CONSTRUCTED / DECONSTRUCTED
@ THE PHOENIX ART MUSEUM FIRST FRIDAY IN MAY 2016
The Phoenix Metro area is rapidly changing and expanding, creating opportunities for development and improvement to city infrastructure. Estrella Payton (visual artist), Felix Herbst (sound artist), Jordan Daniels (Movement Artist), and Steven Redondo (Movement Artist), brought the elements of their artistic mediums into the Phoenix Art Museum in a project to construct/ deconstruct layers of Phoenix, physicality, and navigating spaces. The work explores Phoenix in its history and urban composition around the Rio Salado, physicality of those who might want to be in this unique southwestern metropolis, and navigation of spaces as they relate to the infrastructure of the Phoenix Art Museum specifically. This project is intended to sensorially investigate the history of development around and in relationship to the Rio Salado and the light rail system: two intersecting and parallel entities that have the ability to link and divide.
Estrella Payton is an interdisciplinary artist based in Phoenix, Arizona. Payton is an observer of people, especially their interactions with each other in a space. Her interest in power and privilege, cultural conditioning, and systemic inequity combined with her lived experience as a Stateside Puerto Rican, drives her motivation to complicate physical spaces to reorient a viewer’s experience and perspective in institutional and organized environments. Formally trained as a printmaker, her artwork also typically explores the use of building materials, constructed spaces, movement, abstracted and appropriated blueprints, collage, and place-centering experiences. She earned a Master of Fine Art degree from Arizona State University in 2015 and a Bachelor of Fine Art from Kansas City Art Institute in 2007. website
Felix Herbst is a multi-instrumentalist and collaborator from the Bay Area. After emigrating from Germany in the first grade, he picked up his first violin and never put it down again. In the years since, Felix has added keys, sax, mandolin, and voice to his arsenal and records/produces from his home in Tempe. He is currently pursuing Bachelor’s degrees in Violin Performance and Molecular Bioscience at Arizona State University, while performing in various symphonic ensembles, working with dancers, hip-hop artists, theatre directors, and directing an a cappella group. Intersections of different musical styles and contexts inspire Felix’s work as he strives to reimagine the violin’s place in today’s musical world.
Edward "Steven" Redondo is a local artist here in the Valley of the Sun. He has been dancing for almost ten years, working in and out of Arizona State University, Phoenix Center for the Arts, and Mesa Arts Center. In his experience with the art of dance, he finds it easiest to approach any process with a sense of empathy to create something fulfilling and relatable for the audience. As his career continues to shift and grow, he will do his best to stay in tune with his surroundings so that his art will do the same.
Jordan Daniels is a professional dance artist from Phoenix, Arizona who graduated with his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts Degree in performance dance from Southern Methodist University in May of 2014. Jordan currently is a full company member and lighting designer for Conder/DANCE. As a teacher he currently holds faculty positions at The school of Ballet Arizona, Arizona School for the Arts, FullOutPerformance Dance Company, and The Phoenix Center for the Arts. Jordan has created and premiered stage work under self produced choreographic venture named JordanDanielsDance at Breaking Ground Dance & Film Festival 2012 & 2014, Beta Dance Festival 2014, Steps on Broadway Fall Performance Lab 2014(NY), Dance Gallery Festival Ailey Center 2014(NY), and Artel Fall 2014. Jordan has been commissioned by Conder/DANCE, Instinct Dance Corps, Glendale Community College,Scottsdale Arizona Jazz Ensemble, FullOutPerformance Dance Company, and Falcon Dance Company. website