visage. Piece is supended from a clothesline.

HAIDE CALLEJAS

Roots

Repurposed fabric, dyed fabric, pearl beads, thread, watercolor, poster board, hot glue

Artist Statement

This work deals with recreating Otomi artisan embroidery art while exploring textures in fabric to embody that divinity that art form can hold.Haide Calle is a Chicana artist who creates mixed media work with the use of repurposed material to recontextualize waste in today’s society. In doing so she transforms these materials that become deities with certain cultural familiarity within her Otomi indigenousness. Calle works on manipulating facial features to convey unconfined emotions to create an unrestricted hypothetical fiction in today's environment.

JUSTIN GIORDANO

Home On the Range

Polymer clay and wood

Artist Statement

"Home On the Range" offers a miniature world waiting to be explored. Shrink yourself down to its scale and witness life from a new perspective. Amidst the intricate details of this polymer clay creation lies a realm where the vastness of the range is reimagined in miniature form.As an artist, my journey is a fusion of ink, polymer clay, and boundless imagination. For a decade, I've tattooed in Las Vegas, yet my creativity knows no bounds. Recently, I've delved into polymer clay, crafting eerie creations that defy convention. These macabre pieces invite viewers into the shadowy recesses of my imagination, blurring the lines between beauty and darkness. Through each piece, I aim to evoke emotions and challenge perceptions, exploring new dimensions of creativity and self-expression.With a decade-long career as a tattoo artist in the vibrant heart of Las Vegas, my creative journey has evolved into a multidimensional exploration. While my roots lie in the artistry of ink, I've recently ventured into the haunting world of polymer clay sculpture. From the electric energy of the tattoo parlor to the solitary depths of my studio, my work spans diverse mediums and evokes a spectrum of emotions. Through my creations, I aim to challenge perceptions, blur boundaries, and immerse viewers in the enigmatic tapestry of my imagination.

Image of sculpture by Karla Lagunas. Features tent stained with pink/purple/red/blue dye, pitched in the middle and tied down in circular motion around edges, like a circus tent.

KARLA LAGUNAS

Metatelos III

Tent Piece

Artist Statement

This piece is about recovery and shelter. The performance captures the struggle to build after trauma and the triumph of community.

As an artist navigating bipolar disorder, I experience the many ways opposites can become one another within my own body. In my practice, I explore this reality through material with my body as the conduit. Through mediums like paint, canvas, wood, and rope, I challenge conventional boundaries between disciplines such as painting, sculpture, installation, and performance. I occupy the liminal spaces between established norms.By interrogating the entrenched structures of artistic conventions in search of hidden pathways and alternate perspectives, my goal is not to dismantle these structures but to reimagine them. I wish to carve out spaces where new possibilities can flourish.In these spaces, I create sanctuaries for diverse voices and experiences. These ephemeral spaces of refuge, though fleeting, hold the promise of a more compassionate and empathetic world. A world where I can exist as I am, all of me.

Artist Bio

Karla Lagunas is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the fluidity of artistic boundaries and hierarchies. Through immersive installations, Lagunas invites viewers on a journey of emotional connection and sensory exploration, dissolving borders between inner and outer worlds. Informed by experiences with neurodiversity, Lagunas seeks to foster understanding of diverse emotional landscapes. Lagunas has exhibited in local and regional galleries, collaborated on experimental performances, and co-organized the inclusive performance art event RADAR. With a BA in Art and Art History, currently pursuing an MFA at UNLV, Lagunas invites viewers to embrace new perspectives and discover the limitless possibilities within their own lives.

Image of illustration by ¡Katie B Funk!. Features cartoon hands holding pot, illustrating the folk tale of the Stone Soup.

¡KATIE B FUNK!

