#goca

Do you believe in ghosts?

My mom and grandma have both seen ghosts. The house I lived in from birth to age 2 was supposedly haunted, although obviously I don’t remember it. So yes, I believe in ghosts, though I have yet to see one.

Are there references to Pop culture in your work? Why?

My art is informed by influences on my generation. There are subtle stylistic references to pop culture in this body of work and more deliberate ones in my other works, because I don’t believe there is anyone free of influence from their culture. American culture these days is pop culture. People attach themselves to styles and character that they relate to, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing (although many people take it way too far).

Is there a smell that you like that most people don't?

I love the smell of chlorine. As a kid I jumped at every opportunity to go swimming, even in tiny crowded hotel pools so saturated with chlorine that it made my skin peel. I still feel the urge to swim every time I smell it, even after 4 years as a swim teacher.

What is your art about? 

Julia is a painter and graphic artist who explores depth, seduction, and danger in her artworks. In her current works she is inspired by her job as a professional mermaid performer, and through her cartoonish stylized paintings, she explores the current human obsession with fantastical stories and mythical characters, and how far people will go to become something unreal. We learn to shut off our survival instincts in order to appeal to the audience behind the proverbial (or literal) glass, and pay the price behind the scenes. What is the cost of portraying an attractive myth?

Julia Mortenson was born in 1996 in Wyoming and has lived in Colorado for most of her life. She received her Associates of the Arts degree from Pikes Peak Community College and Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Her art has been featured in the GOCA downtown Colorado Springs, and the ENT center for the arts.

@yorkshirereaper​

Julia Mortenson, Submerged Sublime 2 of 3, 18x24”, 2020.

See the work of Mortenson and her fellow UCCS VAPA Seniors by following their virtual exhibition Apparition. To be featured @vauccs April through May 2020, along with many other student exhibitions that have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Do you believe in ghosts (apparitions)?

Absolutely. In fact, I ghost hunt in my spare time with fellow artist Jem Brock and I have delved into spirit photography with the wet plate process.

What is the most dangerous thing you have done for your art?

Playing with cyanide and ether to make photographs. I’ve never come close to an accident with my chemicals and I love being a part of a small community of female collodion photographers, defying anyone who dare ask, “Should you really be messing with that stuff?” If I were a man, they would never ask.

What was the biggest turning point in your career for your work(art)?

A big turning point was when I realized that photography was the most effective method to share my ideas – to document the world in a format that creates a relationship of trust between artist and viewer in a way that a painting or drawing cannot. In the Collodion Witches project, there is a truthfulness to how contemporary witchcraft is portrayed, even though the viewer is separated from the subject by a number of factors including my own bias, they see the witch in the way they wish to be seen.

What is your art about?

Using a photographic process invented in 1851, I document the rituals, experiences, and altars of witches. The wet plate collodion process is unforgiving, often susceptible to failure, with low success rates yet produces entirely unique images through the tintype and ambrotype. While providing its photographer with unparalleled contrast and haunting forms, this process lends itself to the portrayal of witchcraft through the use of dangerous, rudimentary chemicals and long exposure times. The collodion plates elevate the witch as they become ethereal forms, mystical beings with ghostly eyes and wavering bodies. Contemporary witchcraft blends a mix of various historical practices that traditionally provide power to its users. The people photographed in Collodion Witches have systematically been denied rights and safety, finding sanctum within witchcraft as a source of control and power. The wet plate process reimagines witches in a light that distracts from the negative stereotypes assigned upon them, representing the subjects with truth to reveal their lives and experiences.

Martha Wheeler (b. 1997) is an artist specializing in the 170-year-old wet plate collodion photographic process as well as performance art. Her work delves into issues of otherness, femininity, and violence currently through the Collodion Witches project in which she photographs contemporary witches and their rituals. Her photographs have been shown in various galleries in the Colorado Springs area such as Kreuser Gallery and The Gallery Below and in 2019 was featured in a solo show at The Dock. She is graduating from UCCS in 2020 where she also serves as co-president of Art Club. Martha lives and works in Colorado Springs taking photographs with a 100-year old camera and a self-built, portable darkroom in the back of her car.

@marthawheeler | marthawheeler.com

Martha Wheeler, Adey, tintype, 4x5”, 2020.

See the work of Wheeler and her fellow UCCS VAPA Seniors by following their virtual exhibition Apparition. To be featured @vauccs April through May 2020, along with many other student exhibitions that have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

mobdividual, a word mash-up of "mob" and "individual" has a couple of different meanings. The first being an individual's ability to refrain from deep thought, such-that their level of opinion does not reach above a mob-type mentality. The use of technology compounds this ill/delusion by allowing one person an enormous virtual presence. The second, which is my focus as a musician, is a single person attempting to be a noise orchestra. -Brian Elyo/mobdividual

Brian Elyo of moddividual will be performing at 🎉🌟BRILLIANT🌟🎉 as BYOE/A Trio featuring Conor Bourgal and Kate Perdoni! Conor and Kate will be responding and reacting to and repurposing Brian’s music samples in real time. Together, the trio will be creating an ever-evolving sound scape, and you can experience it at 🎉🌟BRILLIANT🌟🎉 purchase your tickets 🎟 👉HERE!

