"Alterd States" Exhibition

Hous Projects

poster for "Alterd States" Exhibition

This event has ended.

The human animal seeks to alter their state of conscious in an ever more diverse and deep way as the ages have unfolded in both substance and behavioral practices. Getting outside of one's perceived mind is often sought when revealing one's self to others and, perhaps even more terrifying, to one's self. It is also the manner we often deal with change be it small or life altering. This can be a tricky quest that is often given a false sense of achievement through various means of escape. Altered states of consciousness can be achieved through imbibing, denial, environment, imagination, costume, fasting, meditation, a pseudonym or fake online personality. How we all cope is as varied as who we are.

In this exhibition, Marian Drew, Kendall Messick, Christopher Mir, Guillermo Riveros, Haley Jane Samuelson, Verner Soler and Christopher Stout transport us to visions of reality that are close to what we recognize, but by juxtaposing elements or tweaking composition, they usher us into an alternative state of understanding our lives as they are and as we might imagine them to be.

Verner Soler's photographs of his son explore how identity is evolving in the age of technology. We live in a time where we share photographs and very personal, as well as mundane, information without thinking twice. Not only do we publish ourselves, we also publish our friends and family. The virtual world presents a forum that allows for interpretation that might or might not be proper of a situation or a person. You can create a whole alternative identity in the way you essentially advertise your life.

Soler raises the question: do we have the right to make this choice for those we know and shape the worlds view of them and, in particular, our children?

Mythic figures, creatures, machines and humans alike inhabit Christopher Mir's paintings. His dreamscapes invite us into paradoxical relationships and unsettling juxtapositions. Mir elevates his viewer into a realm where they can navigate their own thoughts on the mystical versus the physical, the spiritual versus the secular and the primal versus the futuristic and get lost in considering what would a human's reality be like in an alien landscape.

Guillermo Riveros' series Contradepredador is inspired by the broad strokes that history has used to define sexuality. Riveros particularly considers how leaders of religion and politics used sexuality as a means of imposing a new conscious state on the "savage" cultures in South America to maintain order with their guidelines of "normal", "civil" ways as compared to the mystic, pagan and "wild" cultures of the natives.

Christopher Stout utilizes his own unique process to form a foundation comprised of cement and shredded conceptual writing that yields an architectural surface which moves the eye rhythmically. In his piece in Altered States, the phrase "often and alone" melts into an internal chant as you rove over the peaks and valleys of the surface. This mantra is one that many feel the burden of in their lives. The ability to relate to each other is challenging. Altering our states of conscious is something we frequently do in order to make communicating easier and feel like we belong, but this often leads to feelings of being even more alone when you return to an unaffected state.

Haley Jane Samuelson, A World of Bald White Days in a Shadeless Socket
In her latest body of work, Haley Jane Samuelson explores the four seasons as a metaphor for the course of our lives. In her winter images, the subjects are bathed in ethereal light that create angelic glow as they frolic. The pure white snow offers a blank canvas imbued with the sensation of opportunity and hope that will come just a bit farther down the path when we are ready to open our minds and loose our inhibitions.

Having his home ravaged by fire gave rise for Kendall Messick to capture the shockingly beautiful, fierce and destructive power of the flame. His photographs are surreal studies of how home can be transformed from a place of refuge to a barren scape with only traces of objects and memories. In his piece Conflagration #23, mannequin head forms suddenly translate as eerie pieces in a set that if you did not know the story behind would be creepy and foreboding, but out of the ashes rises a phoenix which, in this instance, is Messick's powerful artistry.

Marian Drew creates photographic tableaus with road kill that are startling in their delicacy and beauty; fascinating in their depth and sensation. Drew ushers in a slow awakening because her scenes initially are gorgeously lit, painterly constructs. Then sensation yields from awe and whimsy at her bedazzling compositions to a drain of first blush as you surmise the reality in her work. No matter how decorative the setting or warm and fuzzy her subjects' states of being were in life the brutality of death is retained.

Media

Schedule

from June 29, 2011 to September 02, 2011

Opening Reception on 2011-06-29 from 18:00 to 20:00

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