June Woest

11.06.18 - 12.10.18

About the Project:

At Home in Here is an installation art project that combines ceramic, sculpture, video, and student-made art with found objects. The installation functions as both a virtual tour of Houston artist and HCC faculty, June Woest’s home and domestic life, as well as an overview of her past work, and the objects she collects, such as her Tong Ren Tang porcelain prescription bottles. Woest collaborated with HCC students to design unique exhibition display furniture and props that present the objects dynamically, outside the context of their usual domicile. By inviting students and viewers into her home through this temporary portal, the artist underscores the thin line between functional objects and sculpture and public vs. private spaces. 

HCC student collaborators include; Jennifer Lemus, Joanna Gonzalez, Victor Vasquez, Henry Reid, Marco Araujo, Amber Feast, Dezirae Hailey, Kaitlin Trejo, Andrew Matos, Kealondra Kirby, Neiman Gilbert, Cecilia Ruiz, Edgar Reyes, Geraldine Iljezie, Glenda Gonzalez, Muhammed Sohaib Kahn, Mo Le, Jennifer Garcia, Kayla Sierra, and, Linda Celay

https://wedgespace.tumblr.com/athomeinhere

-- June Woest

June Woest is a Houston-based visual artist and educator born in Wichita, Kansas. She earned her undergraduate degree from Fort Hays State University in rural western Kansas, and obtained an interdisciplinary MFA in painting, ceramics, and photography from the University of Houston, Texas. She was a production potter in Houston for 13 years before  graduate school. The content of her work explores the patterns, conversations, and connections people have with intimate, everyday objects and the materials from which they are made. Her recent works are Heavy Weather Remote Controllers for travel in conditions of rain, heat, cold, and wind.

Woest’s sculptures have been shown locally in Houston at Hardy Nance Studios, Diverseworks, Lawndale Art Center, Buffalo Bayou Artpark, and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. She has also shown regionally at Waterstop Gallery in Marfa, Texas, at the Stephen F. Austin University Biennial outdoor exhibition, in Nacogdoches, Texas. Nationally she exhibited at Baltimore Clayworks, in Maryland. Internationally, her works have been exhibited in Melbourne, Australia, Tokyo, Japan, and Copenhagen, Denmark. She was a resident artist at China’s Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, known for its porcelain production and the Wassard Elea Artist Residency in Ascea, Italy, for her work on projects that engage the arts and humanities.

In her early practice in Houston, Woest was the proprietor of Village ClayWorks and Urban Artists, collectives for potters and their students. She later established a billboard project titled, RoadsignUSA, that was part art and part commerce, conduit between artists, and local residents and her interest in behavioral aesthetics and art as a social practice. As an originating member of Municipal Dirt, an independent group of visual artists, she fostered environmentally conscious sculpture exhibitions in Russ Pitman Park, a nature conservancy in Bellaire, Texas.

While Associate Chair in Art at Southeast College, at Houston Community College, she conceived of Wedge Space, a project-based studio laboratory and exhibition venue for artists, staff, and faculty members. To make undergraduate education more relevant she guided for five years, an artist in residence college program that integrated artists and educators in project-based learning with core subjects and studio arts curriculum. She is currently teaching classes in Art History and visual culture at HCC and maintains her art practice in sculpture, installation, behavioral aesthetics, and environmental intervention.