Curious about the musicians? Follow the links to listen and find out more:

Brian Elyo/mobdividual

Conor Bourgal/The Changing Colors

Kate Perdoni/Eros and the Eschaton

It’s visually stunning, high energy, awe-inspiring, and delicious. It’s

✨🌟BRILLIANT🌟✨

And it’s happening in downtown Colorado Springs on June 24, 2017!

I first heard about Psychic Barber from Caitlin Goebel, who curated Cybercy, back in March. After she told me a little bit about what Psychic Barber is, she asked me, “Do you think you’ll do it?” I responded the way that I always do to offers I’m not quite ready to commit to: “I dunno, maybe!” At the time, I had been growing my hair for five years, after having shaved off all of it, with only an occasional trim and maybe two or three haircuts. Over the years of growing my hair, I had become intimately attached to it. It was the longest it had ever been, laying and swaying playfully at the top of my hips. Having long hair was an important part of my identity and my self-esteem—the longer my hair, the higher my self-esteem. My long hair helped me feel comfortable and safe, and I wasn’t ready to let it go. 

For the next few days after my exchange with Caitlin, I entertained the idea of having short hair, but I was sure that it just wasn’t going to happen. Then less than a week later I found myself walking sheepishly into a beauty salon where I got about a foot of my hair cut off. I felt sad and vulnerable letting go of that part of me. In the weeks that followed I consistently wore my hair up, still uncomfortable with having short hair. 

By the end of April, I had started to seriously consider participating in Psychic Barber. I tossed around thoughts like “my hair is short now, so why not go shorter?” and “this is a once in a lifetime opportunity” and “I’ll do it to show my support for Caitlin and the arts.” Eventually I decided that I would do it. It felt strange to be uncomfortable with my short hair yet completely surrendered to the idea that I might walk away from the experience with my head shaved. Whenever I would doubt myself I would just tell myself, “do it for art.” 

On the night of the Cybercy opening, I rode my bike eagerly to GOCA, ready to accept whatever it was that was coming my way. When I arrived, there were three people signed up ahead of me. As I waited for my turn, I got to watch Caitlin’s experience in the Psychic Barber cube—it is seriously one of the most magical and tender things I have ever witnessed, and it made me all the more excited for my experience. 

When it was my turn, I sat down at a quite table with Andye Murphy, still not knowing exactly what to expect. Within three minutes of the reading I was screaming to myself, “who the hell is this woman and how does she know so much about me even though I’ve hardly told her anything about myself?!” She understood my struggle, felt my pain, and told me that that it was going to be a healing experience for me—and it was. 

After the reading, we stepped into the cube together. I felt nervous and excited. It was unusual but also thrilling to be surrounded by friends and strangers intently watching my experience. The nervousness went away when Andye told me to not look at them—it was just her and me. Andye asked me to keep my eyes closed for the duration of my haircut—it was an exercise in connecting to myself, my senses, and my body. 

It felt incredibly vulnerable to not only trust someone with my hair, but to also have no idea what was happening to it, what it would look like, and to share that experience with anyone and everyone who was watching. Vulnerability is a character trait of mine that I have, more or less, always been reluctant to have, but I realize more and more that it takes bravery to be vulnerable, and my experience with Andye and Psychic Barber helped me to embrace that part of myself. 

When Andye was finished I opened my eyes to see that the haircut she had given me made me look simultaneously like my mother and like my seven year old self. From an early age I have always felt like my mother didn’t accept me for who I was. I hadn’t told Andye about that particular struggle of mine, but there it was battling itself out through the hair on my head. For a moment I was sad to look like my mother, but then I remembered what Andye told me: “You don’t have to be mom.” And so I chose to be me—childlike, creative, playful, and free. I stepped out of the cube and was immediately greeted by smiles and hugs and compliments from my friends. I felt lighter and more free. 

When I decided to participate in Psychic Barber, I thought that I was doing it for art, but it ended up being for me. 

Christine Flores is studying visual arts at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and just recently joined the GOCA team. Her favorite mediums are ink, markers, and watercolors. When she is not working on her art, you can find her climbing, singing, petting dogs, and taking care of her plants.

Have a Psychic Barber experience of your very own at Brilliant! The Psychic Barber cube will be activated again on Saturday June 24, 2017. Buy your tickets 🌟💖HERE💖🌟 See you there!

💇🏾✨ Learn more about Finishing School and Psychic Barber here!

It’s visually stunning, high energy, awe-inspiring, and delicious. It’s

✨🌟BRILLIANT🌟✨

And it’s happening in downtown Colorado Springs on June 24, 2017!