Bonnie Brenda Scott's Installation in Bambi's Lovely Things at Projects Gallery

“Untitled," Matthew Osborn

Drawing seems like an everyday activity for Matthew Osborn, using whatever surface is at his disposal. Whether drawing on a late payment notice or on notes during phone conversations, his fantastical drawings are an escape from life’s tedious details. Many of his works have a dark humor. On the late payment notice, two ailing figures cry out in anguish for water with the announcement that the pipes will be shut off. In another untitled work, “GRAVE” is written on a tombstone and on the container that sits nearby, “GRAVY”.

Besides the words themselves, the gravy’s placement seems illogical as a token of respect. However, as an offering, it can be seen as one of life’s simple pleasures, or more pessimistically, one of its few.

“From the “Craftsmen Series," “Mallet” and “Wrench," Stacy Lee Webber, pre-1982 Copper Pennies

In her Craftsmen Series, Stacy Lee Webber uses coins as a source of metal to create tools. Her “Wrench,” “Mallet,” and “Clamp” are beautifully crafted out of copper metal, reflecting a respect for manual labor and blue collar workers. Her decision to use pennies as a sculptural material also acknowledges the low compensation for physical work and the lack of value it receives. While the work can be appreciated for its earnestness, it seems overly moralistic.

One of the artist’s “Samples”

The artist also has small sculptures that appear in shadow boxes. Despite being studies, these sculptures use materials in more interesting ways, and reveal a more complex process.

Bonnie Brenda Scott’s installation

Bonnie Brenda Scott’s installation resembles a ceremonial site with its inclusion of occultist imagery, ghostly apparitions, and skeletal remains. Confessions, unspoken desires, and thoughts are written on the walls in a misty haze of spray paint, giving them the appearance of ghost writing. Overall, the installation reads as a yearning for the supernatural power and wish fulfillment.

Jim Garvey, From Here to There

In “From Here to There” by Jim Garvey, a wooden structure casts a shadow and partially obscures a looping projection of mashed-up television footage. The structure is composed of ladders, and their placement at unusual angles creates a feeling of uncertainty and confusion. Red lights attached to the wooden structure also add to this sense of chaos in the darkened space, and the video’s quick cuts and booming soundtrack create a sensory overload. Although the video is partially hidden, violence, celebrities, and other subjects of cultural fascination are still visible. By partially obscuring the video, Garvey draws attention to our continuous consumption of these images through a mediated experience.

Overall, the show seems like a nod to Bambi’s past, and a desire to continue supporting artistic production.

Susan B. Howard's A Day in the Life at Projects Gallery

On closer inspection, the paintings do show signs of discord. In A Day in the Life, the elongated form of a snake cuts across the bottom of the canvas, while a black spider dangles in the upper left corner. The animals’ eyes goggle disconcertingly, and the red halos around some of Howard’s creatures look uncannily like blood.

Considering the even balance of Howard’s compositions, it was a surprise to learn that Howard never plans her paintings before she begins. Instead, she covers her canvasses with washes, and then finds shapes in the residue to build up into animals, plants, and flowers. The result is a richly textured surface of layered paint inscribed with linear patterns. The uncertainty inherent in Howard’s work process mirrors her concerns about the fate of our natural environment. The name of her show, “Tipping Point,” signifies the natural world’s precarious future as well as the unresolved tensions between the creatures in her paintings.

Bambi Gallery features exhibits by both Matthew Osborn and Erin M. Riley. Osborn’s exhibit, “Dead Reckoning,” wraps around the main gallery space. The pieces vary in quality—some are highly rendered paintings; others are doodles on yellow legal paper—but skull, owl, spade, and ghoul motifs appear repeatedly. Intended to be viewed from left to right, Osborn’s exhibit conveys the exponential difficulty of searching for self-identify while remaining unaware of one’s origins. The final painting in the cycle, Chopping Block, depicts the inevitable conclusion to life’s narrative.

Matthew Osborn's "Chopping Block" at Bambi Gallery

Tucked away in the back space of the gallery, Erin M. Riley’s exhibit “How’s My Driving” is more than worth seeking out. Riley approaches her woven tapestries of cars as a way to explore the father-daughter dynamic. In many cases, she feels that the car can become a man’s “baby” or replacement child. Half of the tapestries are “portraits” of the actual cars her family owned from the time she was born until the present day. The other tapestries in the exhibit feature traffic accidents: overturned cars, cars with broken windows, and black skid marks on an otherwise empty road. With Riley’s analogy in mind, these tapestries become ominous depictions of the scars of childhood abuse.

