justyna adamczyk : travaux recents

Justyna Adamczyk : Travaux récents

à la galerie de l'EC Par le magasin d'art de Chicago

le 25 janvier 2010 dans comporté,

revues Par : jeffery mcnary

« Je ne veux pas communiquer directement avec les pensées des personnes voyant mon art. Je voudrais fournir une exposition de route qui tient compte de la réflexion personnelle », notes Justyna Adamczyk. Son exposition courante, de nouvelles peintures à la galerie de l'EC est une rangée provocante vers cette ambition. « Dans mon travail, pendant beaucoup d'années, j'ai essayé beaucoup de médias, mais avec le temps je me suis rendu compte que je parle sincèrement dans les médias qui peint. La peinture me donne l'occasion de présenter ses observations sur ma réalité subjective. Les liés au travail avec les problèmes insignifiants mais inévitables de fatigue de vie quotidienne. » Théoriquement, au moins, elle tient cela dans un monde fortement structuré, là est le besoin de connaître la croissance spirituelle. La « peinture est ma valve, qui permet l'évasion et les transforme en images dociles. » Le « cannibale », acrylique sur la toile, comme dans ses autres morceaux, semble spontané, avec l'artiste étant là, pas simplement la copiant. Ici ses roses et orange sont staggering, comme si les cheveux d'une silhouette ont été embrasés. La toile de brun non traité et grisâtre remet la peinture plus d'à la visionneuse. C'est un nouveau romantisme. D'une façon déterminante, ses nuances et tache sur le tissu, le rose en pastel, les bruns, jaunes des tonalités variables, ont lu à haute voix du tissu, comme si après avoir été environ pour des âges. C'a pu être sang desséché. C'a pu être des gouttes cancéreuses. « J'ai été toujours attiré aux travaux des artistes qui se passent et leur vue subjective de punk », elle dit. On interroge, a l'artiste retourné à l'adolescence dedans, « gamme des saveurs », acrylique sur la toile. N'énonçant pas son inspiration directement, plutôt il joue avec la couleur, avec des formes, et parfois les brosses au sujet de la présence esthétique avec les figures épineuses, plues au moment par des rêves et des complexes Jungian sous forme d'expérience de laboratoire courent sauvage sur le travail. Il y a un genre spécial et différent d'authenticité dans cette expérience. Dans ces images le téléspectateur trouve des associations d'autonomie et de couleur, des visions et des insinuations. Certains semblent salis, et errent au loin, mais à peine dans le mondain. Là les cycles sont courts, mais dans là des récits de forme de brièveté. Adamczyk espionne Frida, marque Ryden, prise de bec de Matthew, et Kim Sooja en tant qu'influences sur elle travail. « Ce sont des caractères dont j'ai appris beaucoup. Ils sont complètement différents, dans les vues de la réalité », elle dit. « En plus de ceci elles diffèrent personnellement et intimement. Une question importante pour moi est l'impact sur la visionneuse. Je recherche la langue qui permet au téléspectateur de sentir mon idée. » Il est difficile de trouver l'excès dans les peintures. Elles sont presque involontaires. La provocation d'Adamczyk est au coeur de l'exhibitionnisme artistique. « N'importe quelle idée semble être parfaite quand je l'ai obtenue dans mon esprit ou sur un croquis », elle dit, « mais la bataille commence à l'heure du transfert… le mouvement à la vraie image. J'essaye d'être aussi étroitement que possible à ce qui résulte de la première pensée ou impression. » Que, elle maintient, est l'impulsion à la création de l'image. Avec elle, des travaux sont créés et conduits par une inspiration très personnelle. Ils sont des offres… à nous… et au quel reste dans chacun de nous individuellement. Ceci devrait être apprécié. Les travaux de l'artiste a été exhibés dans une foule de lieu de rendez-vous comprenant Biennale de la peinture « Bielska Jesien 2009, Pologne ; 9 concours Gepperta, BWA Awangarda Wrocław, Pologne ; Peintres I-XII, galerie de Bestregarts - Francfort sur Main, Allemagne de polisch de Joung ; 30 Premio Internacional de Pintura De Caja De Estrémadure ; Plus ou moins, Musemu DA Ciencia e DA Industria - Porto, Portugal et Aula de Cultura De Plasencia. Elle a reçu son AMF la de l'académie des beaux-arts en Pologne, Wroclaw en 2007. C'est sa première exposition des États-Unis. Justyna Adamczyk : Les travaux récents seront sur l'affichage à la galerie de l'EC du 15 janvier au 13 février. La galerie de l'EC est située à la rue Chicago, IL 60607 d'Aberdeen du nord 215.

