OPEN STUDIO HERE I COME

First off I'd like to congradulate Akira for being awarded the new york studio space for winter quarter. What a great opportunity this will be for him. CONGRATS BRO. Ok so my open studio is tomorrow and I'm a little nervous but not to bad I've worked really hard this semester and have learned a great deal and met so many wonderful people and have had opportunities that I never thought possible so even if nobody shows up then it will still be totally worth every moment. Started workin on building all my boxes for my art work to be shipped back in tonight with Justin and it's been alot of work but everything should arrive safely back in TN or so I hope. Gonna buy some beer and cheap wine tomorrow and hopefully have a grand evening with new friends and hopefully some artists. Hope all is well wherever you may be and I will let you know in pictures and words how everything went.

MORE REVIEWS OF SHOWS I'VE SEEN AND PEOPLE HAVE REVIEWED

So it has been a little while since I have talked about shows that I have seen and I thought I would atleast highlight two that have gotten reviews in the Brooklyn Rail and a few that I thought were standouts in my adventures. So here goes.

First up we have Dawn Clements solo show at Pierogi. As I have said before I have met this artist on several occasions and she is absolutely amazing. She does both large and small scale works but what I find most compeling are her large scale room sized drawings. I shit you n ot these things are enormous and it's interesting how her process first started. In an interview with Eve Aschheim of the Brooklyn Rail Dawn answers this process quetion by stating " In 2000 when I was a in residence at Middleberry College. I started with A chair. I liked the way it was drawn but didn't like it as a drawing. It seemed like just some dumb little thing. So I thought if I add onto this then maybe I'll draw the whole wall. And then thought, oh, this is interseting, I could do the whole room. After four months I had drawn the entire apartment". Dawn's work is monumental. When you stand infront of one of her pieces it's like standing in front of whatever room she happened to be drawing at that time. However perspective is skewed at times and the way her compositions melt together it's as if you are caught in a memory of what that room was. In a follow-up review of her show in the Brooklyn Rail Cassandra Neyenesch says " Dawn Clements seems to be operating in the expanding realm that Proust chartered, the project of depicting the three deminsional quality of memory". This distorted view of reality doesn't take away from the majesty of her drawings and the intersting way she incorporates folds and wrinkles of the giant sheets of paper that are connected to create her scenes.

Aleksandra Mir's recent show Newsroom 1986-2000 chronicles her perceptions and experiences right up to the tragic events of 2001 while living in NYC. She presented these accounts as large scale black and white ink drawings on paper thaty were roughly the size of a Michael Scoggins drawing. As you entered the gallery it was almost as if you had been transported into a mid-80's newspaper room with a dozen or so of her assistants dutifully filling in Mir's newspaper coverish drawings. Each assistant would have several sharpie markers in hand tediously filling in letters and images whil listening to ipods or trying not to fall asleep againts their table supported arms. It was quite a sigth to behold. Unfortunately this exhibition was taken down before I could get any images. As Jen Schwarting accounts of the show "Mir's drawings recapitulate and resist the press's numbing mechanisms with personalized, messy, comix-style lettering. But her social model is her more significant message, and the collective organizing, colaborating, photo snapping and dialogue that go into it are the strengths of her operation.

Been Gone All Weekend

So I haven't written a blog in a few days b/c I had to fly down to Memphis for a good friends wedding. I was a groomsman so I kinda had to be there. It was a nice break from my hectic life up here and I'm kinda running out of supplies this late in the game anyway so I decided what the hell. It was a beautiful wedding. Back to the NY front. I got my cards printed for my show up here and handed them out to some of my studio mates and left some at Pierogi as well as in the front lobby of the EFA building. A few of the artists that are represented by Pierogi are planning to attend and hopefully a hand full of others as well. Keeping my fingers crossed atleast. I'm going to finish up my last piece tomorrow and then start cleaning this mess that I call my studio up so that its presentable come friday. Hope all is well and I will post agin very soon must try and recover from the shinanigans of this weekend first.

