Stand Beside at Anderson ART CollectiveEXCERPT FROM PRESS RELEASE:
"Leighton Collier Roux and Paul Roux have come together over the past few years to stand beside one another as friends, artists and partners.
Though they come from different countries and experiences, they find that their work, when placed together in the same space, engages in interesting dialogue around contemporary humanity and society.
Stand Beside is comprised of paintings, sculpture, photography and video. Leighton Collier Roux will also perform live at the opening.
With striking imagery, steeped in allegory, the work speaks of being here and of taking the time to appreciate the endless beauty and wonder of life; to feel gratitude and solidarity with the earth that sustains us while facing up to the challenges and changes of the contemporary historical moment.
In this rapidly changing world, these two artists look to engage viewers in an urgent celebration of the beauty that is our natural heritage, a celebration consciously tempered by acknowledgement of the consequences of the prevailing separation between humanity and the planet."
Leighton Collier Roux grew up in southern California and received an MFA from Tufts University in 2008. Her interdisciplinary art practice often incorporates soft sculptural objects, custom made to interact with individuals and the world at large and, in a poetic manner, to remind us of our fundamental interconnectedness. She works also in and around the discipline of performance art often incorporating sculptural objects and the surrounding environment and has participated in a number of important international performance events including Art in Time in Cardiff, Wales in 2006 and Navinki 2007, the International Performance Art Festival in Minsk, Belarus. In 2008 she received an invitation to participate in the Global Warning Performance Festival in Indonesia and in 2009 she was invited to participate in the Open Art Performance Festival, Beijing, China.
Paul Roux is a South African native. He graduated in 1998 from the Michaelis School of Fine Art (University of Cape Town, South Africa). After a detour into advertising and marketing, his recommitment to the fine arts over the last six years has seen a number of awards and solo exhibitions, as well as scholarship for further study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. His work is represented in collections in Europe, South Africa and the US.