Past Exhibition
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October 1 - November 6, 2011 Reception Saturday, October 1, 2011 6-9pm Beer provided by the Trappist, Oakland (http://thetrappist.com) PRESS Swarm Gallery is pleased to present Tall Tales: Collaborative Projects by John Casey & Friends. In this show, John continues to explore his open-ended narrative drawings and sculpture with a new twist. In his quest to set a compelling stage for stories told by both the artist and the viewer, John invites his wife, writer Mary Kalin-Casey, and his visual-artist pals to join him executing two large collaborative story telling projects. Although John has done some collaboration in the past, this exhibition at Swarm Gallery marks a new direction for his work. John has reached out of his personal lexicon and, through the collaborative process, expands his visual narrative. The result is a more exploratory approach, with a looser, less tentative line quality, reaffirming his love of drawing. Call & Response matches Mary's writing with John's drawing and vice versa. In some cases John goes first, drawing a character engaged in an activity. Mary responds to the drawing with a short story, poem, or essay, depending on how the drawing strikes her. This response is the first time John's work is narrated in a format other than in the viewer's mind. When Mary goes first, John's challenge is to depict her story while maintaining the exploratory elements of drawing, taking inspiration from, but not over-illustrating, her often oddball tales. The duo's work is displayed in a left-to-right configuration with the "call" on the left and the "response" on the right. The results are both spontaneous and surprising. Hands & Pants is a broader collaborative venture, employing over 40 of John's artist peers. John drew either hands or pants (blue-jean-clad waist-down shod figures) or both, in his simple pen-and-ink style on 8"x10" Bristol paper. An invited artist was given the hands and/or pants and asked to complete the figure in any way the artist saw fit. John's intent was to create a collective storyboard using the "Hands & Pants" motif as a common recognizable character engaged in a variety of manifestations. However, the returned collaborations have gone far beyond John's expectations in sheer artistic variety, producing an extended family of unique, individual beings. John Casey was born in Salem, Massachusetts, where he received a B.F.A from the Massachusettes College of Art in 1988. He has had multiple solo shows in the Bay Area, Nashville, Boston, and Philadelphia, and has shown in exhibitions throughout the U.S. and in Berlin, Paris, and Bordeaux, France. His work can be found at the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the di Rosa Preserve in Napa, California. John is currently living in Oakland. This is his second solo exhibition at Swarm Gallery. Call & Response:
Hands & Pants:
Project | 4 Directions: International Blvd
Oakland-based artist Jake Watling chose the prominent International Boulevard for the subject of his new mutlimedia installation in Swarm's project space, 4 Directions: International Blvd. The title is inspired by the Native American spiritual belief in the power of the four cardinal directions: North, South, East and West. The belief is that each direction offers its own lessons and powers to guide one to their true self. Since Jake moved to Oakland in the late 1990's he has been drawn to International Boulevard out of visual interest. As he spent more time and did more research on the boulevard he became equally interested in capturing its spirit. Jake built a roof mount for his car so he could take moving footage. He also walked many blocks of the boulevard with his camera, engaging with people and documenting street life, the architecture, signage, and businesses. The project space at Swarm Gallery will be transformed into a space that metaphorically transports the viewer to International Boulevard and possibly reveals something to the viewer about themselves while they interact with the installation. This project has informed Jake's own perspective of his life and future. Here are a few teasers for the project: Jake Watling received his B.F.A. from the College of Visual Arts in Minnesota. He has exhibited his artwork throughout the Bay Area and in Chicago, New York, Brooklyn and Berlin, with solo shows in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Palo Alto, and Washington D.C. His work can be found in the Museum of Modern Art collection in New York. Jake is currently living in Oakland and has shown in various exhibitions with Swarm Gallery since 2007. |
