Posts Tagged ‘Los Angeles’
Jeff Sonhouse | Better Off Dead Said The Landlord
Friday, September 10th, 2010DAVID NOONAN @ DAVID KORDANSKY GALLERY
Monday, September 6th, 2010
JEFF SONHOUSE @ MARTHA OTERO GALLERY
Thursday, August 26th, 2010
Martha Otero is pleased to present New York based artist Jeff Sonhouse’s exhibition, ‘Better Off Dead,’ Said The Landlord. For his Los Angeles solo debut, Sonhouse deconstructs the accepted theories of ownership and invites us to reexamine how we interpret relationships of power, as tenants of an overbearing architect. With alluding portrayals of glorified facades, he creates a frictional energy of immortality.
The exhibition will include Sonhouse’s recent portraits of oracular figures that evoke familiarity, such as Papi Shampoo, bearing a Jesus like stance and demeanor. We’re instantly drawn to the silky smooth satin textured vestment and its vividly deep aquamarine and violet colors. Draped over a brash black and white pinstripe suit with ashen hands in an iconic Pantocrator posture. The background palette harmonizes burgundy with black, phthalo blues and rich purples into a contemporary vision of a halo. Maintaining his ingenious approach to mixed media, we see meticulous hair constructed of matches and steel wool combined with composite figures of oil paint. Sonhouse’s unorthodox use of materials successfully disorients the viewers prescribed sense of space. Even more irresistible are Sonhouse’s masks and the intense gaze concealed behind them.
Jeff Sonhouse was born in 1968 in New York where he currently lives and works. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and his MFA from Hunter College in 2001. He has exhibited at The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada; Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, NY; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY; Samson Projects, Boston, MA; Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA; The New York Historical Society, New York, NY.
Lezley Saar
Sunday, August 15th, 2010
Merry Karnowsky Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of new work by
artist Lezley Saar entitled Autist’s Fables. The exhibition begins with a painting
titled “They’re Here, Get Used To It,” which sets the tone for a modern allegory
compromised of paintings, dioramas, photographs, and a short film. Saar uses
multiple mediums to create an imaginative and enigmatic environment
inspired by the sensibility, perception, and reality of her 17-year-old Autistic
daughter, Geneva.
Influenced by 19th century illustrations of animals and nature, the work
includes references to gothic literature, anatomy, biology, tattoos, cartoons,
and Art Nouveau. Saar expertly blends symbol and allegory with imagination and wit. The artist’s ethereal
work questions notions of normalcy, perceptions of reality, modes of communication, and the veracity of
emotions. The exhibition uses the body and soul approach of Aesop’s Fables where the body is the story,
and the soul is the moral.
In addition to paintings, Saar has created glass-encased dioramas resembling vintage dollhouses in which
scenes from Saar’s modern fables (based on things Geneva has said or done) unfold in miniature. With
found landscape paintings serving as the backdrops for tales unfolding within, titles like “Sorcerer’s Ritual”
and “Bad Seed Boy” describe the scenes and characters inhabiting Geneva’s imagination. In Saar’s
paintings, circular color photographs taken by the artist of vignettes within the dioramas are collaged into
the paintings, as hand painted animal creatures (Geneva’s numerous imaginary friends) are the ones
telling the tales of humans, or the Autist’s Fables.
Le Mystère de Geneviève, Saar’s short film, or court métrage, is a fairy tale which is symbolically
autobiographical as it relates to Geneva’s journey. In the words of Saar, “So much attention is focused on
the problems of autism; the tragedy of it all, how to ‘cure’ it, how to ramrod these children into being
‘normal.’ But, I find autistic people fascinating. With Autist’s Fables there’s the body; my work which tells this
story, and the soul; the moral which is that perhaps Autistic people should finally be accepted as they are.”
Saar’s work has been exhibited around the U.S. as well as in Germany, Cuba, Bermuda, and Australia. Solo
museum exhibits include The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, The ContemporaryArts Center, Cincinnati, OH, Forum for Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO, Fresno Museum of Art, Pasadena
Museum of California Art, Palmer Art Museum, PA, and San Jose Museum of Art. Her works are included in the collections of The Ackland Art Museum, MOCA, Kemper Museum of Art, California African American
Museum, and Smith College Museum of Art. Saar has been featured in Artforum, Art in America, The New
York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Artnews, Time Out New York, and XXL. Originally from Los Angeles, Saar is
the daughter of assemblage artist Betye Saar, and the sister of sculptor Alison Saar. She currently lives and
works in Redondo Beach, California.
