Jamie Sneider and MaryKate Maher shows open at Real Art Ways on Thursday

Real Art Ways
56 Arbor St., Hartford, (860) 232-1006
Jamie Sneider: Art My Dad Told Me to Make
MaryKate Maher: Auspicious Positions
Jan. 17—Mar. 31, 2013.
Opening reception during Creative Cocktail Hour: Thurs., Jan. 17, 6—8 p.m. Admission is $10/$5 Real Art Ways members.

Press release from Real Art Ways

The first Creative Cocktail Hour of 2013 is the opening reception for the two newest installations at Real Art Ways: Art My Dad Told Me to Make by Jamie Sneider, and Auspicious Positions by MaryKate Maher. Both exhibits will be ondisplay through Mar. 31, 2013. Creative Cocktail Hour runs from 6—10 p.m.; the openings occur until 8 p.m. Admission is $10/$5 for Real Art Ways members.

For Art My Dad Told Me To Make, Jamie Sneider presents footage and materials of ongoing studio visits, Skype meetings, voicemails and emails documenting the process of making art with her father. Mr. Sneider, a Certified Public Accountant with experience in many startup and emerging companies has regularly mailed business, career and motivational books to his daughter to push her to become a successful businesswoman, and often ignored her pursuit of a career in art. When he began to give advice on what kind of art she should make, she conceded, and together they created and outsourced multiple works of art. What began a year ago as a project focused on her father's view of "saleable" art has slowly evolved into a work about their relationship, how art is valued and defined, and how they individually view a successful artistic career.

Jamie Sneider: "Art My Dad Told Me to Make"

Jamie Sneider is a visual and performance artist working in New York City. Much of Sneider's interdisciplinary work begins from a personal diaristic standpoint, revealing taboos and idiosyncrasies present in daily life. She draws from both pop culture references and personal archives to explore narratives of family, female sexuality, media culture and social norms. Through sculpture, performance and video, she examines identity within a public space; the content is both autobiographical and analytical of culture, often with humorous tone. Jamie Sneider is a recipient of Real Art Ways' STEP UP 2012 Emerging Artist Award, and has previously performed solo shows throughout New York at Performance Space 122, Dixon Place, The Kitchen, HERE and the Atlantic Theater, and internationally at the Copenhagen Theater Festival.


In Auspicious Positions, MaryKate Maher presents a suite of sculptures addressing our traditional concepts of landscape. Born of her interest in "cairns"—piles of rocks used as simple markers to map terrain, the works comment on our at times quixotic attempt to domesticate and manipulate nature. Reminiscent of divination tools, naturally occurring balancing rocks and rough-hewn talismans, Maher's work speaks to a natural order that is more precarious negotiation than harmonious coexistence.

MaryKate Maher: "Auspicious Positions"

MaryKate Maher is a sculptor from Brooklyn, New York. Her work as an artist addresses nature, not as a harmonious self-regulating state, but as a series of tenuous negotiations and truces liable to fall apart at any second. At times terrifying, at times humorous, these fragile states of balance straddle the line between ecstasy and panic and form the basis of her sculptural practice. Maher's work has been recently featured in national venues including Hinge Gallery (Chicago), BRIC Rotunda Gallery (New York), Like the Spice Gallery (New York) and Franconia Sculpture Park (Minnesota). Her work has also been presented internationally at Kunstwerk Carlshütte (Büdelsdorf, Germany) and Das Gift Gallery (Berlin). Auspicious Positions is Maher's first solo exhibition with Real Art Ways, through STEP UP 2012.