Paintings by NIKKI SHIRES and ANDREW JUNGE
and Sculpture by TIFFANY SCHMIERER

July 29 - September 3, 2006
Reception for the Artists: Thursday, August 3, 6-9 pm | All artists in attendance

Sydney-based artist NIKKI SHIRES melds fantasy-like subjects and modern day motifs, painting dramatic imagery which depicts the rich dualities of romanticism: fantasy and reality, optimism and longing, doomed love and happily ever after. Executed with vibrant colors, Shires works intuitively, first drawing random lines on paper and then filling the empty spaces with her subjects and the haphazard and offbeat relationships they create. She describes this process as leaving the paintings' "fate to chance." The outcome — the final painting — is a culmination of the instinctive parts of her imagination and her experiences traveling the world, witnessing peculiar interactions, bizarre tales and unusual circumstances.

Artist ANDREW JUNGE describes his paintings as "small dramas or the stages for such productions" that contain a rotating cast of characters and props. Junge transforms his subjects — those which most people ordinarily consider "junk" — by painting them into relational scenarios that give them new meaning. Fascinated by the interaction of these objects with one another and to the space and light that surrounds them, Junge plays with scale and perspective on canvas to create a new stage for his lost and forgotten characters.

Ceramicist TIFFANY SCHMIERER's abstract sculptures are investigations into the patterns that connect our lives to our surroundings. They represent the dialogues that exist in a dynamic world where everything is linked together. Schmierer is interested in giving these virtual actions a visual form. Contradiction is also an important part of her work. The world is beautiful and artificial, overbearing and vulnerable, patterned and disordered, connected and disjointed. Her pieces are intuitively playful, frolicking in apparent incongruities and hidden associations.

In the PROJECT SPACE: KEVIN E. TAYLOR's Cave Dwellers: Migration is an onsite installation viewable solely by flashlight. Taylor paints directly on the walls with charcoal, latex/acrylic paint, and other mark-making utensils. The finished mural, which he in-part refers to as a contemporary "cave painting", serves as a monument to a world in flux and to the adaptive nature of those who inhabit it. Illustrated by a herd of sheep-like creatures and other symbolic subjects, Taylor's mural attests to forced migration as a result of a vanishing environment.