REVUE d'art - JUDITH MULLEN

Revue d'art - Judith Mullen :
Aire par Jeffery McNary :

Aire Galerie de Linda Warren (l'espace principal) 22 janvier-27 février 2010 Chicago

Lors d'entrer dans la galerie de Linda Warren pour l'exposition courante de Judith Mullen, la « aire », la visionneuse réalise immédiatement que quelque chose l'excitation va se produire. C'est le pays des merveilles, un de captiver, bel art. C'est un cotillon de couleur, de sculpture, de la peinture de l'instillation. Ici l'artiste a le dramaturge devenu, captivant, avec une abondance de travaux dans des médias variables, et avec la générosité incroyable. « Toutes les peintures sont faites dans la technique de fresque et j'ai choisi cette méthode pour une série de raisons », des parts de Mullen. « Au commencement j'étais très tiré « à la blancheur organique » du plâtre, et car j'ai travaillé avec le temps j'ai commencé à apprécier pleinement les matières employées pour créer un panneau de fresque. » Les influences principales de Lee Bontecous et de Kandinsky sont trouvées dans ces travaux. Le « hommage à Bonteque III », des médias mélangés, est une peinture « pebbly » sur une surface mélangée du mastic de sable et de pierre à chaux. Ses nuances riches de la terre tiennent l'aura des schémas de caverne du prehistorics. L'artiste a importé le mastic de pierre à chaux et a trouvé le sable de fleuve, mélangeant une formule employée pour créer une base. Elle a alors travaillé le plâtre humide avec le colorant et le charbon de bois. « De cette manière je suis tout d'abord relié à l'histoire de la peinture pour inclure les peintres de caverne il y a de 30.000 ans », elle s'ajoute. « J'ai eu une occasion de visiter ces travaux remarquables en France (deNaiux de Grotte) et ils sont vraiment inspirés. » « Dans l'emplacement IV », des médias mélangés du colorant, charbon de bois, cire, encre, thé, de même que d'autres morceaux de cette série, inspirée par les présences des oiseaux, comme peuvent être vus dans le colorant d'ocre jaune du travail. « Image de oiseau a toujours apparu dans mon travail, toutefois de cette série, » dit l'artiste, « j'ai voulu la rendre avant et centrale, le point focal plutôt que le coup-de-pied latéral. L'oiseau semble dans ce morceau négocier avec succès sa manière autour d'un environnement compliqué utilisant lui doit posséder l'élan pour accomplir ce but. » Elle continue, « les idées du courage et le courage avec l'adaptabilité, l'acceptation et l'action si tout va bien sont produits par cette image. Peut-être c'était le chantier de nouvelle construction trouvé à travers la rue de mon studio dans la ville ou le téléphone/poteaux électriques qui pointillent le chemin de prarie en dehors de ma maison dans la banlieue qui a déplacé l'oiseau et son nid… dans l'un ou l'autre cas, la tâche de la reconstruction et de l'adaptation a été joué dehors. À un certain niveau je pense que nous pouvons tout identifier avec l'oiseau dans ce scénario. » Sa vision, les raccordements, que l'application et le détail trafiquent entre le conceptuel, de processus et endgame est exécutée parfaitement dans ce travail. Venez maintenant, « dans l'installation de médias mélangés de l'emplacement XIII », cette épopée l'audace dans le travail de balance lors derrière duquel les pivots d'exposition et à ce que la visionneuse est dessinée quant à un feu sur une colline éloignée. Centré au milieu du mur est un morceau énorme de papier très travaillé avec des barres obliques dans lui. Ce morceau de papier de traçage, Mullen enfonçait le charbon de bois dans un nouveau morceau de fresque. « J'ai