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In the ubiquity of the summer group exhibition, the viewer may find curatorial intentions to the tune of “there is something for everyone” rather than grouping artists unified by theme or materials. Summer is less formal and most galleries use this time as an opportunity to show young or emerging artists. At Mark Moore Gallery, “Ultrasonic International 1” exemplifies that attraction for a diverse summer group showing. Artist’s work from North America, Korea, Japan, Sweden and the United Kingdom are united in a sense of playfulness of subject, form and color, making for a visually loud presentation. The show opens with the scene of Craig Fisher’s sculptural fabric car, Wide Boy, crashed into a gallery wall. |
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In the ubiquity of the summer group exhibition, the viewer may find curatorial intentions to the tune of “there is something for everyone” rather than grouping artists unified by theme or materials. Summer is less formal and most galleries use this time as an opportunity to show young or emerging artists. At Mark Moore Gallery, “Ultrasonic International 1” exemplifies that attraction for a diverse summer group showing. Artist’s work from North America, Korea, Japan, Sweden and the United Kingdom are united in a sense of playfulness of subject, form and color, making for a visually loud presentation.
The show opens with the scene of Craig Fisher’s sculptural fabric car, Wide Boy, crashed into a gallery wall. Fashioned to look like crumpled metal scrap from a crash, the plush materials subvert the seriousness of the real event. The comical result is an effort to reconcile ideas in constant opposition, like hard/soft and masculine/feminine.
In four individual works, Kim Rugg obsessively dissected and reordered letters and pictures from the front page of newspapers back into their original layouts. Titles like Attack on Iraq clue the viewer to the message while the content, images and their meaning are reduced and abstracted into pure form and color. By manipulating the most easily recognized system for relaying information to the public, she is questioning those exacts methods.
Everything I Don’t Understand #3 (Masthead Ancestry) by Ali Smith explodes off the wall in that it is densely layered in color and texture. Abstract shapes, some referencing chairs or other vaguely familiar domestic items, pile up from top to bottom of the canvas, elegantly tapering to meet in the middle. The rainbow of heavy colors overwhelm the forms, yet we know that these objects are not completely without value; when you dig deeper through the cresting dump, moments of sentimentality are displayed with glitter paint or a lacy puff paint detail.
With sweet hues of purple, pink and blue, Emily Counts illustrates teenage narratives ripe in sexual overtones. In A Case for the Barebottom Detectives, two teenage girls explore a dark, dangerous cave in nervousness and wonderment. Both girls lift their skirts while examining the sharp protruding stalagmites, stalactites and substances oozing from rocks; they are caught in a moment right before they bump into one another from behind.
Opposite this mystery, another adventure is taking place. In an installation of five wood block cut-outs, Kenichi Yokono uses the traditional Japanese wood block printing technique to create a contemporary narrative referencing anime and science fiction. Nude men in space masks brandish hair clippers and chainsaws surrounding a four-legged creature or ship in the center of the installation.
Rendered in a photo-realistic technique, the original objects in Ben Weiner’s The Birth are obscured in a hazy, rich glow of gold, rose, burgundy and iridescent colors. The most familiar form resembles a large strand of pink pearls emerging from a block of melting ice, opulent in color and light. Visually, in both form and color, the work captures the urge, desire and appeal for consumer and luxury goods.
Outshining the bling, intrigues and tragedy is Kimberley Hart’s installation Decoy. Thirty eyeless, felt birds in three groupings hold in their beaks long strands of colorful, glittery, beaded necklaces as, sporadically, little letters spell out girls names, like Emily or Danielle. Indistinguishable from one another, each bird stands alone on a mound of latch hook carpet islands; the birds are as cute as their presence is unsettling. Referencing activities that young girls engage in together, the work is successful in describing the fleeting and sometimes fake relationships between members of this sex.In the second gallery space, Andrea Hornick constructs and transforms real and imaginary landscapes into traditional seascape paintings. Abstracted landmasses and ocean vessels comprised of geometric, painterly forms float on water while, above, seagull origami soar through the scene. The amalgam of shapes references contemporary and urban forms freshly discovered and explored in this anachronistic genre of painting.
Jun Ho Kwon’s assemblages address how house and home are considered in contemporary global society. Featured on the wall, Big Bang is a birdhouse collaged of maps, magazines and letters from America and Korea. The house is built upon a tripod and globe and then adjoined by vice grips suggesting how, individually, we gather and support the elements brought together to create home.
In two drawings by Jonas Ohlsson, the artist uses an aggressive, seemingly naïve style to represent the feelings of teenage rebellion and frustration. Volvo Ocean Race depicts two teenage boys, both outfitted in heavy metal t-shirts, one boy in a wheel chair, sharing the stage with a chained and masked female body builder slut. The black paper is littered with color; syringes, skulls, blood, studded bracelets and fireworks fill the space while the characters seem to be in sweaty pain/ecstasy over the dilemmas or consequences of a heavy metal lifestyle.