Erin M. Riley’s “Mack” at Bambi Gallery

As I walked into Little Berlin Gallery’s group show “Value City,” artist Scott Bickmore was in the process of hanging an orange bicycle wheel on a wall. This, he explained, was the beginning of a collaborative, orange-themed piece that will be constructed over the course of this coming month. Anyone is welcome to work on the piece and will be compensated for doing so. Before I left the gallery, Bickmore—fittingly attired in orange clothing and sipping from a bottle of orange soda—had already garnered several contributions, including a lock hair from a redheaded visitor. Bickmore’s piece has been purchased by Hyperion Bank, where it will be installed once it is complete.

A visitor gives a lock of hair to Scott Bickmore’s (left) collaborative artwork

Two other pieces in “Value City” demanded attention in their innovative use of wall space. Sebastien Leclercq’s Co-opteration, a mural made from blue masking tape, juxtaposes two images from his previous works: a pyramid of grids and a handshake. As a symbol of merging, the handshake is hopeful gesture to Leclercq. However, he acknowledges that its meaning is ultimately ambiguous, since merging can imply the loss of individual identity.

Sebastien Leclercq’s Co-opteration at Little Berlin Gallery

Carolyn Salas’ Rug Project is a variegated and intricately patterned oriental rug. Not until I was only a few feet away from the piece did I realize that Rug Project, tassels and all, is constructed entirely from pieces of carpet foam padding. As Salas intended, I immediately felt new appreciation for the potential of this usually concealed material.

Carolyn Salas’ Rug Project at Little Berlin Gallery

Jenna Wilchinsky and curator Masha Badinter’s contribution to “Value City” was a cake formed in the shape of an ATM machine. Visitors to the exhibit were allowed to break off chunks to eat. It’s not hard to guess how this work of art evolved—or, rather, devolved—over the course of the evening!

Jenna Wilchinsky and Masha Badinter’s cake--before consumption began

]]> http://www.theartblog.org/2010/05/see-what-happens-evolutionary-artwork-at-projects-bambi-and-little-berlin/feed/ 3 http://www.theartblog.org/2009/04/weekly-update-matthew-osborns-world-and-candida-hofers-philadelphia/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=weekly-update-matthew-osborns-world-and-candida-hofers-philadelphia http://www.theartblog.org/2009/04/weekly-update-matthew-osborns-world-and-candida-hofers-philadelphia/#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:06:30 +0000 roberta http://theartblog.org/?p=6110  This week’s Weekly has my review of Matthew Osborn at Pageant and Candida Hofer at Arcadia.  Below is the copy with some pictures.

Matthew Osborn’s “My Bones – Your Skin” at Pageant and “Candida Hofer – Philadelphia” at Arcadia University are two shows that take you to the limits of 2-D art being shown locally.  Osborn’s drawings and Hofer’s color photographs represent some of the best of what’s being done here — from hip musings in ink on paper by a young local talent to majestic architectural photographs by an internationally-acclaimed artist at the top of her game.

Matthew Osborn, drawing from his show at Pageant. The artist plays with the duality of personality and with the difficulties in personal relationships.

Osborn’s show is chock full of drawings and paintings and a video animation.  The 50-something works in the show — all made in the last two months according to gallerist Daniel Dalseth – are but a small fraction of what the artist brought to the gallery to install.   (See short clip of the video here.)

Matthew Osborn, drawing. The words are an important part of the drawings which sometimes have an R. Crumb-ian notebook style of internal musings

The images combine cartoon characters and words in turgid, funny, chatty, confessional pieces that channel both monsters and our better angels.  Osborn’s fascinated with the duality of identity and people’s ability to slip from one face to another.  At a time of increasing cyber-identity games and confusion, the many-faceted human personality is a great subject to be working.

Matthew Osborn. Scary image, sweet (or could be interpreted that way) sentiment of the words.

Part of the charm of the works is their word-smithing.  Osborn is a gifted artist/writer on par with Scottish artist David Shrigley.  In places the words achieve almost Hallmark Card sentiments about relationships and inner strength “Last night, today, tomorrow, forever” says one poster-like work with a pattern of upside-down spades in red, black and white.  “Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled,” says another.  In both works you might expect a pleasant graphic to accompany the words but what you get instead is a big hairy monster shouting the phrase at you like in some nasty dream.  And hello art buyers, Osborn’s works are incredibly affordable—prices range from $10-$1000 with most works priced under $100. 