été économiser ces gauche au-dessus des morceaux de papier de traçage pendant des années, jouant avec elles sur le mur, essayant de faire une certaine sorte du morceau sculptural à trois dimensions, » elle dit. « J'ai essayé d'ajouter la cire, ai employé toutes les sortes de renforts, vous l'appelle pour faire le papier affermir. En conclusion, j'ai décidé d'employer le fil sous le morceau et le ta-DA… que je n'étais pas en ligne et courant. » Il y a les roches bleues, « une idée que j'ai eu la natation autour dans ma tête d'un livre j'ai lu sur Thomas Merton et ses idées sur la spiritualité et les roches. » Ceux-ci sont au pied de l'installation, découpé et formé de la mousse de styrol. « Je me suis trouvé employer tous les matériaux que j'emploie dans les sculptures en arbre mais d'une manière différente… sur le mur. Mon interprétation du morceau est qu'elle est légèrement d'un combat entre la nature et l'homme fait monde, ying et yang de la vie, quelque chose le long de ces lignes. » Le travail effraye. C'est art ayant jeté sa peau, danse et enchantement comme si menant la visionneuse environ par la lanterne. Il y a la rue… les choses tombées de branches de cônes de rue de détruire-boule………, attrapées dans le chaos. Les sculptures en arbre de Mullen sont de nouvelles additions à son paquet. Elle continue l'utilisation des choses normales et… les branches, le papier de riz, le fil, le plâtre, la peinture, la mousse de styrol, les chiffons de studio, etc., etc. cassés artificiels et naturellement, des oiseaux. Voici plus de ses intérieur-pensées, sa chasse de luciole. « Les sculptures ont évolué hors du procédé de peinture, il y a environ 2 ans. J'ai toujours été tiré à la poésie du winter'" nu de `qu'elle dit, les « branches d'arbre et ont commencé à rassembler cassé trouvés comme je marche. Ainsi, chaque morceau commence par une branche qui alors est parfois attachée à une base ou est accrochée d'en haut. » Judith Mullen a reçu son BFA de l'école de l'institut d'art de Chicago. Elle a exhibé dans l'ensemble du Midwest, y compris des expositions au centre culturel de Chicago, le centre d'art d'Evanston, une exposition soloe récente à l'atelier d'art contemporain Chicago et a actuellement une exposition soloe de concurrent à Los Angeles à la galerie de JK. Elle également aura une exposition soloe cette année au centre d'art de Krasl au Michigan. Elle était le destinataire de nombreuses concessions et récompenses, y compris une camaraderie du Conseil d'arts de l'Illinois. Son travail est également dessus affichage au centre de schéma de l'enregistrement de l'artiste de New York. « Avec mes inspirations indiquées, je trouve toute mon inspiration des routines, des rythmes et des voyages de ma propre vie pendant qu'il intersecte avec ceux autour de moi. Je vis dans une banlieue entourée par la conserve de forêt et voyage à la ville chaque jour où mon studio est localisé », elle note. « Cela fonctionne pour moi. Il est où la nature et l'homme ont fait le monde intersecter et les diverses manières ceci des jeux dehors que je me trouve tiré dedans pour errer autour. » Il n'y a aucune couleur dominante dans l'exposition. Cela tout fonctionne ensemble, pourtant il est presque hors de commande, comme un spectacular, affichage contemporain de feux d'artifice, être bientôt fabuleux. Il extorque dehors chaque sens de l'imagination. Est-ce que « où je me vois me suis dirigé entends ? Pour moi, c'est toujours été au sujet du processus tellement si tout va bien que continuera à être le cas. Je suis ouvert là où de cette volonté me mène. » www.lindawarrengallery.com

