IN-HABITAT
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Julia Whitney Barnes
Gregory Curry
Lisa DiLillo
Kim Holleman
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January 20-February 19th
Opening Friday, January 20th 7-9
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Front Room Gallery is proud to present, “In-Habitat” an exhibition of new works by: Julia Whitney Barnes, Gregory Curry, Lisa DiLillo, and Kim Holleman. In the exhibition “In-Habitat” each artist takes a unique perspective of the concept of habitat, and what it is to inhabit this world.
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Gregory Curry’s paintings relate his postulations of a post human environment inspired by and extrapolated from the various dynamic conditions now impacting on the human animal. The environments and entities that populate his paintings seem imbued with pure energy on a primordial level, set against a background of contrasting complimentary colors. Curry utilizes familiar modes of representation such as rendering, perspective and classic spatial relationships in a way that draws the viewers into these uncanny realms, relating our temporality within an environment of elemental particles and genetic materials.
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Lisa DiLillo creates nocturnal landscapes and still lives that engage luminosity as a visual correlation to nature's life force. The photographs depict a liminal state where subjects are transforming or are in the process of coming into being, reflecting on our evolving environment and on unusual climatic occurances. The intensity and incertitude of these photographs underscore the idea that the more we investigate nature the more mystifying and complex it becomes.
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Rooted simultaneously in science while evoking the fantastic, Julia Whitney Barnes creates works that reinterpret life and the natural environment. Her paintings explore the complex relationship and power struggles of humans with nature, and the contradictions in which our society gives life to and reveres nature while abusing and overlooking it. Her large scale oil painting depicting a tree house abstracted with layers transparencies and lush patches of color, transposes elements of the forest and individual trees with the interior panels of a the structure, relating her desire for a more balanced relationship with nature.
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Kim Holleman relates environmental issues of contamination of our natural resources, brought on by radioactive fallout, chemicals seeping into ground water, oil spills and the ephemera in our petro-chemical environment. She infers the impact of these elements and the increasing toll on our natural environment, presenting an installation of displays and scenes, colliding natural and artificial reality, both fantastical and frightening, into a curio collection gone awry. This faux-scientific archive shows us beautiful, sometimes-toxic parks, public spaces, visions of nostalgic environments and constructions straining towards natural growth, but spinning out of control, coated to saturation which threatens their very existence.
Miho Suzuki's video and photography explores concepts in cultural anthropological studies in human nature. Her work uses her own experiences as a Universalist visual poetry of longing with a hint of the absurd. At the residency, Suzuki composed the first movement of “Paper Piano” a video of her fantasy of becoming an artistic pianist. Creating a paper piano and selecting idea practice spaces on the private grounds of the farm, Suzuki frames herself into the scenario she has created. On view will be a selection of photographs, the paper piano itself and a video presentation of the first movement of Suzuki’s “Paper Piano”.
Karen Marston’s disturbingly beautiful paintings of disasters, both natural and man-made, instill a sense of awe in the growing litany of frightening disasters consuming the world around us: volcanoes, tornadoes, tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns, global warming, war upon war. During the residency, Marston painted outdoors, absorbed in peaceful, beautiful scenes, capturing the immediacy of nearby landscapes. Not exactly disparate, the dark shadows in the woods and the forming clouds hint at destructive power, while the oil fires in her studio work are as gorgeous as they are deadly. Exploring the subtle movements of the light and sky, the colors, shapes and emotional tenor of a particular place in the moment has informed and deepened her studio work year round. Marston is equally influenced by the history of awe inspired landscape painting (from Turner’s storms to Church’s icebergs), as by the stream of violent images in our daily news feed, as well as the direct dialog with nature and organic form fed from painting plein air.
Sascha Mallon’s presents in this exhibition a new series of ceramic sculptures that are inspired by figures from her intensive drawing works. Her time at the residency allowed for the development of two-dimensional figures to 3-d representations. Imagioned as objects discovered in the forest, these delicately formed pieces are encased in selected wooden boxes to give the impression that they are mementos from a lost world. Mallon’s work, in both her drawing practice and this new series of sculptural works create a narrative from history: history of symbiosis of man and nature, but also history of human imperfection, bringing to life protagonists of stories about greed, fear, love, hurt, emptiness and beauty.
Thomas Broadbent’s large scale watercolor paintings convey the importance of books as well as the sense of loss that has occurred with the advent of technologies such as smart phones, e-books and computers. During the residency Broadbent was able to enjoy the isolated environment and focus on further developing this series. These works on paper are developed from principal concepts and ideas from Broadbent’s private artist’s log. Broadbent’s sensitivity to color, tactility, and structure propel these thoughts into reality, while maintaining a key tie to illusion and metaphor. His goal in these works is not to fetishize the book but to point out its place at this pivotal moment in history.
