Join Us this Friday, October 15, from 7-9 for the Opening Reception of "My Territory is the One You Stole From Me" New Works by Patricia Smith

MY TERRITORY IS THE ONE YOU STOLE FROM ME

Patricia Smith

October 15 - November 14, 2010
Opening: Friday, October 15, 7 - 9 PM

We are pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by Patricia Smith entitled, My Territory Is The One You Stole From Me. In her persona as a cartographer of the psyche, Smith delves deep into the subconscious to return to the surface with a planar view of unedited impulses and allegiances, exposing unmitigated and raw internal motivations. Her delicate ink and watercolor paintings and drawings act as organic architectural plans developed from emotional inner-workings, these highly detailed works expose the confused density of the mind, clarifying the often incongruous and oppositional standpoints of decision making and alliances.

There is a dark humor to Smith’s work as she turn a critical eye to the self, the atmosphere she builds through layers of stippling and washes of color complements her decisive pen-work used in defining the walls of these imagined plot plans. With these new works, the artist characterizes the physical space within the mind, mapping ideas and thoughts, giving a logical designation on paper to the intangible. Smith takes a position of authority as she uncovers the absurdity that can be found in complex reasoning and emotions, listing and verifying their structural whereabouts with certainty.

In her “Structural Containment for Reactive Clandestinism” organic chambers and enclosures form this proposed system for containment and capture. Smith daringly exposes the relevant placement and wall density necessary to secure secret thoughts and issues from escape; in these schemes areas are labeled as holding fields for “Mitigated truth”, “Clouded issues” “Negotiated risk”, “Trust issues” and “Stored resentment”. Smith emboldens her standpoint of authority for the commission of these plans with marked plot plan numbers and stamps such as used to approve building plans, but in an act of misdirection, Smith alters the terms stamped to such statements as “‘recalcitrant’ or “no fame, no shame”.

This is Patricia Smith’s third solo exhibition at the Front Room gallery. She has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the United States. In October her work will be featured in “Zweierlei” at Ausstellungsraum Klingental in Basel, Switzerland.

"Next Stop Atlantic" Extended through October 10th, Join us for the closing reception, tonight Friday, October 8th from 7-9pm

In his second solo exhibition at the gallery Mallon presents a stunning series of photographs, which capture the retirement of hundreds of New York City Subway cars to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

In a bold move, the NYC Transit authority joined the artificial reef building program off the East Coast of the US in 2000 and sent stripped and decontaminated subway cars off on barges to be dropped into the Ocean in order to build refuge for many species of fish and crustaceans which would colonize the structures.

Mallon traces the progress of the train cars on their way towards their last voyage, majestic waves approach the viewer in these large scale photographs as they too are transported out to sea to behold the lifting and transfer of these massive machines. One photograph hauntingly depicts elements of nature creeping into their barren hulls, drifts of snow lines the walkways, a glimpse of sunshine streams through their removed doors as they wait in stacks to be carted off to sink to the dark depths of the ocean floor.

Mallon's photographs elicit both the sadness and the beauty of cascading water overtaking these iconic figures of New York transit as they sink beneath the surface of the water; surges and sprays are caught in time. Stephen Mallon dedicated the last three years to following this endeavor, chronicling the last phase of NYC Transit's involvement in this program. The photographs that are presented in this exhibition capture the grandiosity of this effort; the weight of these 18-ton train cars can be felt as they are ferried off and plunged into the water.

These newly released photographs are from Mallon's continuing series; "American Reclamation" which chronicles and examines recycling processes in the U.S. This series holds optimism in the innovation of salvaging techniques, showing the possible gains that can be made as industrial waste is revivified. In "Next Stop Atlantic" Mallon determinedly tracks the final stage of the lives of these, once indispensable modes of transit for passengers on the New York subway lines, canonizing them in New York history.