MLK REVISITED

PIECES OF THE DREAM
re print ABDN PRESS
-jeffery mcnary
(Washington, D.C.) Almost forty years to the day of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a crowd of a few thousand gathered in the nation's capitol to recall, reflect, and attempt the resuscitation of a coalition of activists with diverse causes...some now on life support. On that afternoon, forty years ago, a youthful southern Black Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr., stepped to the podium on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and began his remarks with, AI am happy to join you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. By the time the blazing sun began its descent, casting late afternoon shadows through the stone garden resting places of Arlington and Northern Virginia, King's I have a Dream oration had red-lettered the day.
Bob Dylan was there. Lena Horne was there, as was Paul Newman, Heston, Brando, Josephine Baker, and many more ,Afresh from narrow jail cells. Julian Bond, a former Georgia state legislator and now Chair of the NAACP was there and shared with ABDN Journal that he Ahad the best job of the day...serving cold soft drinks to the celebrities. AI got to keep my arms, up to the elbows, in ice cold water for the better part of the day, a graceful Bond said.
Forty years in some genres can be a long time. Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison never saw 40. Neither did the vast majority of those whose birth names are etched into the black marble slabs of the Viet Nam War Memorial abutting the site of the demonstrations. Yet the enthusiasm and sense of determination of those recently gathered in renewal, provided a delicious bite of promise and piece of the dream.
The August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom came on the heels of bloody engagements through out the south...as well as economic violence in northern cities. There were calls for passage of the then pending Civil Rights Bill, desegregation of schools and housing, job training and elimination of racial discrimination in hiring, among other issues. The March had been initiated by A. Phillip Randolph, a labor leader and vice-president of the AFL-CIO. Randolph was joined in his effort by the leadership of five major civil rights organizations in the United States. Whitney Young, National Urban League; Roy Wilkins, National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); James Farmer, Congress of Racial Equality(CORE); John Lewis, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and King, Southern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC). This was the so-called Abig-six@.
The 40th Anniversary found a loose knit coalition somewhere in the area of 100 groups, with Dr. Kings son, Martin Luther King, III, front and center...to the point of being almost apologetic, if not determined. He is sincere...in more than a Promethean fashion. African American males coming of age can rarely afford the Holden Caufield experience, even when those with middle-class parents find that preferable to the fraternities of Crips or Bloods. Those around King, III couched the 40th Anniversary as an event bringing together the ASit-in Generation and the AHip-Hop Generation, a kind of Baez meets Grand Master somebody. Those with years in the trenches eerily attempted to balance the need for increased voter registration with its established rich legacy. Jesse Jackson, in comments to a gathering of SNCC veterans said, A I'd rather have an old Thurgood Marshall than a young Clarence Thomas.
A transference of Athe movement was not the order of the day as much as a welcome aboard theme with most. Not long ago the young King had faced a challenge to his leadership and was rescued by the old guard, including Jackson.
While the SCLC held the Anniversary primarily to symbolism, the unveiling of a plaque honoring MLK, Jr...prayer vigils...a poetry jam, a more aggressive group, By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) took to the streets of Washington demanding the defeat of anti-affirmative action initiatives and a national boycott of Coors Beer, which, they claim, is a major financial contributor to the attack on affirmative action and civil rights. In early Spring, BAMN was instrumental in turning out over 50,000 demonstrators near the Supreme Court calling for support of affirmative action.
