SOMEWHERE IN SPACE
Installations and paintings by Mayumi Hamanaka and Eric Larson

June 24 – July 23, 2006
RECEPTION June 29, 6-9PM

Alumna of the California College of Arts in San Francisco, Mayumi Hamanaka and Eric Larson have come together for their first joint exhibition. Japan-born Hamanaka is a photographer and installation artist who explores individual identity within mass culture. For this exhibit, she has reconstructed historical portrait images from World War I and II by outlining bodies, cutting out shapes and layering them. By de-contextualizing the images and their chronological order, Hamanaka encourages the viewer to assess their own meaning. Hamanaka will also show mounted photographs conceptually related to her installation. Larson's large-scale works on paper are notably executed, one outlined dot at a time. Taking print images and blowing them up to an almost abstract size, Larson then traces the dots and fills them in with a combination of black paint, glue and glitter. The sly use of craft creates a remarkable effect. Standing close, the paintings are a chaotic cluster of spots; from afar, a cohesive image.

In the PROJECT SPACE: "Between Two Worlds" by Eric Larson Pitch black and illuminated, this piece creates an interstellar optical illusion.