New Realities @ John Fonda Gallery

New Realities
New paintings by Dan Perkins
Opening Friday, June 15th
7 - 9pm

Theatre Project
45 West Preston Street 
Baltimore 21201

Andrew Laumann : Hallowed Ground @ Pent House

Pent House Gallery presents the first solo exhibition of Baltimore artist/photographer Andrew Laumann (b. 1987). Andrew was born and raised in Baltimore, MD. After spending four years traveling, he settled back in Baltimore in 2009, where he has been living and working since. His work is concerned with the limbo between construction & destruction. Opening reception Februrary 25th from 7-11pm Closing March 3rd. Gallery hours TBA and by appointment (andrewlaumann@gmail.com) http://andrewlaumann.tumblr.com/

Installation Views & Essay from Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez's solo show Make / Shift @ Open Space

Make / Shift is on view at Open Space through March 10

All photos courtesy of Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez

MAKE / SHIFT

‎"Every feeling or desire we possess has been bought, sold or hijacked, debased or alternatively hyped into unreality, repressed or recuperated. Almost everything we care about has been turned into a commodity. But under a mountain of new gadgets and consumer items, in the midst of the 'new leisure society' and its cultural spectacles, we find ourselves cut off from real communication, frustrated and unhappy. Our isolation causes us to imagine that other people are happy and we wonder why our happiness eludes us." - Spectacular Times No. 12 (The Bad Days Will End), 1983 (via Gerry Mak's Facebook Status Update 1.21.2012)

Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez' Make / Shift subtly examines the contemporary labor dichotomy through a series of structures and images that straddle the boundary of physical and digital; design and execution. Each suggests the abundant production of real-estate and commodity along with entrepreneurial expansion, while giving equal visual attention to the issues of shoddy construction, compensation inequity, and halted production. Flooded with disparate messages of economic turmoil and the constant marketing of luxury goods via every available media outlet, Alvarez borrows from both news and advertisements to create a series of work that sneaks into the gap between the value of labor and the price of goods. 

Growing up a Cuban-American artist, Alvarez witnessed first-hand the divide in pay-scale between arduous, physical toil and specialized professions. Watching his father work a demanding landscaping job for a wage comparable to a few hours of his own design work, an inevitable guilt and unease began to pervade his practice. By incorporating construction material and building technique into his artwork Alvarez illustrates, and finds some personal reconciliation with that divide, while highlighting its larger societal implications.

A colorful work table, edged in custom paint treatments sits in the middle of space. Clean and functionless, the aesthetics and specific object arrangement take precedence over the practical, a 3D model of a work-table design. Hung on the walls around it are similarly color-treated images of interiors, building projects and immaterial monuments. Using free source imagery, photography of abandoned or unfinished housing developments, office parks, and temporary sets from Hollywood movie productions, Alvarez pacifies tensions with the application of a smooth, even gradient, creating deceptively elegant, glossy vignettes. Contemporary ruins are treated with a false-front of posterized perfection, the current state of decay is preserved and flattened into abstract digital illustrations. 1980's era color schemes and virtual spaces further reference a false commercial flourish. Transforming dormant, physical spaces into large-scale prints has turned each individually designed building into a labor-less duplicable and effectively marketable product once again. The print costs are low, the idealized commercial language is familiar, and our responses are conditioned. 

In a large vitrine sits a pile of misshapen cast concrete skulls, each with a plastic happy face icon from an Asian grocery bag embedded in its surface. Behind it in an altar-like arrangement, two collages with the same plastic faces, deformed by heat transfer, float upward in the composition. The piece serves as a small monument to the countless international workers on whose backs American wealth was built. With a political emphasis on new jobs and stimulating the economy through spending, there is a tendency to ignore the crumble, oppression and unattractive excess of our rapid low-quality / high-priced material production.

Alex Ebstein

January 2012

Kickstarter worth backing

Help Lesser reach his goal to make large-scale works for his solo show at Open Space in 2012!
His work is great, check out his website HERE

Jimmy Joe Roche: Under Pressure @ RARE (NYC) Opens TONIGHT

If you leave from Baltimore this afternoon, or are already in the area, don't miss the opening of Jimmy Joe Roche's 2nd solo show at RARE, Under Pressure.

Presenting new video pieces, sculptural installation and hand-cut paper pieces (which have become more 3 dimensional lately), Roche approaches each medium with a consistent intensity.

Opening Reception
Thursday, January 6, 6-9PM
547 W 27 St. #514
New York City 10001
Congrats Jimmy!  

Excerpts from Roche's new video work:

Closing Reception for Michael Dotson CURVES @ Nudashank

Michael Dotson

C̶U̶R̶V̶E̶S̶
Closing Reception Saturday, November 6
6 -9pm


Michael Dotson creates contemporary, synthetic landscapes that achieve a hi-tech sensibility through the use of low-tech media (paint and tape). Applying basic two-point perspective and color theory, Dotson creates vivid geometric simulations of imagined utopic environments. Interior and exterior virtual spaces are rendered with a hard-edged digital flatness that belies the fact that the work is made by the human hand.

From pimped out space-age cribs to a crashed, semi-submerged UFO in a crystal mountain lake, Dotson's imagery draws equally from video game nostalgia and idealized contemporary culture.

Also on view is a new series of pixelated marker drawings that turn universal pop symbology into personal iconography.

www.nudashank.com

Nudashank
405 W. Franklin 
FL 3
Baltimore, MD 21201

Hermonie Only's "Big Deal" @ Pent House

One of the most impressive solo exhibitions in recent memory, Hermonie Only's "Big Deal" included 2D work, sculpture and installation. For Only's show, Andrew Laumann, the gallery's curator, worked tirelessly to finish and transform the space from a primarily music venue into an awesome DIY gallery.  Using a limited palette, repetitive shapes and imagery (slanted, upside-down crosses, D&D die shapes) Hermonie created a haunting set of large-scale props and artifacts from a light hearted ritual.  Its really hard to photograph in there, better photos on the Pent House Gallery's tumblr

Michael Dotson CURVES Opening Reception @ Nudashank

MICHAEL DOTSON
CURVES

October 16 - November 6
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 16th, 7 - 10pm
Michael Dotson creates contemporary, synthetic landscapes that achieve a hi-tech sensibility through the use of low-tech media (paint and tape). Applying basic two-point perspective and color theory, Dotson creates vivid geometric simulations of imagined utopic environments. Interior and exterior virtual spaces are rendered with a hard-edged digital flatness that belies the fact that the work is made by the human hand.
From pimped out space-age cribs to a crashed, semi-submerged UFO in a crystal mountain lake, Dotson's imagery draws equally from video game nostalgia and idealized contemporary culture.
Also on view will be a new series of pixelated marker drawings that turn universal pop symbology into personal iconography.

Nudashank

H&H Bldg.

405 W. Franklin St.

3rd Floor

Baltimore, MD 21201

Hours by Appointment

Benjamin Edmiston's Talking Shop @ Infantree Gallery in Lancaster

A little bit of a trek, but definitely worth it if you're headed that way: Benjamin Edmiston's (Nudashank, Heady Mugs) "Talking Shop" opened at the Infantree Gallery in Lancaster, PA this past Friday. We were blown away by his intricate new works that depicted psychedelic heads, aquariums, decorated Greek vases, icebergs, snakes, and potted plants.