Billboard Gallery: March 2022

Billboard Gallery: March 2022

The Holland Project’s Billboard Gallery showcases the work of exceptional emerging and established regional artists on billboards throughout Reno’s surface streets. Three new artists are installed every four weeks starting in January 2022. The March artists included Julia Schwadron Marianelli, Emily Najera, and Greg Allen.

MARCH 2022 ARTISTS + WORKS

#1 Location: Wells Ave. & 2nd St.

Artist: Julia Schwadron Marianelli
Artwork: Big Meadow (detail), acrylic ink on paper, 2020
Website / Instagram

Bio: Julia Schwadron Marianelli is an artist who has shown her work across the country as well as internationally. Schwadron Marianelli served as founder of, and the Assistant Director for, the Low Residency MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at Sierra Nevada University, helping to provide alternative modes for non-traditional students to create sustainable lives in the arts. In addition to her painting studio practice, she currently serves as an artist mentor, workshop instructor and facilitator, and is on the art faculty at Lake Tahoe Community College. From 2010 – 2011, she was a Visiting Professor of Painting and Artist in Residence at Chiang Mai University, and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Painting at the University of Iowa from 2007-2009. She was a Javits Fellow from 2002-2003. Schwadron Marianelli received her BA in Studio art from UC San Diego in 1998 and her MFA in Painting from the Tyler School of Art in 2003. She currently lives and works in South Lake Tahoe with her husband and two kids, where she continues to advocate for alternatives to traditional art education. Her work is represented by Melhop Gallery in Nevada.

Statement: In my most recent body of work, “Trembling Grass / Vibrating Grass,” I use text phrases that function as titles to begin many of the paintings. These linguistic fragments refer simultaneously to the natural environment and the human psyche. One painting, “Suppression Tactics” was conceived of as I considered the wildfire conditions in west alongside the systemic ways that information is kept from the people who need it most. The text matrix as the first layer is meant as a place holder for thought as well as a visual structure to organize the painting itself. In the case of “Big Meadow,” features of the physical landscape of portions of the Tahoe Rim Trail are layered on top of the text “EVERYTHING,” a word that is repeated and flipped on itself, meant to be read and also to serve as a skeleton for the successive layers to come.

#2 Location: Wells Ave. & Pueblo St.

Artist: Emily Najera
Artwork: Nystrom Guest House, 2022
Website / Instagram

Bio: Emily Najera is an editorial and documentary photographer in Reno, Nevada. Often partnering with historic preservationists and urban planners, she documents and archives the changing landscape of city neighborhoods.

Emily’s been photographing Reno for over the past decade. Her earliest images document the impact of the Great Recession and foreclosure epidemic on Reno’s neighborhoods. In recent years her images document the boom of re-development and the struggle between preservation, revitalization, and growth.

Statement: The Nystrom Guest House was built in 1875 at 333 Ralston Street in Reno, Nevada. For most of the 20th century, it served as a haven along the Lincoln Highway for people seeking a divorce. In 2018 the house was bought by Jacobs Entertainment, a gaming, hospitality, and entertainment company based in Golden, Colorado. The company has been buying and demolishing properties in west Reno to develop an entertainment district and revitalize the area. After the purchase, the Nystrom Guest House, which belongs to the National Register of Historic Places, was moved to an empty lot where it’s rapidly deteriorating. It is unknown if the house will be included in Jacob’s revitalization plans, but in a recent interview, Jeff Jacobs said he plans to create a historic quad where you can relax with wine and donuts. View more of Emily’s documentation of a changing Reno on her website.

#3 Location: Kietzke Ln. & Gentry

Artist: Greg Allen
Artwork: EMD SD 45 7521 Outbound From the Sparks, Nevada Yard, c. 1996, oil on canvas, 2022
Website | Homebodies w/ Greg Allen

Bio: Most often a realist painter, occasional photographer, known to enjoy writing, full-time hedonist. Based in Reno, NV.

Statement: My paintings capture a sense of place and time: the American West and the Age of Oil. The roadside motels and diners, gas stations, and vehicles that fuel my depictions are the iconic outposts of the previous century. In the spare landscape and small towns of the West, post-World War II architecture, signage, and design are rendered as monoliths, deifying America at the height of its power. My work is a celebration of a time before planned obsolescence, the last vestiges of craftsmanship and things well made in a country racing to put the first man on the moon. I paint monuments to places rapidly disappearing in the rush toward urban renewal, a memento mori of a bygone era.


The HP Billboard Gallery was made possible by an Art Belongs Here Grant from the City of Reno Arts & Culture Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, generous donations from supporters like Temple Builders LLC, Brooks Family Dental, and Sierra Hearing Center, as well as the support and guidance of our partners with the Wells Ave. Merchants Association and Lamar Outdoor Advertising. Thank you!