Harvest, a group exhibition featuring new work by Austin-based artists Ryan Lauderdale, Dylan Reece, Corkey Sinks, and Anthony Romero, opened last night at MASS Gallery. The show highlighted the group’s overlapping interests in the aesthetics of the supernatural, found objects, and re-appropriated/re-contextualized visions of pop culture and nostalgia.
(More photos and textual goodies after the jump)
Dylan Reece’s light sculpture (above), paintings, and videos play with the notion of the Sun, heat, and how these elements were portrayed as pseudo-psychedelic, eye-rubbing, hallucinogenic explosions of color in the 1960’s. His intention was to take that visual language and give it a humorous, yet admirable light (no pun intended).
I found Dylan’s work intriguing and exotically impersonal, simultaneously poking fun and paying homage to the now “cliche”, but timeless and highly effective, vaseline-on-the-camera-lens type of vintage video footage that I constantly drool over.
Ryan Lauderdale’s sculptures (above, the pyramid, and below), video, and illustrations tapped into the artist’s fascination with modern and ancient symbols of worship, the occult, and pop culture. He described his work as sketches, attempting to recall feelings and artifacts of the artist’s childhood and adolescence.
Ryan’s work is aesthetically very clean, meticulous, and graphic. He told me that he wasn’t quite sure where all his ideas and concepts stemmed from. To me, his work has the appearance of being crafted by some genius 7-year old, possibly from outer space, sitting in a basement, obsessively making strange sculptures. A kid who might grow up to be a the world’s leading logo designer for cosmic cults, or an unknown, but golden freelance progressive rock band LP sleeve designer in the 1970s.
Where Dylan and Ryan’s work was tight and graphic, Anthony Romero and Corkey Sinks’ pieces were much more raw and somewhat down-to-earth in comparison.
Corkey, a partner at Okay Mountain and member of the multimedia video collective Austin Video Bee, displayed several of her fabric sculptures (above, bottom left) that resembled potholders for giant, mystical ogres. Maybe she knows Shrek’s wife? My favorite Corkey piece was a video featuring tiny clips of Jennifer Love Hewitt movies placed subtly in various photographs of upscale apartments and homes.
Anthony Romero has been on a shaman kick lately, developing a series of awkwardly humorous and bizarre videos featuring your average, everyday shamans describing themselves for a shaman video dating service. One of these videos was on display in the exhibit, contrasting his neon spraypaint-soaked sculptures and mixed media collages. Anthony’s work was dripping (literally) with a sense of transition and homoerotic angst — beautifully executed, yet somewhat unnerving.
Overall, I enjoyed the exhibit thoroughly and am stoked to see what these four budding artists have in store for the world in the future.
Harvest is on view at MASS Gallery (916 Springdale Rd. Austin, TX) until October 1. Highly recommended!
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This show was incredibly put together.
I can’t wait to go see it again with less people around.
I could follow Corkey’s patterns and lines with my eyes for hours. I stared at one of her textiles for a while before realizing I was being a hog.