Valerie Xanos

Valerie Xanos has an interdisciplinary artist practice. Her thesis work uses analog and digital media to create site-specific, immersive installation art within a particularly composed architectural space. Exiled in Light :|: Never(W)here uses light projection, LCD installation, and a digital soundscape to focus on personal narratives of body, memory, and perceptual light shifts. She explores light as mediated through a spectrum of materials, including fiber/acrylic constructions, animation, and digital processing. Various iterations of projected and reflected light investigate synthetic relationships within a constructed image/space immersion. This work is a companion to her written thesis which takes the form of a science fiction narrative that explores the same concepts and theories via the transmutation of a single character.

“I create immersive environments that are contemplative and trace-inducing in order to produce shifts of perception for the participating viewer. Animations and projections provide portals to sublime light and dark visions based on my experience of being exiled in an alternate universe which is both tragic and sensual, sinister and soothing. My influences range from tales of magic and mythology, to sci-fi novels and movies, to physics – which makes me think about how light waves can harness a form of space/time travel. Concepts of falling into rabbit holes, being lost in fairy lands, underworlds, and alternate dimensions are used as a metaphor for alternative perceptions.“

Another recent project is a community engaged endeavor. Drawings serve as a process of mapping cosmic spaces of spiritual power for comfort and healing during the Covid19 Pandemic crisis and racist/homophobic/misogynist trauma of 2020-2021. Abstract drawings are created in ink on postcard stock. The lines, shapes, and elemental structures “map” a space of spiritual power. Each artwork is an imagined space for the recipient to enter, in hopes that recipients can find healing there. The original drawings are mailed to people as a form of comfort and a message of support and love. As a community engaged concept, they create a connection of shared post-humanistic kinship. Each drawing is titled for its spiritual space and also for the name of the recipient who receives this cosmic map as their own. We are connected through the action of creation, transportation, & cosmic healing when received.