Erik Mark Sandberg "Get Pretty Now"
Jonathan LeVine Gallery
This event has ended.
"Get Pretty Now" includes mixed media paintings, sculpture and works on paper, combining a variety of materials such as resins, enamels, oils, inks, acrylics, digital collage and photographs with various printmaking techniques. Sandberg’s portrait series depicts anomalous figures whose features are obscured by a thick coat of colorful hair, wearing fluorescent-colored clothing with loud, graphic prints. His abstract paintings are equally striking, vibrant and texturally rich, complementing hues and patterns of the hairy subjects in his figurative works.
Cultural dichotomies are a source of inspiration for much of Sandberg’s imagery, and his use of hair is (in a broad sense) a visual metaphor for their effects. In the artist’s own words: “My work investigates the psychological effects of trying to achieve smoke and mirror standards of beauty, standards that run in opposition to contemporary mass-consumed food advertising.” His bold color choices, while mainly intuitive decisions, also offer conceptual reinforcement. On the subject of palette, the artist says: “Fluorescents and neons have a very manufactured, artificial quality. They’re exotic, living outside of the normal spectrum.”
Thematically, the artist explores consumer culture, celebrity idolatry and social dysfunction in the digital age, with a focus on the relationship between projected idealized archetypes and their unattainable emulation. In some of the work, references are made to narratives (in the more extreme, degrading vein of) contemporary Hip-hop music, and its paradoxical airing on mainstream radio sponsored by product advertisements carrying affectations of family values. Sandberg has a keen interest in these phenomena and how everyday people become victims of what he refers to as consumer Stockholm syndrome.
Media
Schedule
from January 22, 2011 to February 19, 2011
Opening Reception on 2011-01-22 from 18:00 to 20:00