Art

Bumblebee

The appearance of materials such as stencils, spraypaint, and unconventional installation materials makes sense when one considers the curator of the show is none other than Los Angeles street artist Bumblebee — an individual that really runs with his moniker to create miniature beehives and models that he attaches to abandoned phone booths. In this group show, he pulls his work off the street and into a gallery setting. What is perhaps most impressive about the curation of this show is that beneath its sophisticated facade, each and every artist knows how to get down to the nitty-gritty and how to take his or her works to the street.

Perhaps this quote can serve as a fitting summary for this show:

“There are many artists in the urban / street art movement. For this show, each artist was selected based on his or her unique voice and ability to push the boundaries of the genre, while remaining true to its origins.” - Bumblebee

Hyuro

Valencia by way of Buenos Aires artist Hyuro makes drawings which blur the lines of where individuals begin and end. A heavy aspect of this all-in-oneness lays focus on hair, which she textures delicately and with great dimensional purpose. Expect a post soon about her street art brilliance.

Our Hands Will Eventually Destroy Everything Beautiful, a new body of work by Japanese illustrator Fumi Nakamura, is the result of a personal period of growth. After a mental breakdown and a year of hiatus from art, Nakamura realized that she needed to leave behind a past of pain and suffering to grow into the person she is now becoming.

“I was chasing after unrealistic thoughts and hopes during that year… Then one day, something inside of me snapped and I came to the realization that I need to move on and get rid of my ‘problems’ — beautiful memories with someone I loved, childhood trauma, pains of growing up and literally everything since they were the core source of my regrets and grudges…” Nakamura says in an interview with Thinkspace Gallery. “… I had (and still do have) a problem with holding onto the past heavily to the point where it was making me so miserable. I wanted to change and stop running away from reality — in order to do that, I decided to “destroy.” So I can maintain pieces of life together, survive in a place called “life.” I became honest, out-spoken and decided to cut all the things out that are affecting me and my life negatively.”

These new pieces by Nakamura use negative space and delicate graphite and colored pencil drawings to accentuate the”intense but fragile,” and ultimately, serve as captive reminders of human fragility. Though these images are beautiful, there is a darkness to them; animals are shot straight through by arrows, eyeballs are held in hands, and symbols of death are given significant attention.

Gary Hill. The Psychedelic Gedankenexperiment. 2011. Two projection screens, two HD video projectors, eight specially fabricated foam chairs, four text panels (each 40 x 71 inches), four amplified speakers on tripods, 3D glasses, acoustic foam/plywood divider, one computer with two channels of Quicktime pla Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels.

Saturday, March 31st, 2012 from 2:00pm to 3:30pm at Henry Auditorium.

$5 for Henry members and UW students; $10 General Admission.

Tomorrow, at Henry Art Museum in Seattle, Gary Hill and George Quasha get scientifically psychedelic with performance art involving digital media and live video manipulations, human bodies, languages and rhythms, and everyday materials. In their collaboration, the two use what is probably overly wordy terminology (‘electronic linguistics”, “psychotropic languages vehicles”, “dynamical lingualia”, and “lingualities”) to achieve the final goal: “a pulsational conversation with stepped-up intensity in which Real Time is invited to show its other side.” Indeed, Real Time is purposely capitalized with an R and a T, and if Hill and Quasha are as brainy and far-out as their lexicon would lead one to believe, glossodelia will be a brainy mindfuck of a performance.

glossodelic attractors suggests a range of meanings from the etymologies “glosso-” (fr. Greek “language, tongue”) and “-delic” (fr. Greek “make manifest, visible”) and resonates with “glossolalia” and “psychedelic.” “Attractors,” in addition to the mathematical meaning of “a set towards which a dynamical system evolves over time (e.g., strange attractor),” connects with the “-tropic” part of ‘psychotropic’—attractors that orient the mind, turn the mind in a new direction. The title indicates that the selected works perform singular initiations into dynamical/lingual events. As psychotropic languaging vehicles these works reorient the mind by altering our conception of what language is. They attract possible language realities—or, rather, lingualities.”
- George Quasha, in dialogue with Gary Hill and Charles Stein

This week, visual artist Margot Bird and Nils Petersen of Seattle’s psychedelic rock band Rose Windows are working together to co-curate NOISE: The State Of Being Combined Into One Body, an interdisciplinary show featuring fourteen artists and five bands.

