Saturday, June 27, 2020 at 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
GR Art Gallery
1086 Long Ridge Road
Stamford, CT 06903
The exhibition, “Eschaton” deals with the notion of (human) progress. It is generally known and accepted that nature builds upon complexity, and that each stage of evolution happens more rapidly than that which proceeded it. From the dubious spontaneity of the “Big Bang” to complex chemistry, biology to social animals, consciousness to civilizations, totalitarian agriculture to culture industry, and consumer fetishism, but to what end. Such a trajectory suggests that all things are moving towards a destination, and this body of work explores both where we have been and where we may be headed.
The exhibition consists of a series of drawings and a series of paintings, as well as installation and sculpture designed specifically for the gallery space. Each of these works have a sense of transience or flux. As if actively assembling and disassembling themselves, the works are self-referential. They are as much works of art as they are questions posed about what art is, and its ability to be a tool for liberation in the progress trap. Fluidly moving between abstraction and representation, pictorial elements ground us, while pure abstraction grossly undermines our sense of reality. A pastiche of surfaces is built layer upon layer in which materials and objects are drenched in hidden significance containing multiple meanings. Symbolic and uncanny this exhibition eludes to particular moments in human history (past, present, and future). However, when dealing with something as evasive as the big “life” dilemma, you naturally encounter inconsistencies, ironies, and paradoxes. The construction of the work itself remains an analogy for this. Boasting pretentiously as high art and transcendental, and yet honest and humble. Canvas and frames torn and exposed, each piece remains transparent in regard to what it is in the physical word- an “art object”.
The creation of these works became as much a philosophical dissertation and compartmentalizing of ideas as it was simply the execution of the artistic practice. This is an important point to note. Much like thought, each of these pieces seem to be isolating a particular trope, concentrated and complete onto itself. Only when a bit of distance and perspective is employed does the ubiquitous nature of things become apparent. Formal design elements and continuity of materials and visual language acts as a connective tissue bridging the separate works, (and the concepts they are dealing with) to one another. A dialogue between the pieces develops as one experiences them in the space, exposing underlying themes. It could be said that the exhibition is as much about the viewers’ experience of this connectivity as it is the other theories and concepts that it explores. Moments of grief and confusion, sublimity and fear, exists amongst references to the exploitation of nature, tool making, the conquest of land and human folly. Wonderment and bliss flirts with both triumph and tragedy. This exhibition is merely a series of observations on these points; posing questions rather than answers. Because art offers viewers a unique opportunity for willing contemplation, thought provocation, and introspection, it may very well be the catalyst to a more harmonious future. In modern society, it often takes an unforeseen disturbance from life’s routines to evoke emotional and intellectual processes that are essential for the human psyche to reflect, adapt, and grow. Experiencing art fosters these reactions, thereby creating an occasion for gaining wisdom with less conflict.