Shanta Driver, BAMN's fiery spokesperson, addressed a gathering of student and labor activists at the gates of Howard University prior to a five mile march to the Lincoln Memorial. AWe are the leadership of the new civil rights movement. You are the builders of the nations future. There are still people in this society@, Driver continued stacatto like, Athat are going to fight to realize the dream...not just commemorate what Martin Luther King stood for, but also make clear that there=s a movement in place, a new civil rights movement, to realize the dream. Across town, at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, former SNCC activists came together to review their expectations in 1963 and compare the struggles of 2003. John Lewis, now a Congressman from Georgia, and the sole survivor of the big six, was joined by Rev. Walter Fauntroy, a former delegate from the District of Columbia, Eleanor Holmes Norton, the current delegate from the District and others. ABearing Witness to a Dream Deferred, the forum was titled. Cong. Lewis (D-Ga.) now serves on the Democratic Steering Committee and as a young student participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides and endured savage beatings from racist mobs. Lewis is the real deal. AYoung Black men and women, young people, young children 7 and 8...9, 10, 11 and 12 years old were being arrested, jailed. Bull Connor, the police commissioner used the dogs and fire hoses on people, a visibly moved Lewis spoke. AMedgar Evers was assassinated...and then you had President Kennedy speaking to the nation...when he said the issue of race is a moral issue. On June 14, 1963 I was elected chair of ...SNCC. Eight days later I was invited to a meeting here in Washington at the White House....and it was in that meeting A. Phillip Randolph...spoke up and said. 'Mr. President, the Black masses are restless and we're going to march on Washington. And you could tell by the very body language of President that he didn't like what he heard. He started moving in his chair, one side to the other side, and he said >Mr. Randolph, if you bring all of these Negroes to Washington, and all of these Negroes in the streets, we will never be able to get a Civil Rights Bill from the congress. Mr. Randolph responded, AMr. President, Negroes are already in the streets."
Forty years later there was no such meeting. There was not even a message or messenger from the un-elected current occupant of the White House...something which should be unsettling, at best, to the thoughtful.
In a brief walk with this reporter, Cong. Lewis shared his concerns over the current state of affairs. AForty years later we need to pick up where Dr. King left off, and that is to humanize the American economy to meet basic human needs of our people. People need a little better of an income, people need jobs. Too many people are losing jobs. A large segment of the population is under paid, some receiving starvation wages, they're not receiving a livable wage. That's what we need to take care of. Lewis responded to a query on the recent California re-call initiative with, AIf that trend picks up and grows, it will make people much more cynical and less interested in the political process. We must find a way to put an end to what is happening in California, it must not be allowed to spread.
Political Science Professor Ron Walters of the University of Maryland expounded on this subject. It's probably a new trend because its a way that the Republican Party has of trying to seize power at the local level. They have done a good job, the radical right, seizing power of the national government. They now control the Supreme Court, the White House and both the House and the Senate, and that's a very formidable victory for them, said Walters.
Rev. Jesse Jackson echoed this perspective. Briskly heading up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, while pausing for photos with and signing autographs for, Jackson said, AThis is another attempt by the right-wing to de-stabilize government. They lost the election and this is an act to sabotage democracy. He was joined by former Ambassador and U.S. Senator Carol Mosely Braun, now a Democratic candidate for President., who referred to the re-call as a, Ahideous attempt to take power and create political chaos and to dis-enfranchise California voters, and I hope that it's rejected resoundingly by California votes. It=s not a matter of personality, it's whether or not an election will be allowed to stand or a coup de etat be allowed to happen.
The romantic tradition which tends to surround and enfold revolutions and movements appears to have taken a pass in the ameri-politic where issues of race are concerned. But most of the pieces of Dr. King's dream lay in jangled heaps across the lay of the land. Perhaps it is because of the close configuration of class and promise. The current Secretary of State is a Black man. The National Security Advisor to the President is a Black woman. The head of Time-Warner is African American as are a host of corporate directors and so-called Apublic intellectuals. Yet King's dream remains in pieces...much of it unfulfilled, in spite of Carter, his grits and grins and our collective collision with the Clintons. Perhaps a celebration is in order...one which shares a common vision, common goals, and time lines that transcend age and gender. After all...it's America...40 years late...peace out.

