Alisha Kerlin is a shining star in the Las Vegas art scene. As the executive director of UNLV’s Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, she leads one of Nevada’s most important arts organizations. And yet, her success in showing others’ art has mostly kept her too busy to make her own.
“I’m around art a lot. I live and work around it,” Kerlin says. “And I haven’t made a solo project since I became a director and a mother in the same year.”
That was half a decade ago.
So when ASAP (Available Space Art Projects), located in New Orleans Square inside Commercial Center, offered Kerlin its space for the last week in February, she jumped at the chance to make and show new work. Deciding to “treat it as a residency,” Kerlin used the compressed time frame as a catalyst to finally prioritize artmaking.
A piece from Content May Settle
The competing roles of mother, artist and working professional appear in all aspects of Kerlin’s art, from the materials to the process to the completed works. Kerlin’s “studio” is her family breakfast table. Her canvas is literal junk mail. And her subject matter is snippets of conversation: what her 5-year old daughter says, artists’ dialogue, Zoom meetings and more. Kerlin says that it all “leaks into what the show is all about.”
The title, Content May Settle, indicates the sort of provisional nature of life and art, especially during a pandemic. It fits perfectly with the mission of ASAP, which aims to be a workshop rather than a polished shrine to a final draft. It all creates a sense of energy and urgency to the art.
While she’s best known for her administrative work, Kerlin is an artist first. She has a master’s in painting, and an artist-in-residence program took her from a career in New York to a new life in Las Vegas. In the past, Kerlin made “very large oil paintings.” And while her general style is the same, she says her works now are “much smaller [and] a little bit looser.”
“It starts with an object or text. Then there’s squishy, loose clouds, water, mud,” she says. “I lean toward anything that resembles a watery ocean, the desert horizon or a cloudy sky. Frankly, the compressed time I have to make art now has led to the way it looks.”
Returning to artmaking has been “hard and kind of painful,” Kerlin admits. She battled against impostor syndrome, asking herself, “Is it weird to be a director and an artist? … Is what I’m making stupid? ... Are my muscles broken?” But she says the show has given her “permission to make again.”
Content May Settle consists of 115 paintings framed on a backdrop of grocery store ads. “I’m aware that they’re imperfect,” Kerlin says. “I’m aware that they’re quick.”
Yet, the seemingly homespun nature of the pieces cuts past the fancy facade and allows immediate access to the emotional core. The work feels authentic, honest and powerful.
“When I found the junk mail, it just felt really fun and natural,” Kerlin says. “If it weren’t for ASAP, I probably wouldn’t have let this side of myself go.”
ASAP: An artists place to play
Artists Holly Lay and Homero Hidalgo saw something missing in the Las Vegas arts scene: experimental “project spaces,” which are common in places like San Francisco.
So in May 2019, the two UNLV MFA grads created ASAP (Available Space Art Projects). They donate their shared studio space in Commercial Center’s New Orleans Square to a different artistone week a month, to encourage them to create something new.
“We wanted to have a space where artists could come and experiment,” Lay says. “It’s not like an official gallery or anything; it’s more like a pop-up space for projects.”
The co-owners give each artist the keys to the proverbial castle, allowing them to use the space however they see fit. The space is purposefully noncommercial: ASAP doesn’t take a commission on any art sold. It does accept donations to help keep the lights on.
Past participants include painter/photographer Krystal Ramirez, performer Heidi Rider, miniature sculptor Mary Sabo, installation artist Chad Scott and a class of UNLV art and architecture students studying public art.
Upcoming projects will feature Iranian conceptual artist Nima Abkenar in April and wearable textile artist Jennifer Henry in June.
Alisha Kerlin: Content May Settle Through February 27, by appointment (email [email protected]), free. Artist reception February 27, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. ASAP, 900 Karen Ave. #C-214, availablespaceartprojects.com.
