FEBRUARY 13- MARCH 6, 2016
Opening Reception Saturday February 13th, 6-10pm
Rooms 1 & 2:
John Isiah Walton
Rodeo
B.1985 New Orleans, LA
Rodeo is a body of work depicting the rodeo of Angola state prison. I used the color pink to add movement to the figures and it also pays homage to Picasso rose period. I wanted to catch one of the perks of being on good behavior in the Louisiana prison system.
Room 3:
Vanessa R. Centeno
Fully Loaded
Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas Ms. Centeno received her bachelors in fine arts from the San Francisco Art Institute In 2005. She later obtained her master of fine arts in May 2014 from the University of New Orleans. She currently lives and works in New Orleans. Her recent exhibitions have included the Ogden, New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Contemporary Arts Center in NOLA.
Fully Loaded plays with the appeal of color, form and the synthetic lure of consumer goods. Using canvas, bright acrylic colors, and glittery accents I mimic the sleek appeal of commodities and plastic objects. These sculptural paintings reflect the anthropomorphic characteristics that objects and consumer goods can emulate. It is my belief that all inanimate objects posses’ an internal reflection of our hopes, fears and desires to be something more. Investigating the dark, lurking areas within the familiar, I push the viewer into a psychological place that brings humor, discomfort, beauty, and curiosity into a visual exploration of the artistic and human struggles.
Room 4:
Rosa Byun, Steph Marcus, & Sean Starwars
Compulsion
The making process is bewildering. Rosa Byun, Steph Marcus, and Sean Starwars each have a riotous, prolific, and above all, fun studio practice. The outpourings from their hands offer an uninhibited view of an artist's life through a bundle of works that fuel further creative activity. Compulsion will share their hopes and dreams, compose playful meditations on the banal, and enthrall us with fantastic visions of an alternate universe.
Rosa Byun
Rosa Byun is an artist working in Colorado Springs. She has an English degree but found her barista skills lacking so dedicates her time out of the cubicle making things. She's known for terrorizing local coffee shops with her scooter ganglette, the Slow Bros, when not painting, carving, or printing.
I have been creating work at a frantic pace, using whatever media is nearby and whatever imagery is appealing at the time. The work gathered serves as visual documentation of my diverse tastes melding traditional art practice with the nonstop uncouth youths, cartoons, and queer punks rattling around my brain.
Steph Marcus
My work is a jumble of ordinary objects, imaginary creatures, and impulsive marks. I paint, print, and draw nonstop, determined to preserve moments of frustration and celebrate ugly edges and mistakes. You'll see a whole lot of my cat Kitty, as she takes on various guises: domestic fuzzball, porchgoing voyeur, mountain, mythical beast, source of comfort. Muse number 2 is my husband Jon (the back of his head is super handsome, no)? The act of drawing these two important people over and over again brings some kind of cohesion to my fragmented thoughts... it's as if by recording and goofing with reality I can fight the anxiety and feelings of "overwhelm" that threaten to reduce me to a puddle of mush every other minute. Primary influences range from Hieronymus Bosch, Henri Matisse, and Henry Darger to the cartoon Adventure Time and thrown-away doodles by my elementary school art students-- who are flipping BRILLIANT.
Steph Marcus lives with her husband and big fluffy cat in Boston. In June 2014 she received an MFA from LUCAD (the Lesley University College of Art and Design in Cambridge, MA). She works as a K-5 elementary school art teacher in Randolph, MA. She started making these cardboard frames in a few years back, after a blitzkrieg of online shopping filled the house with a heck of a lot of empty boxes.
stephmarcus.com
Sean Starwars
Sean Star Wars lives in Laurel, MS; with his wife and five young children. Armed with an AK-47 and an MFA from Louisiana State University he is ready for anything! In addition to making woodcuts for over twenty years, Star Wars has been an Adjunct Professor, a janitor and a used car salesman. He makes about a half dozen visiting artist appearances a year at many of the nations’ leading art programs. Sean is a proud member of the legendary Outlaw Printmakers and his work is in numerous public and private collections. Star Wars’ work can be seen on book covers, album covers, magazines, television programs ,films and commercials. He is currently embarking on his most challenging project ever "A woodcut a week “FOR LIFE". Sean drinks more Mountain Dew than anyone who has ever lived and he can beat you at Ms. Pacman.
I choose the format of the large scale color woodcut because it best suits my energy charged, caffeine induced, aggressive approach to image making. Charles Bukowski, Ms Pacman, Phillip Guston, and Neil Blender are among my influences Somewhere along the way, I realized that I could accomplish my goals as an artist without enslaving myself to the meticulous obsessions of “traditional” printmaking. I don’t slow down to make perfect drawings or to finesse my color registration. I hammer out the carvings and blast out the prints, and move on to the next print, the next day. My primary concern is to create a strong visual infused with a sense of satirical humor, In other words I like to tell funny stories using funny pictures.