Illustrations of the Tale, Stone Soup

Digital

Artist Statement

Her work oscillates between questions of the serious and the seriously funny - what constitutes the perfect cheeseburger? Why does heartbreak taste like iron and salt? Which episode entered SpongeBob SquarePants into the zeitgeist? What does cardboard think about after it has been discarded? Is she currently manic, or does she just wanna have fun?Building a mercurial space in both the making and the made, her work endlessly chases the spaces that allow for static work to come alive and live work to stand still. Peering through multi-sourced lens in a cross pollinated practice, she hunts the possibilities of a tender construction through deconstruction, always making certain to leave a light on down the hall.I LOVE SOOUUUP!!

Artist Bio

¡Katie B Funk! is an artist, writer, and curator currently based in Las Vegas, Nevada. She received her BFA from Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana in 2012, MFA from Columbus College of Art & Design in Columbus, Ohio in 2018, and is slated to receive a second MFA from the University of Nevada Las Vegas in 2025.Born on a Friday night under waning crescent moon in South Bend, Indiana, she would soon get the chance to haphazardly construct a double-bottled tornado maker in preschool - a project which remains a pivotal core memory. Once a pile of Barbasol shaving cream was plopped in front of her to play with in the early days of kindergarten, fates were sealed, and ¡Katie B Funk! was baptized an artist for life.

Image of sculpture by Kayla Lockwood. Features cardboard toilet painted white with desert landscape behind it.

KAYLA LOCKWOOD

Oasis (Toilet)

Spray painted cardboard

Artist Statement

Are we there yet? I need to sh*t! Where’s the nearest toilet?I explore the intricate emotions of grief, death, personhood, and family history through memory, balancing preservation and loss via glitch and databending. By venturing into textiles, ceramics, film, and sculptures, my work acquires a tangible dimension that nurtures emotional and spiritual growth through the human touch.At its core, my work weaves through threads of anger, sadness, and acceptance in coping with loss, recontextualizing physical artifacts through distorted polaroids, stitch embroidery, VHS tape manipulation, and sculptural rituals—blurring the lines between tangible and ephemeral. Blending representational and abstract elements through ceremonial destruction, my artwork embodies a raw journey through mourning, creating a reflective space for viewers to explore bereavement's human experience. In a world avoiding grief discussions, my artwork sheds light on this vital aspect through diverse materials, reflecting the past in the present.

Artist BIO

Kayla Lockwood delves into the perplexing tapestry of emotions connected to grief, death, personhood, and family history through the lens of memory. An ever-evolving new media artist, Lockwood is developing a visual language of memory between the tactile and the technological. Eager to test the boundaries of artmaking, she completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art & Technology from the University of Oregon in Eugene and is currently completing her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Using her skills and knowledge, she has formed several artistic personas, including Miss Identify and Social Sin, and founded numerous creative communities to unite like-minded artists.

Still from performance by Keeva Lough. Features Keeva standing with arms facing up bent at elbows in front of two projectors that are projecting excerpts of conversation with ChatGPT about the Tower of Babel onto white stage behind her.

Keeva Lough

Ad Hoc Tower of Babel

Performance with two overhead projectors, transparency film, scissors, tape, and five flashlights.

Artist Statement

Drawing from the tradition of land art and monument-making, I propose to build a tower to heaven. This absurd task is already doomed to failure. What is built instead is a tower of words: words that preach, whine, and rationalize in a parody of grandiose hubris. I appropriate a variety of texts: passages from Biblical poetry, a song by self-described "prophetic musician" Steve Kuban, a story by Franz Kafka, and ChatGPT output which, despite my pleading prompts, insists on the futility of my task. Dressed like my own minister father and mimicking the personas of preachers recalled from my youth, I ultimately ask the viewer: do we continue the destructive paths of our predecessors, or do we tear the tower down?

