COSMIC AMERICAN ART
by Paul Smart Thursday April 21st
The art exhibits that Lenny Kislin puts together at Oriole 9 in Woodstock always have an odd but enlightening balance to them. Think apples and cats, oranges and drive shafts.
Or better, head over and see what’s up at the eatery/gallery into the middle of May: being the road sign paintings of Mary Anne Erickson, almost photorealist in their execution, were it not for the painter’s beautifully mnemonic effects, as well as the sanblasted wood works of Michael Hunt, including his great new piece Falluja (the Ninth Ward), a symphony of dark imagery on natural redwood.
Hunt calls his work “Cosmic American Art” in reference to a term that Gram Parsons coined for his own music back in the early 1970s. “A hybrid of Pop & Folk that examines, indicts, celebrates and surrenders to the search for that mythic and ragged American Dream,” is how he described his singular work. “It is a place somewhere out there in the postmodern mind, a rest stop halfway between the dream world and the waking life.”
“This show is devoted to some of the signs I’ve seen and loved in my travels over the years. I continue to be enamored with this theme for many personal reasons, and I just love the ‘kitschy’ nature of many of these images,” Erickson writes of her new “Signs of the Times” series. “Many artists and photographers have found visions of our past and the interface with today’s world compelling. What we call ‘America’ is always in flux, changing and evolving.
Guess the shared terrain of these two artists Mr. Kislin has pulled together is more cogently together than first suspected. ++
Oriole 9 is open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. seven days a week at 17 Tinker Street, across from the Village Green. For further information call 679-5763 or visit www.oriole9.com.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:New York 212,Woodstock,United States
No comments:
Post a Comment