A mixed media exhibition encompassing
photography, paintings and video, curated
by artist and Assistant Professor John Pomara.
Excessive presents works by seven artists,
from Boston, New York, Dallas, and Houston,
working in painting, photography, video,
and various other materials such as thread,
Mylar® and pins, that bring compulsion
to a new level in creating and recreating
serial works.
Obsessions of Excess
"Incapable of producing metaphors
by means of signs alone, he (the phobic
person) produces them in the very materials
of drives – and it turns out that
the only rhetoric of which he is capable
is that of effect, and it is projected,
as often as not, by means of images."
– Julia Kristeva
When hearing such words as compulsive,
excessive, and obsessive, we often associate
them with pop psychology and titles of self-help
books that currently populate bookstores.
Yet one could aptly use these terms to describe
the visual artists in this exhibition, Excessive.
They each in their own way obsess over an
idea leading them to the creative act in
an excessive way, by repeating an image,
that appears to the uninitiated beyond reasonable
limits.
While contemplating an idea in an incubation
period, an artist is compelled to act, and
in turn creates a body of work. The artists
chosen for this show deal with personal
obsessions of excess producing compelling
images in serial fashion in a labor intensive
way. Like Shakespeare’s infamous Lady
Macbeth, who continuously washes her hands
to cleanse her guilt, these artists repeat
the creative act to articulate more clearly
the image that haunts them. To clear their
minds, to capture the essence of the idea,
or to create the most accurate picture or
form, they reiterate it in mechanical fashion
much like the seriality of Pop and Minimal
art forms in the 1960’s. This repeated
cycle of labor-intensive work leaves behind
artifacts for us to observe as witnesses,
deciphering changes in the visual images
for clues of meaning and intent.
While an acceleration of images that bombard
us daily are being produced by mass media
for consumption, the artists in Excessive
are creating their own private image world
with a more personal intent. Unlike media
and its connection to detached consumerism,
each of these artists is focused on recreating
visual events that have a connection to
their personal daily lives. From Gina Dawson’s
mimetic and banal hand-sewn receipts which
allow the artist recall of her daily events,
to Robert Terry’s constant reshaping
of Abe Lincoln that visually informs us
of the multiple dimensions found in the
character of a human face, these artists
merge memory and temporality into their
studio practice. Eugenio Basualdo also records
a temporal moment, finding images of attraction
in the nondescript surfaces of light and
shadow cast on interior walls. In a painterly
fashion, he records these visual, enigmatic
moments slipping by via incorporating photography
and current printing processes on a canvas
surface. Demian LaPlante, like Basualdo,
also incorporates the use of technology,
making videos viewed alongside the sculptural
artifice that was fabricated to manipulate
the filming. Like a scientist in his laboratory
meticulously working and reenacting the
experiment until he gets it right, LaPlante’s
art is the visual recording of his trials
made through the use of the mechanical devices
he obsessively builds and constructs in
the studio. Together they function as an
installation.
While some of this work is more of a larger
spectacle, Paul Booker’s is one of
miniature intimacy. On close observation,
the shiny surfaces of Mylar® and pins
in Booker’s constructions dazzle the
eye. Yet backing away we contemplate their
fragility as if they might collapse with
the slightness of our breath. He reshapes
his materials over and over again reconfiguring
them into intriguing dystopian architecture.
The childlike constructions so visible in
Booker’s objects are even more readily
seen in Betsy Odom’s whimsical but
rigorous paintings of animals constructed
out of colored industrial duct tape. They
appear to be created out of an inner necessity
often seen in children’s artwork to
express immediate personal concerns. In
Odom’s case perhaps they address the
imminent loss of nature due to urban sprawl
along with pathos from childhood memories
of living on the farm.
Bill Davenport, on the other hand, who
was recognized early for his hand-knitted
paintings and conceptual objects, has for
the past few years turned to painting that
deceptively appears traditional. What started
out clumsily with a thrift store look has
become more skillfully photo-realistic with
a quirky construction; the conceptual nature
is still present by rendering a found object
as a kind of painted readymade along with
a compulsive repetition. Davenport’s
handmade renditions of book covers mesmerize
viewers and pull them in with their trompe
l’oeil effect while telling us more
than the covers found on the books at Borders
or Barnes & Noble.
Offering a glimpse into the painstaking
iterations of private obsessions, we are
indeed fortunate that these unique artists
have created their own versions of therapy
to express their compulsive artistic drives.
Contrary to what we may have been told,
it seems excess can be good for you.
– John Pomara, curator
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Artists Statements
“Say nothing. That would be preferable;
the observance of the shadow is best accomplished
in silence. The work in this exhibition
might be characterized as the remaining
evidence of an unsuccessful attempt at delimiting
a reliquary for the shadow, which, by definition,
cannot be contained in time or space. ‘Color
that doesn’t exist’, a quote
attributed to Edgar Allen Poe, describes
the allusive aspect of this work.”
– Eugenio Basualdo
“Most of my work right now is about
empty carriers of information, transparency,
and imperfectly repeating systems of organization.”
– Paul Booker
“In high school everyone said I
could draw really good, that I had talent,
and that I should go to art school, so I
did. After years of making conceptual objects,
I’ve decided to use some of my really
good drawing skills again, and made these
paintings.” – Bill Davenport
“With this body of work I am trying
to capture a moment that without the proof
of the purchase might have escaped me. Sometimes
the moment is memorable enough to create
a souvenir of it and sometimes the moment
is a souvenir of a good-looking object.
I didn’t keep the 7-11 receipt for
nachos with my ex-boyfriend because I knew
I wanted to memorialize the event, I kept
it because I thought it would be funny.
It isn’t until the remaking that I
realize that I have relived that moment
a hundred times longer and stronger then
it ever was. It is in the remaking that
I can still taste the nachos.” –
Gina Dawson
“I find myself trying to reconcile
two seemingly contradictory interpretations
of the world. One focuses on nature’s
cyclical periods; the other on linear historical
development. I am interested in using landscape
as a metaphor for personal and historical
development and the struggle to survive
life as we are living it, to go beyond it
and transform it. My working process starts
with a basic constructivist approach and
through the processes of mobilization, utilization,
and documentation: work through to the other
side.” – Demian LaPlante
“I don’t make tape paintings
as an attempt to be clever or original.
I am beginning to feel like I am part of
a ‘tape movement’ – a
salon even. More and more artists seem to
be demanding that their materials hold as
much conceptual weight as the content that
they describe. For me tape is about the
absurd yet strangely moving beauty of human
innovation.” – Betsy
Odom
“The photos images of Lincoln are
allusive. He looked so various and changeable.
He took on a different persona in each photo
sessions, especially the ones during the
Civil War. He wore his life on his face.
I want to capture this look and understanding
of the man who was hated by so many people.
It was only years later that he was loved
and appreciated. He sat for posterity in
those photo-sessions. He wore his soul on
his face.” – Robert
Terry
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