Artist bio

Keeva Lough is an intermedia artist and educator born in the great state of Texas. She utilizes appropriated texts and images to mutate institutionalized forms into queer subversions. Through body-based performance she creates small-scale spectaculars. Her methods are absolutely scientific. Lough’s work has been featured at the FORMAT Festival, Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, Momentum New Media Festival, and screened at the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival in France. She holds an MFA from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and a BA in Film and Media Studies from the University of Oklahoma. She currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada, entertainment capital of the world.

Still from video by Lane Sheehy. Features binocular view for two kites floating in the sky with a smaller circle to the left of the artist holding binoculars to her eyes. Piece is photographed at night and projected onto a temporary wall.

LANE SHEEHY

The Search

Projected video, 1 minute 13 seconds

Artist Statement

I’ve always been in search of love, home, and beauty here but they’ve always felt far away or unattainable growing up.

This year I’ve been exploring my connection to Las Vegas as a hometown. I’ve been working in a way that incorporates research and where the idea determines the material. There’s kind of no limit to what you can experiment with. I never thought I would be mixing concrete, projection mapping, making kites, wiring signs and executing traditional forms of illustration just within the last year.

Lane Sheehy is a multidisciplinary artist working in video, sculpture, painting, and drawing. Currently using natural materials like concrete and wood set against digital screens or projections, Lane interacts with Las Vegas as hometown. Figures crashing into concrete, looking out windows or searching the sky allude to her frustration and discomfort in finding home in this evidently temporary city.

Image of sculpture by Luke Rizzotto. Features rock with 3D-printed rock with flat base sitting on top of it. Piece is displayed on top of wooden pedestal.

LUKE RIZZOTTO

Simulated Togetherness

3D Print Composite of Five Lone Mountains in Nevada, Rock

Artist Statement

Throughout the landscape, there are mountains that impose upon the flat terrain, unconnected to any range or belt. These mountains, despite inhabiting vastly different environments and histories, are bound together by their shared name - Lone Mountain. I find this dissonance of being alone within a surrounding ecosystem to be both compelling and relatable. By bringing these mountains together in one form and shifting their immense scale to something that can be more intimately viewed, I think about the various relationships between such entities. I invite the viewer to ponder the space between these places what makes these mountains lone.

Through travel, one enters a state of transience - vulnerability, both physically and emotionally, as one goes from one place of safety to another. This feeling of liminality is pronounced when looking out at the land while traveling, and especially while driving - watching the landscape slowly morph and change over time, becoming something else. Witnessing this can remind the viewer that, much like the human body, even the massive landforms we see, no matter how impressive and grand, were formed through natural processes and will eventually erode to nothing again. The process of experiencing these emotions are not just similar to travel, but also to yearning. The yearning for something else is, to many, what drives the desire to explore and experience something new - whether that’s far-off physical spaces, nonexistent memories, or utopian tomorrows. My digital realms are an analog for this dissonance as it greets the yearning for exploration with ephemeral interaction. From here, the viewer can attempt to make sense of the fantastical forms in front of them, not unlike a dream.

ARTIST BIO

Luke Rizzotto is a digital media artist whose work examines memory, nostalgia, and yearning as it relates to place and travel through the creation of unreal landscapes and spaces. Originally from the New Orleans, Louisiana area, he currently resides and works in Reno, Nevada. He graduated magna cum laude in 2019 from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Visual Art with a concentration in Computer Art and Animation, and in 2024 with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Nevada, Reno. He has been recognized as a Resident Artist with the Friends of Black Rock-High Rock and Bureau of Land Management in Gerlach, NV, the Outstanding Graduate Student Artist award at the University of Nevada, Reno, 2nd Best in Show at the Student Art Show in 2023, and the August and Emma Frisch Holmes Art Memorial Endowment Scholarship in 2021. In 2024, he presented his MFA thesis exhibition, Eternal Sunset Experiential Area, on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno. He has presented work at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Holland Project in Reno, NV, Sierra Arts Foundation in Reno, NV, Studio 540 in Cedarville, CA, the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS, the E.L. Cord Museum School of the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, NV, BFree Studio in La Jolla, CA, the University of Montana in Missoula, MT, Montana State University in Bozeman, MT, the Willingly Rejected arts collective in Lafayette, LA, the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, LA and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His professional experience includes positions as an Instructor at the University of Nevada, Reno as well as full-time and freelance roles as an animator, graphic designer, videographer, video editor, web developer, and user interface and experience designer.

