|
<< back to Salon Homepage
The word verge can take on many different meanings: the words on the verge create tension between past and future, but a verge can also be a simple border dividing two (sometimes opposing) parts, an enclosing boundary, an architectural element, a rod, the shoulder of a road, and many other things. Yet the word’s every-day use in American English sets the expectation that something is about to happen. This impending change has a gloomy feel – still the expression “on the verge of…” does not necessarily need to be followed by something negative. Thanks to the diversity of the eight artists chosen to participate at the show, visitors gets to think about different perspectives on contemporary matters and/or to have a glance at the artist’s personal experiences.
While the works by Katayoun Vaziri, Theresa Marchetta, or Hayley McCulloch fit very well into current political issues, Dylan DeWitt’s, Loie Hollowell’s and Yui Kugimiya’s works are of a conceptual or mundane nature, dealing with tension and boundaries but containing neither obvious political nor obvious personal references. Dio Mendoza and Leslie Smith draw on personal experiences, and reconstruct tensely pregnant situations of waiting in limbo.
Common spaces serve as the stage for Dylan DeWitt’s work, exploring the boundaries between art and the every-day. DeWitt’s site-specific installations often escape the observer’s eye, only to be discovered either through attentive observation or through coincidences that direct attention to details that challenge thinking about the characteristics that turn a simple gesture into art.
Loie Hollowell’s digital large-scale prints might, at the first glance, appear to be close-up portraits of a person, both perfect and surreal. Upon a second view it is revealed that the face does not belong to a real person, but rather is a mirrored image of one half of the artist’s face. These portraits challenge modern beauty cannons suggesting that perfectly even, symmetrical and balanced faces are desirable – although even our beauty-obsessed culture might question the desire for perfection in front of these works.
Tokyo-born Yui Kugimiya references the Japanese Avant-Garde, mixed with a touch of punk. Usually known for her colorful, large-scaled, multi-layered paintings that make use of anything but conventional materials, and the animated videos emerging from those paintings, Kugimiya here will show small study-sized paintings full of tension: soft and hard, opaque and shiny, square and round, oil and wool.
Theresa Marchetta’s work often explores socio-political and economic situations. For this show Marchetta will present a portrait of PBS News reporter Gwen Ifill, host of Washington Week. As moderator of the Vice Presidential Debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, Ifill stood between two opposing candidates, embodying other opposites such as left and right, hope and despair, past (present) and future.
British artist Hayley McCulloch works with different media, often times exploring socio-political issues, as well as her British roots. The formally direct piece, which she conceived specifically for this show, leans on current political issues while playing with linguistic differences between American and British English, incorporating the direct British meaning of verge into the pieces.
The work of Mexican artist Dio Mendoza often involves the people around him, as for example in the body of work he created as artist in residence with the New Haven Hospital’s Cancer Unit. Over a period of several weeks, Mendoza established such a trust that the patients undergoing chemotherapy - some even in terminal stages - allowed him to make portraits showing the very obvious signs of their illness. These portraits also show that apparently opposing intimate feelings, such as pride, strength, expectation, fear and fragility, can coexist in one single image. With the unusual situation of his subjects, Mendoza challenges “the idea of who gets to own original art in our society and the art market”.
Leslie Smith’s colorful paintings are full of tension, often depicting a certain aggressiveness, without really telling too much about the aggressor or the victim. By only showing parts of the subjects which do not reveal their (social) status or their race, the paintings challenge our beliefs; as observers we know that something is about to happen, but it is up to us to finish the story.
Iranian-born artist Katayoun Vaziri creates work investigating socio-political questions. For this show Vaziri has contributed a series of drawings, including one that depicts her childhood hero Mohammed Mosaddeq. Mosaddeq, an Iranian liberal nationalist, was Prime Minister from 1951 to 1953, and responsible for the nationalization of Iranian Oil. After only two years of leadership, Mossadeq was put into prison “thanks” to a coup d’état supported by Britain (which had suffered s a result of the oil nationalization) and the CIA (which explained its participation as necessary in order to prevent a communist take-over). With this drawing, the artist invites everyone to re-examine both history and their own beliefs – what if…?
-Tiffany Hunold
For more information on the artists please email tiffsprojects@gmail.com
|
