ANIMALIA

March 18 – April 14, 2016

Curatorial statement:

The current exhibition in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery explores the role of subject matter in contemporary art. In 2014, the exhibition Lay of the Land explored landscape as subject. In Animalia, the Mikhail Zakin Gallery exhibits work by five contemporary artists that explore animals as a subject while expressing more elusive elements of our own human nature. Works on view in this exhibition evoke literal and metaphorical meaning by elucidating animal nature and bringing us closer to our own.

“Animalia” is a made-up word to describe the human impulse to represent animals in art. In the
graphic poster by The Beehive Design Collective, centuries of history are distilled into a single image that depicts indigenous species of animals and insects to portray the struggle for land rights in Mesoamerica. In mixed media paintings by Jane Dell, animals appear as if in a vision to tell a chaotic, expressive story. The dreamlike quality is evoked through watery application of pigment to Mylar.

Steel horse sculptures by Adrian Landon, including the life-size horse sculpture in welded steel on the front lawn of the Art School, recognize horses for their contribution to human culture and civilization. At the same time, their strength is far beyond human, and we are met with wonder at how humans ever managed to harness the power of these powerful creatures. In realistic oil paintings by Sarah Smith, animals are depicted in a space that is their own. In her animal portraits there is no space for a human to interact with animals depicted head on. Encaustic paintings by Kristen T. Woodward describe instances where animals illuminate myths and stories that have become part of our consciousness. The rich pigments suspended in wax create a depth to the picture plane like a portal to a world where animals reign.

Works in this show present a variety of encounters with animals. They are at times distant or close, fierce or calm, at peace or threatened. What each representation of an animal has in common in this show is that each is in a context where they are uncontrived and uncontrolled. Can we encounter successful works of animal imagery such as these without experiencing that strange alienation that divides us from the “human” and brings us closer to something more profound? The works in this show carefully construct an animal plane of existence that is unspeakably alive.

-         Mary Gagler, Curator

Personality Test: Contemporary Portraiture in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery

Dave Kube, The Secret Guise

February 16 – March 11, 2016

Curatorial statement

A portrait is an artistic representation of a person that captures their likeness, personality or mood. Traditional portraiture flourished long before the telephone, at a time when representations were necessarily straightforward, if not idealized and painstakingly executed. As our systems of communication get more complex, the information needed to adequately represent a person changes. At times, we find we can reveal more by hiding something, or portray honestly through more improvisational methods.

Kathryn Mecca, Andy

Grand portraiture of royal families has aesthetic and nostalgic allure, but contemporary portraiture is a different genre, reflective of contemporary life. A distinguishing category characterizing contemporary portraiture is the question of likeness. With the advent of photography, likeness in a portrait became a snap to achieve. The contemporary portrait subject has a different roster of traits to be considered. One question we can ask of portraits today is what is the degree of cultural alienation of the subject, as in the portraiture by Dave Kube. Conversely, self-portraits by Joe Nanashe reveal a complementary trait of cultural assimilation and parsing out of the individual from the load roar of pop culture definitions.

A likeness can be revealed and concealed simultaneously, as in paintings by Kathryn Mecca, whose portraits from behind subvert the reverence usually reserved for large-scale oil painting. The photographic print by Stephan Jahanshahi also reveals a likeness while it conceals any details, as if representing a faded memory.

Stephan Jahanshahi, Some Wound of Color

 

Seth Ruggles Hiler, Portraits on Pine Street

Another trait to consider in contemporary portraiture is collaboration. For a portrait to take place, the artist and the subject must be in the same place at the same time, either for the duration of a photograph or a painting from life. Seth Ruggles Hiler utilizes his vibrant sense of color and thorough knowledge of painting to capture likeness from the live subject in his Studio Visits series. In his Portraits on Pine Street series, the community came together to sit and pose and ultimately gather at the opening reception in a celebration of neighborhood friendship and camaraderie. 

