New Techniques On Display with Three Works In JCAC Exhibit
Any given work may sit for long months before I get around to exhibiting it, if indeed I’m able to at all. It’s a numbers thing. There may be opportunity to exhibit up to a dozen new works throughout a good year. But I may have two or three dozen I produced the year before I’d like to exhibit, and maybe another two or three dozen beyond that I believe are pretty good. When new exhibits arise, I tend to look back a year to the works I haven’t been able to display yet – they’ve incubated in my head before I’m really sure I want to exhibit it.
The three works now on display in the Jefferson City Art Club’s Professional Exhibit, now on display at Capital Arts, as well as the work on exhibit at the Columbia Art League (see below), have been created since the middle of June. Of this year. That’s when I began blending geometric shapes into the backgrounds of my works. It’s an evolution of the techniques I was already using but it seemed to open vast new realms of creativity for me. It’s been something of a line in the sand; there is what came before, and what has come since.
‘Imagination’ was the first of these three created and seems to be getting the most attention. It’s actually made up of two photographic captures – the primary capture of the artist in the foreground, and a highly digitized landscape blended into the background. ‘Sultry Summer’ has been received well online and may be the most abstract. The background is actually taken from the pattern on the purse the woman in the image was holding. ‘Colors And Time’ is my personal favorite and might be among my more political works. I had to rearrange the segments of the original capture, then add a second capture for the background. It’s message, simply put, is that change is a function of time.
These works will be on display until October 21, with a reception Thursday, September 21, 5-7 p.m.
- CH
'Gregarious Potential' At The Columbia Art League
The Columbia Art League’s ‘Ok Computer’ exhibit was conceived as a means of facilitating new work based on a computer-generated title – titles which may, by their very nature, seem nonsensical. Artists were encouraged to pick out a title or two from an AI generated list, then interpret and transform that title into their own unique artwork. In my experience that’s a counterintuitive approach; even if an artist’s subject matter suggests what the title may be, the title is only finalized after the artist’s vision has flourished and the work is completed. Besides, the computer conceives nothing – it’s simply stringing together unrelated words.
In a way, it’s an exercise in extracting expressions from nonsense. Not to get deep, but isn’t that what artistic vision is anyway?
I went through the list of computer-generated titles twice, and almost passed on this one. One title, though, drew me back through a third time. It struck me that ‘Gregarious Potential’ might fit captures I had made at the Saint Louis Art Museum’s ‘Armor’ show last spring. After all, what’s more ‘gregarious’ than a knight in shining armor? Further, what expresses potential better than the fluctuating colors and shades I’ve been achieving by blending layers of digital, geometric art into the background? It all seemed to fit. The work you see here came into being. Expression from nonsense.
Reception is this Friday evening, September 8. There’s food. There’s wine. It’s free. Why stay home? If you miss, It’s on exhibit until October 10. Take in the art; have a nosh at the brew pub or some Thai at the Gardens or cheeseburgers at Booches. Downtown Columbia rocks. C’mon along.
- CH