Eyedrum Saturday night was the opening of "The Arrival of Machete" (aka Travis Dodd) in the Small Gallery. I also met the cool singer/artist Lindsay Appel who stars in a few of the works, including the one above, top and center.
Stencils are all the rage these days no?
Steve Aishman from PhotoAwesome interviewing Dodd.
One of the coolest aspects of the show, was Machete's free "art by the foot." I like the idea that people can walk away from an art show with a little something to pin on their wall. With the advances in printing technology and book making becoming incredibly cheap, I don't think it will be long before small catalogues accompany most art shows and sale for a nominal fee of $5 or $10. It would become a new option for "collecting." It would be great.
"Sprawl, Beyond Crisis Point"Not sure about the guy and his machete. Destruction? Urban turmoil? Gentrification? Making way for a new strip mall of Marshalls and Starbucks? Fight the powers that be.
"Sprawl, Monoliths"Dodd heavily manipulates and layers photographs in Photoshop and then merges these with architectural blueprints mounted on wood panel. The result has a nice surface quality and presentation - a sort of digital collage.
"Controlled Demolition"This piece in particular was working for me. The fragmented perspective of the architecture is interesting. It balances somewhere between a photograph and an architectural rendering and pairs well with the blueprint printed over it.
Come on Cinque, stop playing around... we're here to see art, it's suppose to be serious!
Maxwell Sebastian "A Few Things Explained" Oil on Canvas 2007In the main gallery was the opening of the group show "ReNew, ReUse, ReView": a group experiment in recycled ideas and creative manipulation.
Compared to the last couple of blockbusters Eyedrum has delivered, this group show felt a little lackluster but some of the individual works were strong. Over all the show did not have a clear approach, whether subversive, tongue-n-cheek, or reverent, in the referencing of other artists or artworks.
I wonder if it's only coincidental that David Huff's painting "Unexplained" (pictured above) was hung next to Maxwell Sebastian's painting "A Few Things Explained." It's pretty funny regardless.
David Huff "Pile" Oil on Panel
Anita Arliss "St. Petersburg Still Life With Computers and Mouses" Pigment on Paper 2006
John Trobaugh's large format polaroid "Ivana-Lisa" was excellent.
And Mandie Turner Mitchell's three works, "The Sleeping Bag",
"The Big Cheese,"
and "Gay Fold Gallery" really played up the theme of the show for the artist's own amusement along with everyone else in attendance. I wish there had been more of this critique by the artists in the show. "Glossy pink-o-flage"? That's hilarious.
David Huff "Pile" Oil on Panel
Anita Arliss "St. Petersburg Still Life With Computers and Mouses" Pigment on Paper 2006
John Trobaugh's large format polaroid "Ivana-Lisa" was excellent.
And Mandie Turner Mitchell's three works, "The Sleeping Bag",
"The Big Cheese,"
and "Gay Fold Gallery" really played up the theme of the show for the artist's own amusement along with everyone else in attendance. I wish there had been more of this critique by the artists in the show. "Glossy pink-o-flage"? That's hilarious.
The shows are up at Eyedrum till February 23rd '08 - check that cheese out.
4 comments:
Given how both artists are inclined to shy away from artist's statements (although some explanation was necessary for almost every piece in this show), it was really lucky that they wrote anything. I do regret, however, that Maxwell Sebastian and David Huff's statements did not fully bring together for the viewer the relationship between their paintings.
"Unexplained" is an abstract representation / reinterpretation of Maxwell's "A Few Things Explained" and vice versa with the other two paintings of theirs. The artists, who know and respect each other's work, wanted to take an existing painting of the other and create a new interpretive work of it in their own style. David, who does abstract figures (that is what they are, yes), abstracted Maxwell's figurative painting, while Maxwell did a figurative painting derived from one of David's abstractions.
I wish this had been clearer to the viewers, as it's a very interesting dialogue between the two artists which resulted in beautiful new works.
Hopefully this clears things up a bit.
Jessi-
Thanks for this explantion - I do wish that had been written somewhere for the viewer, otherwise I don't think there is enough obvious similarity between the works for the viewer to put two and two together. (I obviously didn't anyway)
I really like this idea of two figurative painters reinterpreting each others work, especially translating an abstraction back into realism. Next time I am at Eyedrum I will have to revisit these works.
Thanks again for the input!
Thanks for giving me a nod in your post, I really appreciate it. Travis gives his best as well. Have fun with that cute little pup of yours!
Mandie here, thanks again for covering this show, a couple of the same artists are in the Draw Off coming up next at Eyedrum on March 8th. Don't miss it! And don't forget to chime in on the Percent for Art Campaign.
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