The two-day experience will include visuals, sound installations, and performances, with two sessions each day at 5:00pm and 9:00pm. Included among the artists and performers are REDEFINE favorites like Midday Veil (interview + exclusive MP3 download) and creator of Le Petit Prince Troy Gua (interview).

In the spirit of NOISE, this post, too, will combine music and visual art in the same space, with a focus on artists who are creating site-specific experiences. Listen to samples from participating musicians or see previous works from visual artists to get an idea of what you’re in store for. Keep in mind, though, that there are some custom pieces being crafted exclusively for this event; visiting the space will provide an immersive experience that we can’t even begin to captured in still photography. How all this will fit into Black Lodge will also be a sight to see!

Full list of participants and schedule of events are listed at the very bottom of this post.

By way of Seattle and San Diego, artist Ian Ferguson seems to finally have hit his artistic stride amidst the urban rawness of Chicago. This documentary takes a quick glance at the new direction of his works — with a special focus on large-scale works, paper cuts, and mixed media pieces that intricately render an array of subjects, including row homes, nature, basketball, nudity, geometry, and beards. The video piece captures Ferguson himself as well, as he rapidly gives descriptions of his self-crafted mythological universe and cycles around demonstrating hybrid martial/dance moves. It’s certainly refreshing to see that all of the eccentricities we captured in our previous interview with Ferguson are not only still present, but even more worthy of attention now.

“They’re Hermaphrodite cave-dwellers — male-female characters that have multiple chins and very distinct characteristics, like droopy eyes. Above all else, the Herms love three things: wine, cigarettes, and major corporations. At least, if those major corporations are Nike, Reebok, or their ultimate love, McDonald’s.”
– Ian Ferguson, on his mythological characters, the Hermtroglodites aka Herms

“I was feeling a little lost and unsure about the future of my art career in Seattle, and I just wanted to make something fun that didn’t have anything to do with the contemporary art world.”

Los Angeles’ Congregation Gallery has coordinated a host of artists to create works around the topic of dark religion. Many Seattle artists showed their works, including Don Farrell, Jethaniel Peterka, and Yvette Endrijautski. You can see some of the pieces, along with notes on why they were created, below.

Don Farrell

In The Light Of The World, Don Farrell has replaced a saintly form with what look liks Islamic geometries and goat-headed divinity. Says Farrell about his work:

“I wield symbols, myths, and visions intuited in my life’s journey to bring viewers to a place before powerlessness and cynicism. I hope that my art encourages you, not only to Think, but more importantly, to Feel, to Love.

The fire of the gods, burning bright – its warmth emanates from the parted palms of the open-hearted. With promethean pleasure, I open the door for all to see their Divinity, to claim their rightful crown.

Every Man and Woman is a Star; Do what thou wilt.”

Cory Benhatzel

Cory Benhatzel‘s symmetrical Satanica Naturalis expresses Satanism in its dualities, with Theistic Satanism to the left and Atheistic Satanism towards the right. Its soft color palette echoes the sentiment that Satanism is not all about blacks and reds, but about the content associated it rather than strictly the aesthetics. To comment more on the matter, she says,

“I think that all organized religion is inherently wrong, but I wanted this piece to make people think twice about Satanism; if they know nothing about it, it is worth investigating and aspects of it can actually be quite beautiful. It’s never wise to stay in a state of blind ignorance; it’s better to find out the facts and then judge for yourself, not just believe what others tell you.

The ravens are flanked by narcissus, a flower that in Floriography (Victorian flower language) stood for egotism, self-love, and self-esteem. This idea of putting yourself first is an important aspect of Satanism. The birds are also holding onto several branches of pussy willows, which form the shape of an inverted pentagram. In Floriography pussy willows hold a similar significance, that of freedom.”

See more of her comments on the painting, along with progress shots, HERE.

Scott Holloway

Scott Holloway presents a series of minimal, gold-leaf encusted macro paintings of ritualistic elements (such as Hand I and Saint II, below).

Other additional images by more than a dozen artists can be seen on the Congregation Gallery website.