Image of painting by Maitlyn Holloway. Features painted abstract shapes in vertical gradient from green to purple. Painting is on a wooden board and hung on a temporary wall.

MAITLYN HOLLOWAY

Fantasize

Gouache on wood

Artist Statement

I'm Maitlyn Holloway, an artist currently creating work based on the idea of imagery, mainly architecture, being represented through both abstract and naturalistic forms and how that can create chaotic but systematic pieces. Whether on a large- or small-scale attention to detail is key to my creative practice.Creating helps to transform my emotions/thoughts into arrays of shapes and colors that are stimulating and easy to get lost in. The idea of how different colors, sizes, and shapes interact with each other gives reference to man-made structures including architecture, gardens, and patterns.

Artist Bio

I'm Maitlyn, an artist with a concentration in painting, drawing, and printmaking. I am currently creating work based on the idea of imagery, specifically architecture, being represented through both abstract and naturalistic forms and how that can create both chaotic but systematic pieces.Holloway recently graduated from UNLV with her BFA.

Image of painting by Mak Moline. Features figure in side profile in bunny hat surrounded by two domed shapes on either side connected by arching line. Painting is hung on temporary wall.

MAK MOLINE

These Days, I Don't Wait Up

Pastel on canvas

Artist Statement

a self portrait made after a failed self portrait, made cuz I wanted, cuz I said so, cuz why not..

in the last two years, I was hellbent on leaving town. I was turning over all my ducks and lining them up just to wake up to find they had left me and I had to figure out what was wrong and right all over again. I was turning in assignments to the big university and then I was trying not to flinch or walk suspiciously after some sad individual came and murdered some folks on campus. If I remember correctly, all I was doing was getting by which I allowed myself to do instead of submitting to fear. I was careless because my life was threatened and I watched other fine people have theirs threatened as well. we were a collective teetering on caring and not because something was yanking at our hope. I wanted, in the end, to drown myself in art if I was to drown at all. I made anything and I did it at the height of my body cuz I needed company and I knew others did too. I trusted myself cuz I couldn't trust anybody else to believe that the world would get better and a change was coming. that's just not what I was hearing at the time. I allowed the truth of what I was seeing to encroach and rip open my disbelief. simply, I produced because it confirmed that I was still breathing.

Artist Bio

Mak Moline’s focus when creating art is to visit internal reflection in order to build instinctually and to ensure an accurate representation of emotion, experience, and memory. Daily, their experiences in the dream world, real, and imagined worlds are logged and researched meticulously as a source of inspiration and growth. Currently, their work is an act of simultaneously gaining and losing control through painting, drawing, and collage. Utilizing texture, form, and gesture allows me to build visually powerful compositions while committing extensive studies on the successful qualities of past and present renowned artists such as Wanda Gág, June Wayne, and Vija Celmins. They learn from them, their family, and the community of Las Vegas

i have the cheese touch

Image of sculpture by Mary Sabo. Features rock on white pedestal atop a stepladder with miniature ladder on top of rock and miniature cross slightly lower. Alongside rock is a pedestal with an illustrated shape and a cartoon glove hand pointing up.

MARY SABO

Alchemical Exile (Gambler's Gold)

Concrete, wood, paint, ink transfers from Nevada Magazine circa.1981, vintage step stool, plastic

Artist Statement

Alchemical Exile takes place in the crucible of the harsh southwest landscape. Inspired by desert wayfinding, landmarks, land “ownership,” physical and metaphysical boundaries. Attempts to synthesize meaning and fortune from dust.

