front room gallery: February 2010

“Space of Mind, works on paper” Opens Friday, February 26th

“Space of Mind, works on paper”
With works by: Thomas Broadbent, Emily Roz and Patricia Smith
February 26th-March 28th
Reception: Friday, February 26th, 7-9
Williamsburg Armory Event: Saturday, March 6th, 7-midnight
Hours: Friday-Sunday 1-6 and by appointment

We are pleased to present, “Space of Mind, works on paper” a three artist exhibition of the medium, including works by Thomas Broadbent, Emily Roz and Patricia Smith.

In this exhibition, Patricia Smith presents a series of drawings that re-create the physical space within the mind, mapping ideas and thoughts, giving a logical designation on paper to the intangible. Elusive concepts become concrete under the hand of Smith as she delicately lays out paths and constructions, marking these thoughts like territories. The language Patricia Smith uses clarifies desires and creates a foundation for imaginative thinking to flourish.

Emily Roz’s new works in this show captivate the viewer with images of core animalistic behaviors in feeding. Roz investigates this most basic primitive directive, with stunning depictions of wild animals in seemingly native habitats, revealed as illusion, with her insertion of domestic floral. These works display the incongruity within wild, natural impulses and the human desire to cultivate beauty, with the propagation of plant-life.

Thomas Broadbent, known for his large-scale sculptural installations, presents new works on paper that explore existentialistic ideas through trompe l’oeil representations of seemingly unrelated objects and scenes. These works stride between illusion and metaphor to consider the physical reality of each piece and its representative elements. Broadbent’s detailed watercolors and drawings question the utility of each component when presented in such a manner to disengage and re-present their perceived use.

Join us for Tonight's 2nd Friday event in Williamsburg

This Friday, February 12, 2010, Front Room gallery will be open late for Williamsburg's 2nd Friday event. Participating galleries in the WGA will open their doors late, for a fun festive evening of art viewing. If you have not yet gotten the chance to visit Sasha Bezzubov's exhibition, "Wildfire" this is the last weekend. So take advantage of the comparably warm weather and join us for a glass of wine or a frosty beer.

Final Weekend of Sasha Bezzubov's "Wildfire" Exhibition

This coming weekend is the last weekend to view Sasha Bezzubov's "Wildfire" exhibition.
On view through this Sunday, February 14, 2010.

"Wildfire"
Photographs by Sasha Bezzubov
January 8th—February 14th
Viewing hours: Fri-Sun 1-6 and by appointment

Front Room Gallery is pleased to present Sasha Bezzubov's "Wildfire." This will be the first public exhibition of photographs from Bezzubov’s recent book by the same name, published by Nazraeli Press. In the “Wildfire” series Bezzubov focuses on the devastation wrought by wildfires on the American west, with dramatic large-scale landscapes containing charred, burned-out forests, houses and neighborhoods. In one image a spiral staircase rises skyward out of the wreckage, the last remnant of a once standing home. Other photographs in this series focus on the damage inflicted on nature, the pine forests, and whole mountainsides reduced to ashes.

These heartwrenchly beautiful landscapes draw us in and confront us with the uncomfortable notion that we might be somehow to blame. In the introduction to the book ”Wildfire,” writer Bill McKibben explains these distressing statistics: in the last 35 years the number of fires increased by a factor of four; the average fire went from lasting a week to lasting five; the total area burned increased by six and a half times; the average fire season increased by 78 days, or 64 percent. McKibben then goes on to express that these fires are an indicator of global climate change, caused in part by the earlier thaws of snow in the mountains and longer dry seasons. Within these series of photographs, the larger scope of our involvement with the natural world and our ability to protect and preserve against some of the more devastating effects of natural disasters is brought to question…are we to blame, and can we prevent the onslaught of wildfires, are just a few of the questions that arise from Bezzubov’s most recent series.

This is Sasha Bezzubov’s third exhibition at the Front Room Gallery, and a continuation of his ongoing series “Things Fall Apart,” landscape photographs of the aftermath of natural disasters. This series, which began in 2001, contains photographs of forest fires, earthquakes, tidal waves, and tornados, around the world. “Wildfire,” Bezzubov’s most recent presentation from this larger series, targets an intimate look at the catastrophic impact of these uncontrollable fires on many varied landscapes, from urban to wilderness.

Front Room gallery