Karissa Harvey, Shirley at the Beach

In three paintings by Karissa Harvey, the collaboration was among family members, separated by time and place. The Shirley Series presents a character portrait from photographs taken by the artist’s grandfather, reflecting another aspect of portraiture that connects the viewer to other places and times. Mikhail Gubin connects to the past through his works in reclaimed wood. His portraits give substance to enigmatic characters from poetry by Vladimir Mayakovsky, the Marquis de Sade (that liberatory libertine) as well as the more traditional portrait of the artist’s wife.

Mikhail Gubin, Rococo (Marquis de Sade)

These days, a portrait is not just about the subject of the work, it is also a personality test of the artist and the viewer. The ultimate test of our subjectivity and the success of the artwork is whether or not we can recognize part of ourselves in the depiction of the other. When you look at these portraits, what do you see?

-         Mary Gagler, Curator

Technology Becomes Them – Curatorial statement

Technology Becomes Them, on view in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery October 30 – November 21, 2015

Welcome to the neo-human era of art, on view in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery. For many, the latest suite of smart phones changes the way culture is experienced and remembered. Each artist in Technology Becomes Them creates work on a new aesthetic path where technology and humanity meet. The contemporary artists in this show employ traditional techniques and forms to explore the new fabric of reality, woven with ubiquitous technology and ever present internet communication.

Lisa Ficarelli-Halpern, Tech Cherubs (Pink Rust),
Silkscreen, 24x18", 2014, $250 

Lisa Ficarelli-Halpern creates hand-pulled prints reminiscent of Baroque wallpaper. Her contemporary color play and close cropped compositions are the first aesthetic vehicles grounding her work in contemporary visual vocabulary. Curious viewers are rewarded to discover the hidden gestures of cherubs and courtly personages and the banality of their focus: the figures are lost in their smartphones, tablets and laptops. While the figures refer vaguely to a distant time and place, the collision with technology reflects our own inane present-day obsessions.

Michael Burris Johnson mediates painterly observations of nature using the grid. The white rose bush in Patience is simplified into millions of tiny squares. While the imposed structure alienates the viewer from nature, this process also alleviates the strain of mimesis. The juxtaposed colors create a unity of lightly contrasting squares of color data. Standing in front of the work, the viewer is struck first by Johnson’s technique, and next by their own instinct to interpret beauty from a patchwork of color.

Michael Burris Johnson, "Patience", Oil on canvas, 42x84", 2015. Archival prints available for $80

Pat Lay, "54AAA0254C,"
Collaged digital scroll, inkjet 
printed on Japanese kozo paper, 
Tyvek backing, gold paint, 96x48",
2015, $6,500

Pat Lay refers to patterned works in art history and draws out the beauty of the computer matrix. Rather than mediating our experience, computer technology becomes the experience itself. The large scale of Lay’s collaged digital scrolls KB54AAA0468B and 54AAA0254C impose veneration while the pattern and shimmering color transfix the viewer. The paradoxical impression is one of aesthetic beauty and unknown strength- this could crush us while we are busy admiring it. The sculpted ceramic heads or “post-human power figures” combine fired clay and computer parts that stand eye to eye with the viewer. The implied functions and super human strength can be intimidating or comforting, depending on how far into the future you are willing to stare.

Judy Malloy, a pioneer hypertext poet from the early days of computing, has devised a series of phrases or lexias that comprise a poem. In Paths of Memory and Painting, the viewer is asked to navigate the poem by clicking the lexia that attracts them. An ethereal narrative emerges based on individual decision. The resulting form reflects the viewer’s desire for a certain path. The act of reading poetry and choosing what portion comes next alters the traditional form and a feeling of intimacy emerges between the viewer and the computer. We may be familiar with hypertext links on the internet that bounce us from one article to the next, but to do so for the purpose of art is a new experience.

Judy Malloy, "Paths of Memory and Painting," Hypertext literature, DHTML, 2010

In each case, the artist is revealing something beautiful yet foreboding, reminding us that the consequences of technology are only partially known to us. What will become of the world that does not fit on a screen? Will we always have the ability to love and share it IRL? In an age where any idea worth sharing comes with a pre-fab hashtag, I invite you to take a look around the gallery and admire the work of these four contemporary artists. Meanwhile, reflect on a question; if an exhibition doesn’t Instagram well, is it worth sharing? #TechnologyBecomesThem

-         Mary Gagler, Curator