Anamorphic Portraiture
Mirus Gallery, Denver
We currently live in a world wrought with overstimulation, rapid consumption, and mental illness that often causes one to question what defines an individual’s sense of identity. Science has shown that identity is largely tied to perceptual and neurological representation of facial features. This exhibition brings into question what part of identity is brought to surface or manipulated when the facial features of a figure are morphed, de/re-constructed, or masked. The artists exhibiting in this group consistently use methods of abstraction to create portraits representing facial tensions of inner conflict, emotional confusion, mental anguish, existential dread or even psychosis.
Raw Power
Reykjavík Art Museum
Raw Power is a group exhibition by Erró and fifteen other artists. The exhibition places Erró’s works from different periods in the context of contemporary Icelandic art. The works on display are diverse and in one way or another they reference and/or reflect the numerous media Erró is known for and the rich and dynamic ideology which is so apparent in his art.
In preparing this exhibition, it became clear that the narrative, the author characteristics of Erró himself, would be a predominating factor in choosing the other artists’ works. They are teeming with symbols and references, to art history and the visual culture of daily life. The artists are also preoccupied with sociological connections which play such a large role in art; to echo and illuminate its age. There is a strong undercurrent of unbridled creative force where found imagery and narrative is mixed with primitive creation and expression.
PAINT DOH
Marian Cramer Projects
Utilizing the materiality of paint and the viscosity of oils has been a key element for painters’ practices over the centuries. Starting with Titian in 16th century Italy or Peter Paul Rubens in Belgium, elaborated by Diego Velázquez in Spain, and Rembrandt or Johannes Vermeer in The Netherlands, the need to accentuate the physical attributes of the imagery has been driving the progression of techniques and feeding the sprouting of new painterly styles and movements.
The works comprising PAINT DOH are elevating such efforts to new heights by exclusively focusing on the depiction of the modeling materials and their spatial properties. Sculpted into recognizable, pop culture icons (Ron DeFelice), molded into the cast of peculiar characters from artist’s own universe (Jonny Green, Peter Opheim), used to abstract human form (Einar Lúðvík Ólafsson), or employed as a connecting element between abstraction and representational figuration (Mariah Ferrari, Attilio Esposito), the works are playfully exploring the existential relationship between the material and pictorial sphere through a medium of painting.
Between visions
Août Gallery
The featured works offer a thematic, stylistic and iconographic array, yet they are mutually centered on an inquisitive requestioning of the human condition. The artists set sail on their personal anthropological mission, wandering between the realms of the physical and the psycho-social human body.
Through their oeuvres, they get to delve into their deepest selves and exteriorize their visceral [visions] in the form of fantasy. The results collectively pertain to the abstraction of the human form, a deliberate and evocative feature. Rooted in the artists’ contemplative processes, the aim of this mode of representation is to induce shifts in the mind of the observer.
