Exhibiting Artists
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West Gallery: Abstraction/Representation Recent Work Adam Viens/Peter Waite
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Adam Viens
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I consider these works, "Depressive Realism", a term adopted from the 1970's psychological hypotheses that the depressed individual has a more accurate depiction of reality and themselves than the non-depressed individual. This term also carries a satirical reference to the "ism's" of art history. What attracts me to this is not the pessimism involved, but rather the undetermined origin of the experience (does the depressed perspective create this view of the world, or does the depressed state of the world create this perspective?), such paradoxes in cyclical thoughts remain reflective of life itself.
Here, the enigma of life finds formal elegance in the elegiac poems of visual language. The works are equivocal equations of human debility, layered with suggestions, associations, connotations, and self- references. Both, the way into the work, and the way out is dependent on dissection and the consequent pursuit of context clues. Much like the interpretation of a dream, one must first find their bearings in order for relationships, themes, and motifs to become apparent. If one attempts to greedily ascertain meaning in a glance they will be left with only the stale taste of formalism. I use material as metaphor and no inclusion is desultory. Similar to alchemy, everyday objects and materials are combined to become consummated and transcend their mundanity . However, constant attention is called to the materiality of the art object and it's honest inabilities. Down to The very sub-straights that these compositions are constructed on there is a hap-hazardous handling at play that suggests the constant white noise of the shoddy culture values consistently humming beneath "Civilized" societies. Somewhere between sculpture and painting, these works exist on a curious plane that we might enter as viewers, escaping our affixed character of life, or who's very real and physical presence as art objects might magnify and annunciate our tangible, and temporary presence in here and now. My interests lie in philosophical contention and the dialectic created by dichotomy (detached, controlled formalism vs personally impassioned impulse, intangible denotation vs the finite physicality of the art object, and experiment vs experience, so on). Though a work may be personally motivated in its creation and content, every work has an undeniable undertone of the universality of human experience. |
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Peter Waite
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For over 25 years I have made large scale paintings that document my travels — real visits to real places — to sites of the built environment that embody public sentiment or ideological concerns. Stadiums, formal gardens, bridges, museums, monuments, palaces, train stations, schools, prisons, casinos, corporate board rooms, suburban and urban housing, and ancient temples, are some of the locations that I have depicted. My interest lies in the intersection of personal and social memory. I have intentionally omitted the figure from the representation to emphasize the viewer’s participation as witness to the moment of perceiving, then remembering, these architectural spaces. In my studio, I work in acrylic on rigid panels and use an equal combination of photographs, memory, and sketches done on location, to complete the painting. Typically, the scale of my paintings is large and can range from 4 feet x 6 feet to 8 feet x 12 feet.
Travel, far and near, being there, has always been crucial to my work as a painter. I often target specific cities: Paris, Vienna, Rome, London, and most recently Liverpool and Leeds in the UK. Closer to home, I have been to Cincinnati and Chicago to develop a series of paintings about these cities, covering not only the well-known or iconic, but also the more mundane or universal setting, like a subway station or stairwell. My goal has always been to make the known, unknown and the ordinary, extraordinary. |
East Gallery: Habitual Demeanor
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Jackie Branson
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My work is autobiographical in nature. In its imagery and materials, it is an exploration of identity, appearances and perception. In examining identity, I am fascinated by the notion of armor, a theme I have consistently been interested in as it pertains to me and others, and I create objects to explore this theme.
In defining my own identity, I draw from my Armenian heritage and the significance of carpet, not only to Armenians, but to my own experience growing up in a partially Armenian family. I use carpet to inspire through patterns and shapes and to symbolize identity, domesticity, femininity and security, examining and questioning those characteristics along the way. Carpet and other common materials in my work represent my everyday life in the same way certain patterns, styles and colors represent the weaver of an oriental carpet. In bringing these materials together, and through design and process, I attempt to create a flux between masculine and feminine and hard and soft. |
TDP Gallery: DisComforters
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Robin Tost
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I began making these quilts in 2008 after bike trips through Massachusetts and Vermont. Many small towns had closed factories and a loss of local jobs and income. At the same time, many yards displayed homemade signs advertising, "Quilts for Sale". This combination sparked the idea of combining the "masculine" industrial waste material I collect with the "feminine" art of quilting.
I use mostly automotive scrap and commercial advertising remnants and incorporate traditional stitching. The pieces are cut by hand with shears, punched with a drill press and sewn together with variously colored wires. The colors of the quilts are determined by whatever I'm finding at the time in my salvage excursions. |