NYAB Event - "Strange Design" Exhibition

"Strange Design" Exhibition

Icosahedron Gallery

This event has ended.

Ico Gallery announces “Strange Design,” a collective exhibition running through the month of May, which more than theme or concept, is focused on the idea of form and the myriad ways it’s expressed in the surreal. Often style or idea are the talking points when discussing artists. “He studies with so-and-so!” “She paints in the style of the such-and-such!” “This artwork overflows with meaning!” While all legitimate ways of talking about art, they often leave discussion of the forms by the wayside. Especially the way the forms change throughout history and the way the forms contain within them their own histories.

As much as the artists in “Strange Design” are engaged in creating meaningful art – the legacy of surrealism’s marriage with psychoanalysis – their paintings are also rich in pure formal joy. Doffing interpretational games and postmodern stabs at conceptually draining the artwork of all it contains, these artworks are something to get lost in. They are something to ponder and assimilate visually, not simply intellectually, but on a more visceral level.

While the artistic choices vary greatly, from surreal landscapes to modernized Renaissance to modern folk, they are united under a common rubric of form and design. Within each shape, a rich history can be exhumed, from Artem Mirolevich’s watercolor/ink hybrids to Joe Triano’s exploration of Native American culture, the forms they contain have a very explicit past that is called out in their technique. All these artists share in this, and though each has something particular she wants the viewer to take from her work, the overarching history of forms in their work unites them in a special way.

Robert Berry
Curator