The UMW Media Wall artists for the month of May are Sarah Knoebel, Lei Han, and David Bickley.
Cycles (no. 2) – Sarah Knoebel (Billings, Montana, USA)
Sarah Knobel is a photographer and video artist. Her work has been featured in exhibitions national and internationally, which include Miami, Seattle, Portland, Kansas City, Washington DC, Germany, Belgium and Greece. Sarah holds an MFA in Photography from the Design Architecture Art and Planning Program at the University of Cincinnati and a BFA in Studio Art from Texas State University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Montana State University in Billings, Montana. www.sarahknobel.com
GLASS #1 – David Bickley (Cork, Ireland)
Anglo Irish artist, filmmaker and musician David Bickley (b. 1961) audio visual works/installations are abstracted, largely process led adventures mainly on themes of nature/landscape but also with points of reference to mythology and symbolism. They rely heavily on texture and mood and tend to sacrifice the topographical in an attempt to capture the spirit of the places depicted using memory or feeling. Other works are digitally manipulated landscapes designed to evoke a sense of animation and accelerated time-scale. His practice incorporates film, music, video, immersive environments and sound art. David graduated from WSCAD with a BA in film in 1983. Past exhibitions of his work have included Gallery of City Museum of Aveiro, Portugal; Haun Tie Art Museum, Beijing, China; Common Ground, International Touring Exhibition; Lewis Art Gallery, Millsaps, Jackson Mississippi; Centre For Creative Practices, Dublin; Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork; The Big Chill Festival,Eastnor, England; County Hall, Cork; Eisge, Carlow; The Dock, Leitrim; and Darklight, Dublin. David Bickley lives and works in Cork, Ireland.
Cycles- Lei Han (Asheville, NC, USA)
Lei Han is an artist, educator and designer. Her work, often inspired by nature and everyday life, explores notions of perception, memory, transience and time. Fascinated by the influences of eastern philosophy in western art, especially in modern and contemporary art, her recent work aims for creating the cohesion between spirituality and creativity, as well as making new connections between the artist, viewer and object/subject. Lei’s current work in experimental video, animation, interactive art and installation, has been exhibited at galleries, museums, and film festivals nationally and internationally. Including Shenzhen & Hongkong Bi-City Biennial, China, the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece Biennale; Krannert Art Museum, Illinois, the Arts Center, St. Petersburg, Florida, Asheville Fine Arts Theater and the North Carolina Visions program.
Lei received her BA from Shenzhen University in China and her MFA from Memphis College of Art in Memphis, Tennessee. She is currently an Associate Professor and Director of New Media at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
