Lost Paradise, 2018. Graphite, photography, acrylic, plastic and collage on museum board, 32in. x 40.5in.
ANNA BROELL BRESNICK
MENAGERIE | WEST GALLERY
JANUARY 10 - FEBRUARY 9, 2019
Drawing content Birds as chosen image/subject is universally used in mythology, folk lore, music and literature worldwide – able to move from culture to culture. Free flying – leaves room for interpretation – implies false freedom Birds fly in empty space – the artist can therefore create an environment for them No need for horizon line – ambiguous/all space Birds are actively involved in the environment – flying implies vulnerability and leaves room for content interpretation The content of these drawings expose the false assumption continually made about the ecological health of our planet and depict natures increasing inability to repair the destruction caused by the greed/power of some and the lack of power to help of others. Birds are rarely used for personification
ALEXIS CROWLEY
MENAGERIE | WEST GALLERY
JANUARY 10 - FEBRUARY 9, 2019
All of my work is about internal struggles. Often I work off of pop song lyrics or cliches that take complex ideas and flatten them, and through my work try to re-complicate them. In this series (All Dogs Go to Heaven) I chose imagery based on a native american story, about a morality struggle represented by fighting dogs, that has been bastardized in popular media. In it’s original context and language the story better represented the nuance of life, but in modern blockbuster movies and entertaining novels it was presented more as propaganda. Allowing us to believe that we can be good and just by willing it. But my good is your evil, and nobody lives in a vacuum. Can we tell which dog is the good one? Does that matter? Love and hate is fluid in (these works) (my emotional body) (relationships) (everything).
DANIELLE MAILER
MENAGERIE | WEST GALLERY
JANUARY 10 - FEBRUARY 9, 2019
This body of work is a collection of my most intricately patterned animal themed works. Once a curator placed me in the P&D movement (Pattern and Decretive) I was thrilled to find a niche nestled in among the Greats; Gustav Kilmt, Miriam Schapiro, Niki de Saint Phalle, Yayoi Kusama, William Morris, to name a few, all of whom inspire me. The mantra for this Movement is, “To make pattern is to make human”. With regards to my own self-expression this sentiment resonated. My need to pattern is urgent, a kind of checking in on my psyche, as my hand leapfrogs from shape to shape until the particulars read as a whole. I confess my penchant for making animals comes from a New York City childhood with an eccentric artist Mother who collected “displaced” (now called rescue) critters. I have vivid memories of the kitties running right over her palette and distributing colored paw prints on the parquet floor of our crowded Upper Westside apartment. Also I recall a collection of Pugs and or Dachshunds never housebroken, and so many Cockatiels flying free around the apartment’s perimeter. Throughout my work, like the mortar in an elaborate mosaic, are my strongest influences: My Peruvian heritage, the colorful echo’s of Mother's large abstract expressionistic paintings, and the words of my Father, the late Norman Mailer, who always said, “paint what you know”. While I have never liked the label “Whimsical”, I recognize that my art is often playful and energetic. And with every brushstroke there is a desire to put forth into the cosmos a modest but insistent message of optimism.
ALISON PALMER
MENAGERIE | WEST GALLERY
JANUARY 10 - FEBRUARY 9, 2019
I’ve always been drawn to ancient ceremonial vessels. My work is about the celebration of life and the natural world. Animal imagery in clay has always been my chosen expression. One of my first pottery teachers told me that I was working my clay to death. I interpreted that to mean that I might be able to resuscitate it if I added a nose. That decision dictated the path I would follow for forty years. Sometimes I make pots into animals and sometimes animals out of my pots. My search is to find the balance between pottery form and animal form and make them fit as one. I strive to achieve a lighthearted meld of the human and animal form. These anthropomorphic figures are developed by throwing and altering the stoneware clay and wood-firing and/or soda-firing them to cone 10. The fire and ash contribute to the spontaneous and unpredictable finish which gives the pieces a primitive, elemental look.
BRIAN KEITH STEPHENS
MENAGERIE | WEST GALLERY
JANUARY 10 - FEBRUARY 9, 2019
What is reality? Brian Keith Stephens’ playfully painted & palate knife scraped masterpieces, unconsciously entices the viewer to complete an experience for themselves. This subjective perception leads to an unavoidable internalization and is individually exclusive, utterly unique. Brian’s work engages the casual gazer, or pensive admirer to have a co-stake in each creation, prodding them to add mental brush strokes to finish a relatable fantasy. Does foreground infringe on background, or does the painting as a whole infringe on traditional notions of reality? These bold images connote escapism, beckon mutiny against the status quo, jarring loose tales of innocence through youthful exuberance. This exhibition conjures beautiful thoughts relived of simple times, before the transition to implacable societal roles had become concrete hard, fixed. Solace can be found in adolescence, when natures language was easy to speak and understand. Here in also lies the duality of how Stephens must balance out visually what must be revealed to convey his artistic vision. Comparable to a strong magnet, both capable of attracting, or repelling: pigments must also be structured to float on the surface, or be pushed to recede into subtle obscurity. Command over the oil medium successfully conveys a realistic, “not of this earth”, modern fable narrative. Every canvas is rendered using principles of visual economy, where ambiguity yields surprising clarity, nourishing a receptive mind to embrace a tantalizing concoction of seemingly disjointed images. The effect is not unlike imbibing an alcoholic beverage to alleviate an overly burdened mind, tranquility invades, erasing adult tension, followed by bliss. Fears of youthful abandonment on the brink of imminent extinction cease, life’s mundane rituals of a staid existence encroaching on simple pleasures are eradicated. Ripe is the time to engage in laissez faire frivolity, sanctuary will once again be found when you - RUN WITH ME BABY. — EON J. KNOX
Mammoth, 2012. Cut japanese paper, mineral pigments, polymer emulsion, ink, marble dust, hide glue, bole, 23K gold leaf on canvas over panel, 8in. x 10in.
CLAY WITT
MENAGERIE | WEST GALLERY
JANUARY 10 - FEBRUARY 9, 2019
My paintings seek to inhabit the fluctuating space between the mythological world and its natural inspiration. I envision animal and flaming forms as silent witnesses to the earth’s changes and upheavals, both real and otherworldly, and those of my pictures that they inhabit cast them as sentinels of mystical experience, existing apart from human experience. My idiosyncratic technique aspires to the practice of a ritualized art, combining a series of meticulous processes that incorporates symbolic mineral, vegetal, and animal materials into images that underscore the obscure atmosphere of the subject matter. Each piece incorporates many layers of ground minerals suspended in glaze, abraded and burnished to mimic the patina of geological time. Trees and waves of cut Japanese paper are collaged within these layers, adding hard-edged graphic definition to the composition. The animals and flames sit proud from the surface, carved from marble gesso, then gilded and burnished to a glowing shine, some covered with copper engravings printed on almost transparent silk tissue, and then selectively covered with additional glazes that unite their shallow relief with the layers below. The result is a complex visual and mythological narrative, simultaneously familiar and disorienting.
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