This will be the last post for about two weeks, but stay tuned, because when I get back I have something to show you.
The gallery I work at (UAG) has a pretty badass show going on currently called Flora/Fauna. If any of you are in the Milwaukee area or are passing through, definitely check it out. I did a post on Roxanne Jackson awhile back, some of the work in that post is worth looking at. Here is what we have in the show:
Eat Your Heart Out
Becoming and Solid Gold
Untitled
Rorschach hide
Eat Your Heart Out
Stigma
White Diamond
Lyuba
Pachyderm
Forgotten
Golden
At the artist talk before the opening of the show Roxanne discussed the ideas surrounding her work. Transformation from man into creature or beast is a recurring theme as well as animal hybrids. I agree with Roxanne in that such a transformation is a fantasy, that we are already beasts, yet we often fear our animal nature in desperate attempt to feel superior. I don’t care so much for her works with wigs, but her ceramic heads and animals are fantastic. They draw on goth and horror aesthetics. Being a metal head I find much of her work exceedingly, specifically the black heads with jaws pushing out of the human mouth.
Eros & Thanatos
Eros & Thanatos
Totem
Totem
Totem
Totem
Totem
Totem
Totem
Totem
Totem
Totem
Inside Out
Dreaming of Foetus
Antennae
Gaze
Kako’s usage of paper started in a happenstance sort of way. She’s always been using paper as a drawer, but many years ago she just sort of started cutting it one night. What ensued was a series of beautifully crafted and composed artworks. A large theme in her work is life and death. Life needs death and death life. To depict this she uses imagery of plants, insects, eggs, a skull, and faces. In her work “Totem” (the red paper cut outs above) are a string of narratives composing her own totem pole of sorts. Clown imagery is drawn from her mother’s interest and collection of clown dolls. The other narratives are privately inspired and we can only conclude them in our imagination.
I am going to italy in about 5 days for about 2.5 weeks. This has been a very busy few weeks, but I’ve had the time to make some gifts for those supporting me on this trip. Here is one of my favorites:
They are more a kin to us that they’d like to admit.
Click for a better image:
If I were a fish and you wanted to catch and eat me you would cast a line with some figure-ground relationships, spacial definitions, or some sort of perspective on a hook and wait 5 seconds. When I first saw Alex’s work a year ago I was a bit unsettled by the flat spaces, intense geometry, and mass of figures intertwined in narrative.
Today his work appeals to me for several reasons. I’ve had the privilege of seeing a sizable amount of his work (we are the same major) and am struck by the consistency of his style, his complex figure relationships, and his ability to combine flat geometric shapes with a variety of spaces/environments. To me these three elements in his work make his images continuously captivating every time I look at them. Below are some of my favorite works by Alex:
Also, Alex and I did an art trade several months ago, which you can find the results of here.
Here is a link to Alex’s Facebook.
For an art trade I did. North and South Westeros.
Current Talk