Starting to wind down

So I've only got three weeks left. This has been a truly amazing experience. I still have some photos and shows I would like to post but still really busy at the gallery so I will get to that soon (hopefully tomorrow or the next day). I'm almost done assisting Joe with all his work as well and that has meant more to me than anything just hangin out with him in his studio and havig dinner and shootin the shit has been more valuble than anything. We're going to star ttalking real soon about Miami Bazil and what I am going to be doing for them and getting down there and I just can't wait. I'm starting to slow down a little with my work and will probably end up with anywhere between 16-20 pieces that I will be bringing back with me and over 100 cutouts from the wall installations that I wil use probably on pieces over the break or next semester. If any of you are reading this and have the time to participate in this program I encourage you to do so b/c it will be one of the most unforgettable things you will have the opportunity to do. Hope all is well whereever you may be and until next time........

New cut outs!!!!

Hey guys here's three new pieces I've just completed. I've actually had some time lately to work on my own work. Enjoy!!!! The first two are really small the pink one is 10"x7" and the orange and prurple one is 12" square. The last one is kinda big about 4.5' x 2'.

WHAT A LONG FREAKIN DAY!!!!!!

So I went to my internship today and worked for six hours. I finshed photo documenting the flat files as well as assisting with some sales and routine gallery tasks. Well as I am a painting assistant to Joe, the owner of the gallery and professional artist himself, I worked another 6.5 hours in his studio painting letters and mixing colors and things of that nature. It's really nice how much he's allowing me to do with his own work. But man o' man was it a long day. Now I'm in my studio getting ready to work on my work. I've started some really small delicate cut out pieces that are all constructed from card stock and I really like the way they are going. I'm just trying to get as much done as possible in the studio b/c I have a studio visit with Joe on the 31st of Oct. Well back to work hope all is well wherever you may be. Until next time................

Another Splendid Gallery Day

So first off it's been awhile since I've written any reviews for the shows that I've seen but I've been working so much at the gallery and for Joe in his studio that I've barely had enough time to sleep let alone spend an entire day in the heart of Chelsea. However, yesterday I was fortunate to have a day to myself and saw some great shows. Theres alot of them so I may break this blog up into a few since I've not done one in a little while.

If any of you have ever seen a Ryan McGinness piece then you know how he tries to bridege the precarious gap between fine art and graphic design, low and high art, installation and painting. In fact his work not only bridges this gap it embraces the best of all these genres and blends them into a cohesive world of his own making. Walking into the space one notices how McGinness's pieces are not only on panel and other supports but they also bleed off onto the wall making the entire space an environment in which to inhabit. His quirky hyrogliphic language is inscribed on every surface making the viewer itch with the desire to desypher his cryptic code. McGinness uses vynel cut outs, graphiti like stencils, and a number of technological processes to create his work taking full advantage of these tools. At times his work can be overwhelming in color and repition as well as the monotony of his imagery but none-the-less McGinness's proliphic work makes for wonderful eye candy.







Since Halloween is close approaching, and since it's one of my favorite holidays I must tell you of a quite humorous exhibition I witnessed at Moti Hasson Gallery. The Artist is Jillian McDonald and the name of her show was Waking The Dead This was not only a great exhibition but it was absolutely hillarious. As in most horror movies their is often a female victim who becomes the fixation of the ominous monster, zombie, or what have you who innevitably screams that blood curtling scream we love to hear in any horror movie. In most cases this scream is a declaration of terror and fright but in JIllain's video pieces this scream becomes the voice of reckoning. Jillian interjects herself into numerous well known horror movies such as ZOMBIE 2(ZOMBIE), FRIDAY THE 13TH, and THE SHINING, to name a few, and uses her scream to repel and at times destroy the foul thing that has vowed to destroy her. Along with her video she also has lenticular photographs of herslf and others that require the participation of the viewer to transform their images into horrific zombies. I must say even the youtube esgue presentation of her video The Screaming only added to the flavor of these memorable horror movies. This was an extremely fun show I just wish she was there performing in the gallery.





Thats it for now. Hopefully tomorrow I will post about a beautiful video installation called SCUM and Mayumi Sarai, a wonderful sculptor/installation artist.