Candida Hofer, Beth Shalom Synagogue Philadelphia I. 2007 C-print. 72 7/8 x 97 ¼ inches (185 x 247 cm). Photo courtesy Sonnabend Gallery. The photo captures the building's nautical charms. The sails, the mast...and the almost '50s auto ornament colored sculpture are captured beautifully.

Hofer, a German artist, came to town in 2007 via a local connection, collector Mari Shaw, who helped the artist gain access to the interiors of some of Philadelphia’s landmark buildings.  Hofer, who is known for her photos of historic interiors makes large scale works with crisp detail that showcase rooms where humans interact, laws get written, books get read and audiences watch.  

Candida Hofer, City Hall Law Library, 2007. C-print. 72 7/8 x 98 3/8 inches (185 x 250 cm). Photo courtesy of Sonnabend Gallery.

Hofer has made works that enfold the viewer in their spaces and make them feel the space with their bodies.  After the 911 attacks Hofer had not done a photo shoot in the US until now, she said at a seminar at Slought the year she was here.  The buildings she chose in Philadelphia continue her fascination with light, color, space and the activities of humans. 

Candida Hofer, Masonic Temple Philadelphia I, 2007. C-print. 72 7/8 x 97 ¼ inches (185 x 247 cm). Photo courtesy of Sonnabend. As with all her photos, she puts you right inside that space where you feel you are surrounded by the ceiling, walls, decoration and details. It's photo magic.

Last January, Hofer’s Chelsea gallery, Sonnabend, exhibited eight of the Philadelphia photographs (see all).  Four are on display at Arcadia and even if you know the buildings(PAFA’s Furness building; Fisher Library at University of Pennsylvania; Beth Shalom Synagogue; Masonic Temple) you will be wowed by the images which allow you to linger in the rooms and observe details you would probably overlook when visiting them in person.

>>Matthew Osborn-My Bones-Your Skin, to May 2.  Pageant Gallery, 607 Bainbridge St.,  215 925 1536

>>Candida Hofer-Philadelphia, to April 19.  Lecture and reception, Sat. April 11, 4 PM, Stiteler Auditorium and reception to follow in the gallery.  Arcadia University Art Gallery, Spruance Fine Arts Center, 450 South Easton Rd, Glenside.  215 572 2131. 

Matthew Osborn, untitled drawing at Pageant’s Rag and Bone.

Rag and Bone, Pageant Gallery’s Winter Invitational, brings together 26 artists, some of them familiar names and some gallery newcomers.  The exhibition continues Pageant’s shaggy-around-the-edges aesthetic – drawings pinned to the walls; tv monitors sitting on the floor;  sculpture in the gallery’s odd nooks and crannies.  It’s a sprawling show and treasures abound.
 

Matthew Osborn, Financial Oblivion

Matthew Osborn‘s wall of cartoon drawings kept me engaged for quite a while.  “Tools are weapons and weapons are tools” says one drawing of an alien-like man in a white shirt and striped tie whose hands shake. Osborn is one part cartoonist one part philosopher like internationally-acclaimed artist David Shrigley whose angsty and verbally-adept works are in this year’s Carnegie International. 

Osborn’s drawings evoke Philip Guston as well as Shrigley.

Osborn has his eyes on the world as well as on his inner id.  “Financial oblivion” is repeated in one drawing of a man being swallowed by a fat, toothy worm.  Osborn, who is a painter, will have a show at Pageant in March, said gallerist Daniel Dalseth.
 

Sarah Everton’s German Shepherd in a Blanket

Works on paper make up a good part of the show.  Sarah Everton‘s drawing German Shepherd in a Blanket features a dog overlaid with a manic diamond pattern that creates an odd fight between the animal and the man-made, the natural and the decorative. 

Kate Stewart, Room with a View.

Kate Stewart‘s new photo collages with figures in interior spaces take her work in a great new direction—adding the surreal figures adds interest;

Christopher George‘s Washing Machine Song — lyrics written on a small piece of paper and nailed to the wall — is an odd relic.

 
Terry Adkins, First Feed, red velvet and Jimi Hendrix.