JANE HAMMOND – LIGHT NOW

Posted on 2011-09-05

For many years, Hammond has incorporated a vernacular of found images throughout her mixed-media work. The result of a process of collecting, imagining, and combining, Hammond’s photo vernacular now consists of over 10,000 snapshots. Since 2005, she has drawn from the images to create photographic works—incisive and imaginative black-and-white compositions that employ classic formal concepts while challenging the notion of the photographic medium as representative of personal and cultural memory.

Hammond expands upon the photography to create what she calls the “dazzle paintings” for both the materials used and the phenomena that ensues. Consisting of hand-painted images derived from vernacular photos, the paintings bear a captivating surface of mica sheets with gold, silver, copper, and palladium metal leaf applied over Plexiglas. The dazzle paintings are both reflective and translucent and respond differently in various light conditions and from different vantage points. As light strikes and penetrates the layered surfaces and elements come forth and disappear as the viewer’s physical relationship to the work changes, the paintings present an immediate, interactive experience for the viewer.

Opposite – Girl Lying Down, 2011

Exhibition runs through to October 22nd, 2011

Galerie Lelong
528 W 26th St
New York
NY
10001

www.galerielelong.com

  

MAGGIE MICHAEL – THERE IS NO RISING OR SETTING SUN

Posted on 2011-09-05

Her new work sees a further evolution in Michael’s oeuvre following the introduction of text-based works in her exhibition All at Once (2008).
In There is No Rising or Setting Sun, text is both obscured and evident: “I incorporate the negative and positive shapes of letters in areas of paintings for an abstract recognition and texture, no pun intended. Sometimes, these areas are not saying anything; however, the letter shapes/negative spaces are familiar and exist not to be decoded, but there.” The work and spirit of Samuel Beckett are predominant, whether in appropriated text such as: “no symbols where none intended” and “The tears of the world are a constant quality …The same is true of the laugh,” or in a text-less painting referencing the curiosity of Beckett’s character Watt (from the novel of the same name), who tries to understand an abstract image. “Like abstract painting,” says the artist, “Beckett’s works are experienced, heard, and understood on instinct, pressingly (depressingly) open; the viewer fills in the spaces.”

Opposite – Danube Series: There is No Rising or Setting Sun (Night), 2011

Exhibition runs through to October 22nd, 2011

G Fine Art
1350 Florida Ave
Washington DC
20002

www.gfineartdc.com

  

FAMOUS WHEN DEAD – SORRY WE’RE CLOSED

Posted on 2011-08-29

Sorry we’re closed blurs the boundaries of surrealism, abstract and pop….. cinematic icons with their heads on fire meet decaying spacemen and plantation villas set ablaze in a body of work that represents almost a year in the making and encapsulates where Famous When Dead is as an artist today.

“With Sorry We’re Closed I’ve tried to push my technical abilities to new levels, surpass previous work and add real substance to my paintings whilst maintaining an element of fun and excitement. I’ve matured as an artist without losing my roots and this latest collection of work shows that.” Famous When Dead.

Opposite – Smoking Hot Elizabeth Taylor, 2011

Exhibition runs from September 2nd to September 25th, 2011

No Walls Gallery
13a Prince Albert Street
Brighton
BN1 1HE

www.nowallsgallery.com

  

GHOST – THEN AND NOW

Posted on 2011-08-29

It’s safe to say GHOST’s legendary status in the lore of NYC subway graffiti’s past was not achieved with some self-consciously plotted career path to art world success. In fact, GHOST was more concerned with the transgression than the aesthetics of letters at the time- and transgress he did. He hated the preciousness of some writers, and attributes his loose, un-planned, flowing style –that persists to this day– to needing to get up and get away. When he later took to drawing, he elaborated on his own aesthetic and dark humor by creating crazily inventive and irreverent possibilities for his letters and characters. Soon after, he merged these ink apparitions with his street-borne skills as a colorist, and has continued to enjoy a level of facility and mastery of these forms for some time now—and without the level of risk of the old days.

Exhibition runs from September 8th to September 18th, 2011

TTUnderground
91 Second Ave. Lower Level
New York
NY
10003

TTUnderground

  

ZEVS – RERNAISSANCE

Posted on 2011-08-29

For Zevs, liquidating logos (chosen amongst the most powerful brands, leaders of their consumption fields: sport, food, fashion, etc.) was never a frontal attack on their power or against consumerism. The persuasion power that these brands hold is what fascinates the artist. His centers of analysis have therefore always been Humans and their ongoing confrontation with temptations – seduction acts from brands – in the city, in public spaces, and against which they fight….or not.

Exhibition runs through to September 23rd, 2011

Art Statements
3-2-12 Ebisuminami
Shibuya-ku
Tokyo
150-0022

www.artstatements.com

  

GEORGE HERMS – XENOPHILIA

Posted on 2011-08-22

George Herms: Xenophilia (Love of the Unknown) presents the work of legendary West Coast assemblage artist George Herms alongside the work of a younger generation of Los Angeles and New York artists, which is bringing new energy to the assemblage tradition.
The exhibition features works from a circle of friends Herms found in Florence, as well as artists introduced to him by the exhibition curator, Neville Wakefield, including Rita Ackermann, Kathryn Andrews, Lizzi Bougatsos, Robert Branaman, Dan Colen, Leo Fitzpatrick, Elliott Hundley, Hanna Liden, Nate Lowman, Ari Marcopoulos, Ryan McGinley, Melodie Mousset, Jack Pierson, Amanda Ross-Ho, Sterling Ruby, Agathe Snow, Ryan Trecartin, Kaari Upson, and Aaron Young.

Ever since he first started exhibiting in Los Angeles in the late 1950s, George Herms has been a central figure in the development of so-called West Coast aesthetic. Influenced by a beat generation more attuned to the musical nuance of the everyday than the modernist requiem to order, Herms’s commitment to counterculture is expressed through his use of impoverished materials and his rejection of compositional devices in favor of loose associations of materials and ideas.

Exhibition runs through to October 2nd, 2011

MOCA Pacific Design Center8687 Melrose Ave
Design Plaza G102
West Hollywood
CA
90069

www.moca.org