Artist Bio

Mary Sabo is a visual artist and arts administrator living and working in Las Vegas, Nevada. She works in various modes, including drawing, painting, sculpture and installation. Her interests/inspirations include dirt, rituals, and surrealism. Her work is inspired by fantasy, nostalgia, and yearning for lost worlds, spaces accessible only through intangible means. Mary graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas as a sculpture BFA student, and has shown work and participated in projects throughout the Mojave desert and beyond.

Image of print by Max Krosta. Features house in perspective view. Print is suspended in glass and hung from clothesline.

MAX KROSTA

Lex

Linocut, relief ink on rice paper

Artist Statement

A small study of a guesthouse I stayed in while Christmas decorating in Lexington, Kentucky.

Max Krosta is a mixed-media artist born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. Much of his work is created with or on reclaimed materials, which has influenced his aesthetic and commentary. When looking at Krosta's work, he would like the viewer to consider their relationship with places and material products, how that perception changes over time, and what memories we carry with our common objects.
Krosta’s newest works catalog the recent UNLV shooting on December 6th, 2023.

Artist bio

Max Krosta is a mixed-media artist born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Along with his studio practice, Krosta has worked as a studio assistant for Vegas artist, Mark Brandvik. Krosta has also interned for Test Site Projects, and currently works as a designer for The Office of Economic Development’s, Black Fire Makerspace.
Krosta currently studies Painting & Printmaking at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and hosts a linocut club titled, “Printing Pants”.

Image of photo by McKenzie Easter. Features black and white self-portrait of artist with clear plastic bag on head. Print is suspended between glass on clothesline.

MCKENZIE S. EASTER

Suffocation

Photograph, print

Artist Statement

This photograph is an exploratory embodiment of how I feel when peers talk about sexual assault in relation to my work. I am often told that I am too sensitive, but this is a trait that has been ingrained in me through decades of trauma and fear. My experience as a survivor was to freeze and become silent, afraid to even breathe. In 'Suffocation' I have visually captured the emotions I re-live each time I am reminded of the worst things that have ever happened to my body and my soul.

McKenzie S. Easter creates work focusing on the embodiment of the term ‘white trash’ through a critical lens, she primarily focuses on building sculptural forms and assemblages. Easter concentrates on pattern repetition and use of discarded objects when creating work, as she is interested in how waste materials can become fine art rather than trash through the mode they are presented, arranged, or assembled. Within her photographic and two-dimensional work she aims to create organic patterns with the objective of changing or creating new meaning of an object or idea.

Artist bio

McKenzie S. Easter was born and raised in Newport News, Virginia, a geographically small city which boarders the Chesapeake Bay and is located just across the James River Bridge from the Atlantic ocean. She moved to Las Vegas, Nevada to amplify her long-term career in the beauty industry, however when the pandemic hit she decided to leave the company in pursuit of higher education at UNLV as a transfer student from VCU. Easter‘s work is inspired by growing up near the beach while also embracing her decade long stay in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Image of painting by Nick Giordano. Features portrait of black bald man with radiating colors from his head, starting with orange and ending in various blues. Painting is hung on temporary wall.

NICK GIORDANO

See

Oil on canvas

Artist Statement

Conversations with a stranger in the San Francisco streets led to him agreeing to let me take a photo of him so that I could paint his portrait for my midway assignment in a UNLV painting class.I'm a professional artist in Las Vegas, where I own and operate Higher Ground Tattoo. My journey started with diverse jobs from 15 to 25, juggling tasks like washing cars and dishes while sketching and crafting music on scraps. This led me to embrace artfully. Under Rick Trip's mentorship at Trip Ink, I honed my skills and gained a deep appreciation for tattooing. I pursued a BA in art, driven by curiosity and disciplined inquiry. Now, I blend martial arts-inspired motions into my paintings, influenced by artists like Kehinde Wiley, Diego Rivera, and the Daoist masters. My work reflects a blend of diverse influences, shaping my perspectives and studio practice.Art has enriched my life experiences deeply and presents endless inspiration and excitement for me on a daily basis!

