Mad Art Gallery proudly presents Jargon, work by Terrance Hughes, Alphonzo Solorzano, Miguel Felipe and Jason Faulkner. For Terrance Hughes, history is malleable. As time passes, history is subject to revision and scrutiny. Events are embellished or omitted to better reflect the social climate of the time in which the past is studied. Hughes' objective is to illuminate those historical revisions which were created to validate a new set of principles. For Hughes, the animation cel amplifies the contrast between the different versions of the past. A richly detailed rendering on paper and the revisited elements inserted over the background are presented as flat and two dimensional iconography on a sheet of acetate. Originally from St. Louis, Hughes now lives and works in New York. Born in San Francisco California, Alphonzo Solorzano can never remember a time when he did not draw. His constant pilfering of his older brother's graphic novel collection spawned an early admiration for hard lined graphics. The line work, flat two dimensional characters, and use of the narrative through visual imagery shaped Solorzano's later works. He received his BFA from San Francisco State University in 2004, with an emphasis in both painting and printmaking. Acquiring these two art disciplines academically while working extensively in the commercial printing industry would form as a base for later mixed media works. Having worked both in commercial and fine art printing, it is no surprise that the use of typography would become a reoccurring theme in his works. The text in his work is both a visual element, as well as a narrative guide to a multi-layered dialogue. This dialogue is generally subjected to a covert language, which serves the artist's personal narrative in the work. Other themes that are explored in his work are hidden obsessions of despair and attempts at capturing fleeting moments of memory. Solorzano currently resides in San Francisco, California, where he continues to do art. He now works commercially in the sign industry, which has become a major influence to the approach of his art. He has exhibited in various museums, galleries and alternative art spaces in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and abroad. Miguel Felipe is cognizant of the images around him. The images he sees in advertisements, the visual icons, racial stereotypes, and the whole of popular culture inspire his work. Felipe believes the imagery we all see within our environment can affect us in numerous ways, on many different levels. As an artist, Felipe creates a visual language through the influential images that he observes in his own environment. This visual language allows him to alter the context and meaning of these images to create new ones. This begins a process where viewers of his new contexts can create new contexts for themselves and possibly influence others to do the same. Based on a fascination with mythology, consumer culture, and spirituality, Jason Faulkner's work explores the layers of mystery surrounding our everyday lives. His diverse and playful practice includes sculptures, paintings, drawings, and web objects, serving as an experiment in reverse anthropology. Faulkner's goal is to turn the traditional formula of an explorer experiencing life in a foreign culture on its head. Blending ancient and contemporary themes and aesthetics, Faulkner is able to expose varying patterns of human thinking. His work concentrates on popular consumer and religious idols, blending and swapping physical traits and forms, suggesting parallels across distant cultures and ideas. An Asian lucky cat is crossbred with a McDonald's Fry Guy character or a Chinese fu dog poses with Tony the Tiger's head. The human heart becomes a strawberry, which in turn becomes a mysterious vessel with protruding valves and eyes. Each project is an exercise, playing with notions of anthropomorphism. The end result of Faulkner's discipline is a creative cosmology, an aesthetic study that serves as a guide to primitive thinking in the modern world. Please join us for a free opening reception on Friday, August 1, 2008, from 7:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m.
|
