MIKAYLA WHITMORE: P3STUDIO
Press Release
MIKAYLA WHITMORE
When The Night Comes
November 11 – December 6, 2015
Hours: Wednesday & Thursday | 5 – 10PM; Friday – Sunday | 6 - 11PM
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, in partnership with Art Production Fund, is pleased to announce P3Studio artist-in-residence Mikayla Whitmore. During her residency titled “When The Night Comes,” Whitmore will use photos to explore the complexity of memory and how it deteriorates over time.
Every day, people record and catalog new information and experiences. While this happens, old memories simultaneously begin to fade and blend together. In our minds, words may become forms, and photographic reminiscences can turn into abstract images.
Inside P3Studio, Whitmore will act as a photo archivist, inviting guests to print photos from their cell phones and piece them together with found images to create two tiny collages of their memories. Once each collage is pieced together, she will use a button press to create two small identical mementos of their experience – one they can take home with them and one she will display as a part of a larger piece focused on combining memories.
Additionally, guests will be able to watch Whitmore develop her own installation within a separate space in the studio. Using slide projectors, she will display and distort images, slowly manipulating and layering them one over the other. By the end of the residency, some of the photo negatives will become corrupt and images that were recognizable will be out of focus and resemble color fields just as our memories tend to blend together and deteriorate over time.
Mikayla Whitmore was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2010. She has exhibited and curated at multiple venues including the Winchester Cultural Center, Contemporary Arts Center and the Marjorie Barrick Museum. Her work examines the potential of a photographic image by combining multiple photos into a single picture in an attempt to explore the way memory works. In 2012, she explored this concept in her award-winning exhibition titled “Forever No More,” where she paired images with hand-stitched text, receiving a grant for her work. In 2013, she served as a creative director at a one-night event inside the historic Gateway Motel in Las Vegas, where over 600 people came out to see work by 30 artists, community groups, bands, and local businesses. She currently balances her studio practice with her work as a staff photographer for Greenspun Media Group. Additionally, she enjoys researching dinosaur species and planting succulents.
The P3Studio artist-in-residence program at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas represents one component of its larger art program, in which artists create projects that are interactive and participatory, giving guests the opportunity to connect at an authentic and personal level. Developed and curated in partnership with Art Production Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to producing ambitious public art projects, it strives to reach new audiences and expand awareness through contemporary art.
P3Studio
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
3708 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Las Vegas, NV 89109