The man behind La Mano Press — an artist-run center dedicated to the promotion and appreciation of printmaking — Artemio Rodriguez’s works fall somewhere between old alchemical and biblical illustrations and Mexican folk art. His woodcuts and etchings ring of death and dying and simultaneously of playfulness, making spit-roasted rows of heads look downright adorable, Last Suppers both congenial and morbid.

If ever there was a gallery that were my soulmate — or that I would want to be my soulmate, anyway — it would be San Francisco’s Gallery Hijinks. Their opening this Saturday, February 4th, features the works of New York artist Matthew Craven, who painstakingly inks and collages geometric black and white images onto aged paper. His source imagery reads vaguely familiar, perhaps reminiscent of old Roman or Greek ruins paired alongside patterns from the Peruvian Andes or West African baskets? It’s anyone’s guess after Craven’s done synthesizing together historical and cultural elements from across the globe to create his own minimalistic mythologies. CLICK TO SEE ENTIRE FRGMNTS PREVIEW.

When looking at the work of South Korea’s 최수앙 (Choi Xoo-Ang — or Choi Soo-Ang, if you are to use a more typical romanization), one might envision creepily realistic human forms life-sized enough to hug and share sympathies with. It turns out that Choi’s figures are actually tiny resin sculptures worked over meticulously with oil paints, to a degree so remarkable there might be a painting milestone in there somewhere.

Though you will not find much in the way of English articles about Choi’s works, rest assured that they are commentary on human empathy and lack thereof, selfishness and presence of, and the contradictions present everywhere around us, in modern “civilized” society.

Please visit DalJin to see more photos of Choi’s works.
Please visit Slash to read a great English language article, entitled A Shaman of Our Time, Choi Xooang.

Netherlands-based photographer Jan Reurink can’t get enough of Tibet, and captures Tibetan landscape and everyday life with a dedicated selfless passion. In our brief Q&A with Reurink below, he tells us about the rainbow plethora of reasons he keeps returning to the sacred land.

If your name is Jeff Diteman, you might be a Portland artist that has spent two years secretly crafting a series of oil paintings, waiting patiently until the opportune time and place to debut the complete collection of works. Now ready to be unveiled is Diteman’s The Fabbri Series; it will soon find displayed and celebrated with — not one, but four — events at GalleryHOMELAND.

The Fabbri Series references T.S. Eliot’s famous poem, The Waste Land. Diteman describes the idea behind its title:

The Fabbri Series takes its name from the dedication appended to the beginning of Eliot’s The Waste Land: “To Ezra Pound: il miglior fabbro.” The most literal translation is “the better smith,” but when Pound had translated the phrase in the poem Eliot was quoting, he had rendered it as “the better craftsman”. Thus, the title of this series, pluralizing fabbro to fabbri, is intended to convey my respect for the skills of the craftspeople herein depicted.

The Fabbri Series squeezes well-known faces around Portland into scenarios and situations that are just a little bit unexpected, uncomfortable, and unusual. Included in the mix are musicians (Adam Baz and Patrick Phillips of BRAINSTORM; Kathy Foster of The Thermals; John Niekrasz and Seth Brown of Why I Must Be Careful; Brian Mumford of Dragging An Ox Through Water; Daniel Menche), dancers (Lucy Yim and Jim Camou; Linda Austin), and a lone poet (James Yeary).

With such a star-studded list — star-studded by Portland standards, in any case — the four events related to the Series are curatorial experiments which seem to make perfect sense. Below the next image, you’ll find a loose schedule of the events that have been planned so far (keep in mind they’re bound to change).

Events Related To The Fabbri Series

Friday, February 3rd: Opening reception curated by James Victor Yeary, and featuring Leo Daedalus, Anna Daedalus, Mack McFarland, David Weinberg and Mark Owens. A night of theatrical poetry in the Fluxus tradition, culminating in the ambient disaster Everything Must Go.

Friday, February 17th: Dance and music performance curated by Jin Camou, featuring Lucy Yim, Thicket, and Linda Austin.

Friday, March 2nd: Video dance performance featuring Jeff Diteman and Grace Nowakoski, other performers TBD.

Friday, March 23rd: Blowout closing party, performers TBD.