“A Tangled Web We Weave” Exhibition
Causey Contemporary
This event has ended.
“A tangled web we weave” is half of one of the more memorable lines from Sir Walter Scott’s epic 1808 poem Marmion, which among other things, looked at lust, lies, war and honor. For this exhibition, I am borrowing this partial quote and making it about the complexities and origins of the processes in creative thought.
Each generation of visual artists has a percentage of participants that believe they have come up with something groundbreaking. Later on, maybe through exposure or discussion, they discover that their original contribution is clearly connected to another work of art they spotted on line or in print, whether it was made previously or as a contemporary work, which has some semblance of common ground. It is at this point that one may come to realize that what they thought was fresh and different is part of a fluid and flexible stream of connected thoughts, a linkage that can span all time – a collective consciousness.
In the end, it is secondary as to who did what first, where influences come from, or who or what inspires an artist because the time in ones studio is unique and ones own. It is an era and a culture that all artists participate in, with all of their experiences, pre-thoughts, open-mindedness and leanings as their filtering process of images and information is unique to them.
For this exhibition, I have selected seven artists from Causey Contemporary and paired each with an artist who they do not know or are aware of who share a connection that I suspect is sourced through a collective consciousness.
Abstract painter Lisa Pressman and representational painter James St Clair both have a compelling fascination with the tension and movement in weighty masses of form and color, while
mixed media artists Michel Demanche and Jen P. Harris present beautiful, storybook-like vignettes in layered narratives.
Elise Freda and Moses Hoskins are mix media artists as well, only here, the response to external stimuli results in something that is close to automatic, with strong overtones of controlled progression. Melissa Murray and D. Dominick Lombardi mix bits of reality with the foils of fantasy as they utilize patterns to drive their narratives.
Black and white photographers Marielis Seyler and John Wyatt project the emotional state of their subjects by way of imposing strong and focused compositional elements as opposed to Howard Gross and Victor Matthews who employ visually stimulating complex patterning and linear movement.
The art of conceptual sculptors John J. Richardson and Arcady Kotler, who both share the medium rubber, challenges the viewer to rethink the ways in which they perceive the most basic aspects of reality.
Media
Schedule
from December 18, 2014 to January 22, 2015
Opening Reception on 2014-12-18 from 18:00 to 20:00