Past Exhibition
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Gallery | BLOOM & GLOOM Project | PULLULATE Opening Saturday, January 22, 2011 6-8pm PRESS
Swarm Gallery is pleased to present BLOOM & GLOOM, a two-person exhibition of new works on paper by Austin-based artist Katy Horan and SF-based artist Alexis Mackenzie. Katy's work examines female roles and representation found throughout history, art and mythology. She pulls from a variety of sources, using mixed references and visual fragments to build new
variations of familiar figures. Research plays a large role in Katy's work. She derives visual reference and ideas from film, literature, the Internet and countless other sources. She then filters
and combines fragments of imagery and information absorbed from this research through an intuitive process. This allows her to explore subject matter and interests that range from Victorian
spinsterhood to Renaissance portraiture to the archetypal witch figure. Form, detail and gesture are also important aspects of her work. Solitary figures allow more focus on their interior structure and detail, which she intends to hold as much interest as the
character itself. Historical costume has long interested her, and she uses these inner details to reference varied eras of dress and decoration. Similarly, she uses her character's postures and
gesture to explore those found in art history and illustration. While external research informs each piece's narrative and concept, emphasis on form, detail and gesture inform its execution. Like Katy, Alexis Mackenzie's work is hand-composed from books she's been collecting over the years. Each piece is painstakingly pieced together as seamlessly as possible. They create
themselves through a process beginning with a loose concept, followed by a series of trials and errors, subtle maneuvers, selection, elimination, harmonious unions, and happy accidents. It is
a meditative process, with a great deal of decision-making behind each element. The work for BLOOM & GLOOM is created using paper silhouettes remaining from the extracted images she uses in her other collage works. Moving outward to build lines, these non-figurative
works are an interpretation of visual impressions; only the sense of how things appear, and the silent reverberations of intellectual and emotional associations with objects, surroundings,
and encounters. Alexis intends to portray the world as a flawed thing of beauty - a place that shines brightly, and has a dark side to match. Each work in the exhibition is at once identifiable
and ambiguous, inviting the viewer's own imaginations and experiences to inform their interpretation.
Project | PULLULATE
Pullulate: To abound, be crawling with, be full of, be numerous, be plentiful, be prolific, bear, brim, bristle, burst, burst at seams, bustle, crawl, crowd, flow, grow, jam, overflow, overrun, pack, pour, pour out, produce, prosper, rain, roll in, shower,, superabound, swarm, swell, swim in, wallow in. Our world has morphed itself and become digitalized, each event, person, country represented by an internet page. Our feet no longer transport us, it is the tip of our fingers who move us from one digital experience to another. Like moths attracted towards the light, we surf the World Wide Web following leads of information that we become irresistibly attracted to, and that keep us trapped for hours... How is our digital experience affecting our definitions of space, time, growth, death? What does our digital self look like and how does it affect our relationship to our bodies? What new and unique possibility of acting as a community exists now that had not existed before? This installation is the first attempt at exploring these questions and has evolved from a body of work that Labastida calls "Moth Series." These wall sculptures can function as individual or groups and allows the artist the opportunity to explore different topics like ecology, human affection, urbanization, etc. In this case, she is using them as a system of interconnected insects/minds. The gender and race of the images used were loosely based on current stats of internet usage. The images were downloaded from the web, printed, modified through drawing, photographed and printed again on a transfer material to be baked on the mirror wings. Most of the mirror wings were made of recycled mirror and were cut and polished by hand. The process was meant to translate the downloaded data into a physical medium, hoping to solidify an instant of our intangible digital lives. |
