Vanillaroma by Timothy Veske-McMahon

Artist list

Timothy Veske-McMahon

When is an air freshener a jewel? When it is the centerpiece of a necklace by American artist Timothy Veske-McMahon. As in his prior series, Glyph and Borne, Vanillaroma balances Dada humor with purposefully perplexing iconography. Combining intellect, emotion, signifiers, and things, Veske-McMahon impels us to view the world in all its variety and nuance. Persistently striving to make objects that are, as he states, "confounded enough to avoid…sudden definition and compartmentalization by prior experience", he, nonetheless, draws his ideas from fundamental human needs: communication, relationships, and home.
/Toni Greenbaum


About the artist:
Based in Providence, professor and graduate program director of the Jewelry and Metalsmithing Department at Rhode Island School of Design, Timothy Veske-McMahon’s studio practice is divergent, with repurposed materials minted through the repetition of the workbench, in contrast with virtual design and objects that blink into existence. His work focuses on basic needs - communication, relation, transaction, home - to create phenomena that express the delicate balance between public and personal identities. These interests overlie and respond to semiotics, psychology, popular (sub)culture, queerness/passing, social mechanisms/machines, recognition/atonement and the widespread redefinition of hyper-real phenomena of daily life on the digital frontier. 
 
Timothy Veske-McMahon received his BFA from Pratt Institute (2004) and his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2013). His practice extends beyond the studio through endeavors to critically engage the changing field of contemporary jewelry as educator, critic and writer. His work is internationally exhibited and included in various publications, as well as in public and private collections.

Opening Reception: May 6,  6:00 pm - 8:00 pm