Image of sculpture by Nishan Ganimian and Romina Villareal. Features two tall sculptures with sunset in background, sculptures are wooden poles with red dressage adorning them, resembling figures.

NISHAN GANIMIAN
ROMINA VILLARREAL

The Forgotten Women

Installation and Durational Ritual Performance, Found wood, used garments, thread, buckets, cement, rocks, shells, herbs, fire, magic.

Collaborative Statement

The Forgotten WomenThe forgotten women of Goldwell peak
Their hearts bleed so bleak
Standing tall
Breathing strong
Until one day they’re weak
And then we’ll see
What will be
For Monabella and her meek

Romina villarreal

I am enamored by the body. I love depicting people and places that evoke particular emotions ranging from euphoria and serenity to tension, isolation and depression. I enjoy finding moments of ephemeral stillness in real life and displaying them through various forms of imagery. While I mainly work in acrylic painting, I also have interests in textile and huichol works and how these can intersect to further subjectivity.Themes of diversity, deviancy and mental health are apparent in my manipulated bodies. Working with both candid imagery and historical and cultural motifs I create psychic spaces for works that are accessible to the afflicted but a window of voyeurism to those on the outside of the marginalized groups I choose to represent.

Romina Villarreal (MFA 2025) is a painter and mixed media artist with an emphasis on figurative expression. Her work delves deep into the complexities of mental health, sexuality, and spirituality, providing insight into these often-neglected areas of society. She has worked with many galleries and programs to support arts education such as Say Si in San Antonio and the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art in Las Vegas. Romina's passion for art led her to earn a BFA in painting from the University of Houston. She's currently pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

SHAHAB ZARGARI

Album art by Jamie Hayles

New Oddities

Musical experience, in collaboration with Micah Haji-Sheikh and Mo Milan.

Artist Statement

'New Oddities' is a sample-heavy experimental ride. Several of the tracks utilized AI-generated music stems layered with human intervention and vocals.I seek to tell stories concerning the human condition, often dealing with themes of race, politics, and morality, as well as the superficial misconceptions that often arise from such topics. My main body of work consists mostly of photography and film.Shahab Zargari is an award-winning Iranian-American filmmaker and administrative faculty member of the UNLV College of Fine Arts.

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Image of painting by Solo. Features scene of bathroom in red lighting on left side of painting and dark blue room with woman's legs standing on right side of painting. Piece is hung on temporary wall.

SOLO

Phoenixx

Acrylic on canvas

Artist Statement

Solo uses painting to transcend moments of life and color. Automatism is her usual approach, always obscure until the right amount of elements come together. In her process she finds delight in the thickness of the paint, the blending of color and textures. She uses photos of moments and colors captured to create her paintings. She feels that the minutes hours or days creating feel extraordinary, and when the painting goes beyond completion, it becomes quiet and almost obsolete. Memories are the same way.

Artist bio

Solo uses painting to transcend moments of life and color. Automatism is her usual approach, always obscure until the right amount of elements come together. In her process she finds delight in the thickness of the paint, the blending of color and textures.

NEWS!

Read about the dbp

Stone Soup: A Reflection
Ellie Rush
Couch in the desert

Stone Soup
D. K. Sole
ACCNV Press

Support the Project!

The Stone Soup Catalog Zine by Max Krosta and Mak Moline

Pre-order the 2023 mini-catalog, designed by Max Krosta and Mak Moline, to receive an exclusive gift!
$25 each, 100% of the proceeds go directly to funding the next biennial in October 2025.The mini catalog will be fully available for purchase on the one year anniversary of Stone Soup, November 11, 2024!

Donor Packages 2023

Thank you to all of our major donors from Fall 2023.
The Biennial would not be possible without your initial and continued support.