‘INTRAMURALS’, an exhibition of work by artists curated (or refereed) by former local artist Chris Moss will run from May 3-25. The opening reception is on First Friday, May 4, from 6-9 PM.
About the show, Chris Moss says the following:
“The show is a bit of a love letter to Scranton. It was a home for me years ago and I always appreciated when some effort was made by people I knew in Scranton to make art from outside the tiny art scene there available to an interested public (Mark Webber and Steven Alexander specifically).
When AFA offered the chance to curate a show to me, I thought the best way to do this is to include the best new work I know of from where I am. So of course New York artists came to mind, because I live here. But also I made an effort to include other artists I know from elsewhere. Through friends and through friends of friends I’ve met, online and otherwise, a pretty diverse bunch of artists whose work I respect. More importantly I respect who they are and what they do. So I’ve included Lucy Mink who lives in New Hampshire, and Garric Simonsen from Spokane, Washington, and Heidi Pollard, who I met in New York but who lives in New Mexico now.
‘Intramurals’ is populated by artists who think seriously about art. It was important to me to include artists I believe are thinking not just about “art”, but who are also bringing something from life to their work. What I mean is they aren’t just passively “artists”, but they’re all actively thinking about who they are and what their daily experience of life is in relation to art-making. Stacy Fisher and Sarah Mattes both make abstract sculpture that are distillations of object/thoughts into hard fact. Stacy’s sculptures are like charred Mammoth bone fragments rendered in crude oil. Sarah Mattes makes abstract skeletons of balsa wood and cloth. Garric Simonsen and Ryan Steadman make more literal work. Garric makes paintings about the theme of intramurals, relay cones, helmets and soccer nets in encaustic, while Steadman’s work is a meditation on aged books. Gina Magid and Lucy Mink make paintings based on personal experience of their respective landscapes. Mink’s particular landscape being the home and her life with her family while Magid’s landscape is more focused on the escape and adventure of the road trip. Mink’s paintings are probably of piles of socks where Magid’s landscapes are more likely populated by roadkill, Shaman and car crashes. Brent Owens and Heidi Pollard, no strangers themselves to the personal in art, make dreams and half thoughts into objects. Pollard’s abstract paintings and referential objects are a way of communicating back to the world it’s own daily frustrations. Owens’ work in the show “To Pieces” and his wooden hero sandwiches and other objects are a funny dream/nightmare response to an accumulation of cultural experiences. Adam Thompson and Matthew Fisher make well articulated drawings and in Thompson’s case, recently, altered photographs that draw a certain kind of perfect if off kilter world. Thompson’s constellations and shelves of work remix what is possible to experience in real waking life. Fisher on the other hand distorts the pictorial to absurd and beautiful effect in his ink drawings. ”
Christopher Moss
http://christophermoss.NeoImages.net
Participants:
Matthew Fisher
Stacy Fisher
Gina Magid
Sarah Mattes
Lucy Mink
Brent Owens
Heidi Pollard
Garric Simonsen
Ryan Steadman
Adam Thompson
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