Sonya Blesofsky, Entry (2010), Vellum, tape, glue, dimensions variable

Swarm Gallery is pleased to present new work by Casey Jex Smith and Brooklyn-based artist Sonya Blesofsky in the main gallery, and a video installation by Kansas City-based artist Barry Anderson in the project space.

DIS/INTEGRATIONS

Urban theorists posit that we experience the city by the way in which we move through it. Blesofsky's work is directly inspired by her daily commutes in the city on foot, bicycle, bus or train through an ever-evolving architectural landscape. Primarily, she is interested in structural failure, construction, development and urban renewal. Her work consists of drawings and architecturally-flawed installations made out of paper, cardboard, wax, or foil. It comes from a place of great anxiety about things being unstable or falling apart.

Important elements in Blesofsky's work are engineering, scale, shadows and easily recognizable materials. The construction of each piece is labor-intensive, yet once built, the work will soon break, decay or be deconstructed. In this way there is a sense of urgency for experiencing each piece, as this is temporary work. It is important that construction flaws be left visible, as Blesofsky intends to expose the process and techniques used in the creation of each work. With this work she intends to generate questions and emphasize tension relating to dialectics of creation and destruction, vulnerability and indestructibility, the light and the dark, and stability and the tenuous.

PREVIEW WORKS

Casey Jex Smith, Lehi's Vision (2009), Pen on paper, 60 x 80 inches

STOCK UP ON HEAL AND MANA POTIONS

Casey's life thus far has been fully immersed in the Mormon faith and culture. In this church, much like any other, there is a significant visual history. He has always culled from this source as reference for his collages and pen and ink drawings that explore a narrative of his own making.

In his current body of work, "Stock Up On Heal and Mana Potions," Smith deals with personal identity and finding meaning in between three seemingly disparate worlds; religion, sci-fi/fantasy, and "high-art". His work blends appropriated imagery and ideas from illustrated Bibles, Dungeons & Dragons manuals, Durer etchings, Agnes Martin paintings, Mormon architecture, NASA photos, The Lord of the Rings, and Sunday School flannel-board cut-outs into semi-cohesive narratives. This work attempts to legitimize how he spends his time by visually placing art, religion, and high-geekdom on the same hierarchical strata. This blending and prioritizing is a reflection of how he functions in the world. Frodo's ring is a metaphor for spiritual weakness, a temple becomes a repository for wooden Frank Stellas, Big Foot is the Bible's Cain, and a James Turrell installation is a meditation on the Holy Ghost.

PREVIEW WORKS

Project space | ECTOPLASMIC RESPONSE
Barry Anderson

Barry Anderson, Ectoplasmic Response (2009), Video installation at Light Work Gallery, Syracuse, New York

The majority of the recent single-channel video animations are created in part from appropriated American advertising images of the 1950s to 1970s, an era which historically represents a massive change in the cultural landscape of the country.

This period is not referenced out of a simple sense of nostalgia but rather for an historical counterpoint to our present era. Due to evolving economic, social, and ethnic factors in the middle of the 20th century, our cultural homogeny began a period of erosion. Now, however, global telecommunications and corporate culture are causing a different sort of homogeny to evolve, one based on entertainment and consumerism.

Anderson's continuing interest in truly "motion pictures" relates more to the history of painting and collage than that of video and cinema. This is heightened by the use of motifs commonly related to trance and psychadelia such as hyper color, limitless space, and looping rhythm.

Here, these motifs are not intended to create a state of euphoria or release from reality, but rather to focus intently on the present moment. They are also used to further question typical expectations of the video medium both in popular culture (news reporting, narrative entertainment, etc.) and in the contemporary art world (conceptual performance, experimental narrative, etc.)