Capital City Arts Initiative

Exhibition Dates: January 25 – March 3, 2021
Artist’s Reception: due to public health concerns, WNC and CCAI will not host an artist’s reception
Exhibition Venue: Bristlecone Gallery, Western Nevada College,
2201 W College Parkway, Carson City, Nevada

In Search of _____
Exhibition in WNC’s Bristlecone Gallery

Western Nevada College and the Capital City Arts Initiative present In Search of ____, an exhibition by Tracy Fish in the college’s Bristlecone Gallery, from January 25 – March 3, 2021. The gallery is at 2201 W College Parkway, Carson City and is open to the public, M-F, 9am – 7pm. Due to public health concerns, there will not be an artist’s reception.

Fish uses her interest in culture and history as a catalyst to explore themes of memory, place, identity, and familial narrative, through a variety of mediums including photography, audio, and experimental videography.

The selected photographs from the After Equivalents and Wildish Woman series evolve from a continuous questioning of self in relation to physical space. Fish uses her Jewish heritage and female identity as critical components of these works which influences both her personal encounters in the world and experiences as a photographer. Throughout the canon of landscape photography (and similar to other genres), we bear witness to how it’s been dominated and held by the white male gaze, not much different to how those same individuals have held claim and ownership of the lands and groups of peoples in which they occupy.

Wildish Woman communicates various moments of reflection and metaphor with her ever-evolving relationship to place as a woman. Life and death, beauty and grotesque, vast and seemly empty spaces, fractured lands all exist in nature — each with their own cracks and flaws, fissures and jagged edges. These instances collectively act as a mirror for her experiences. In her work, After Equivalents, clouds are a metaphor for escapism and self-empowerment. As she continues to engage with place as a device of allegory in her work, the more she strives to cultivate her own sense of empowerment and wilderness.

Raised in Brooklyn, New York, Tracy Fish received her MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University (2015) and a BA in Art Studio from Coastal Carolina University (2012). She is an Assistant Professor of Photography, Area Head of Photography and Videography, at the University of Nevada, Reno. Fish has won various awards and exhibited both nationally and internationally. Her first collaborative book, Chasing the Paper Canoe, was published in 2013 by Athenaeum Press. https://www.tsfishphotography.com/

Western Nevada College is a component of the Nevada System of Higher Education with campuses in Carson City, Douglas County, and Fallon. The Capital City Arts Initiative is an artist-centered not-for-profit organization committed to community engagement in contemporary visual arts through exhibitions, illustrated talks, arts education programs, artist residencies, and online activities.

The Initiative is funded by the John Ben Snow Memorial Trust, John and Grace Nauman Foundation, Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Nevada Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, Carson City Cultural Commission, US Bank Foundation, RISE, Kaplan Family Charitable Fund, Southwest Gas Corporation Foundation, Steele & Associates LLC, and CCAI members.

top image, right: Tracy Fish, Wildish Woman series; archival pigment print; 2018; 22″ x 17″
2nd image, left: Tracy Fish, Wildish Woman series; archival pigment print; 2019; 17″ x 22″
bottom image: In Search of _____ exhibition flier