Keith Mayerson "Good Leaders, Endangered Species, Ships at Sea Part II"
Derek Eller Gallery
This event has ended.
"Good Leaders, Endangered Species, Ships at Sea," is a poetic allegory of paintings serving as a hopeful reflection and a warning of our perilous times. Read as a non-linear narrative, the series of images connotes man's hubris and his exploitation of the earth with the wish that spirituality, good leaders, and great artistry will rescue humanity and nature. Read individually, each painting is reflective of the subject matter it portrays, and also deeper allegories, as well as odes to painting and to art history.
A portrait of Barack Obama begins the show; it is the artist's hope that Obama's tenacity, intelligence, and spirit will lead our country out of the elegiac world depicted by the rest of the exhibition. Next, a painting of a snow leopard camouflaged by falling snow prowls through a canyon in Afghanistan, his species' existence on the planet nearly at an end. In another painting, the Dalai Lama is presented giving a prayer after a three-day teaching of the Diamond Cutter Sutra at Radio City Music Hall; lens flares from the artist's source photo are transformed into floating mandalas, as the entire setting emulates the Buddhist tankha painting hanging behind His Holiness. A polar bear, standing on the tip of a disintegrating ice field in the melting artic is entitled "Cold War".
Media
Schedule
from October 17, 2008 to November 15, 2008
Opening Reception on 2008-10-17 from 18:00 to 20:00