ART SHAY'S TRUE COLORS

Thomas Masters Gallery
January 15 – February 15, 2010
jeffery mcnary- NEOTERICART

Art Shay’s photography is brilliant. And should one be in search of art as solely objects of, and for, aesthetic enjoyment, the exhibition, “Art Shay’s True Colors”, opening Friday, January 15 at the Thomas Masters Gallery, is not that experience. It is not an imagined dream life. It is a collection, an exhibition of the works of a photographer who has managed to crystallize defining moments in the American experience in bright colors, without a bypass, on archive rag paper with digital print.

For the artist, simply telling a story is too easy. Shay’s photos appear to tell a story behind a story. There is a pattern of capturing his subject sans posing. There are athletes, and movie stars. There is Khrushchev in Iowa, and Johnny Cash, Daleys and Jordan. There is Warhol and Jack Nicholas, Vince Lombardi and Bart Star and other luminaries out of their usual. There are protestors and police faced-off tango style in Grant Park in ‘68…the viewer can practically whiff the tear gas and refer and hear the chants. There’s the Nixon, amped up with arms in that ‘v’ before the looming, “Goddess of Grain” in the background.

Some entrances and exits flow in this exhibition. In 1964, two years prior to returning to participate in an open housing campaign, Martin Luther King, Jr. visited Chicago and spoke at a rally for racial justice at Soldier Field. Shay was there, and captured a youthful civil rights leader being greeted by both police and the assembled masses, “King at Soldier Field”. Moving deeper into the exhibition there are more King photographs, King smiling, King speaking, King dead…in an open casket with his followers appearing stunned and in tears. Shay captured the riots following the assassination and the drama of the police search for the killer in Memphis with a dramatic and searing intensity.

“Photography has been my love since I was 12 and my Dad lent me his folding Kodak. I immediately began to shoot but also develop other peoples' rolls of Verichrome in the coal bin that made up part of the modest Bronx four family home we lived in,” says Shay. “I built my first enlarger out of a Maxwell House coffee can that slid up and down on the sandwiched 2 x4's I found in a junk heap. The sliding wood pieces came from the bottom of a long abandoned dining room table.”

The exhibition brings the viewer shots of Nelson Algren, (a friend of Shay and god father to one of his children) on the gritty side streets and back alleys of Chicago. Shay had followed Algren with a camera, shooting photos for a piece he was pitching to Life. It’s been written that they were, “masters chronicling the same patch of ground with different tools.”

Back to his early days, Shay continued in his ribald fashion, “When I was 16 an ancient divorcee of 35, professing interest in my work, professed wanting to learn enlarging, and in the process enlarged me sufficiently in 5 seconds to capture my virginity. This influenced me greatly as to the value of photography.”

Sharing more of his history, “I took a Leica into WWII and used it during combat flying of 52 missions. Just after the war, when I was thinking of becoming a professional writer… I was an English major in my only nine months of college before enlisting at age 20 in 1942…and the Washington Post took to printing Sunday features I wrote.”

Shay was soon hired as a staff reporter for Life Magazine. “It was my job at one time or another to schlep camera equipment around for perhaps 20 of Life's fotogs. Life reporters were verboten from using a camera under pain of firing, but in my three years as a staffer I must have had 20 pages in print under other (real) photographers' bylines- while carrying their spare cameras” It was at this point Shay opted to leave Life, going freelance, shooting mostly his own ideas and crafting his own stories, as well as shooting them in Chicago for Time, Life, Fortune, Sports Illustrated and other outlets.

The photographer holds the camera is an extension of the eye, but also the humor and world experience behind that eye as well.

There is an emotional heart to the exhibition. The iconic photos of JFK and Nixon prior to there now famous televised debate. King’s casket being unloaded from a plane from Memphis. Inner-city Chicago children playing in run-down playgrounds. There’s Jack Kennedy appearing in conference with a Native American chief, “Two Chiefs”. And there’s Jimmy Hoffa, in a suit, behind bars. “It’s called, ‘Hoffa in Jail’. I knew Hoffa,” Shay says, “We used to play handball in Detroit. Hell of a handball player. It’s in Lewisberg Prison, and he’s holding the coat to hide the handcuffs.”

The talent and skill of the artist appears through the passion, humor, and history of the show. In, “Masai Spear Thrower”, the photographer catches the hunter’s spear in flight, on it’s arc, the second it leaves his hand in Nairobi. All of the work at the exhibition is done ‘in-camera’.

“I am not an agonizer. I work in the equivalent of bolts of controlled lighting, getting ideas and varying the themes that make them publishable.” Shay explains. “In covering JFK addressing 100,000 farmers live in North Dakota, I didn't like the composition of Kennedy at one side---so I had the sponsors move a flagpole with flying pennants of different colors on it so it composed well across from Kennedy. I had just purchased the then new Widelux camera- 140 degrees- and my first picture of JFK with it ran in Time across two pages.”

For Art Shay, a chance to show "Art's True Colors”, “is an important segment of my life's work- at last.” And for others, this show provides lessons, and yet for others still, remembrance.

DANIEL KIM AND MICHAEL PARKER: STRUCTURE AND SPACE

Daniel Kim and Michael Parker: Structure and Space,

David Weinberg Gallery,Chicago

January 8th – February 20th, 2010
jeffery mcnary - NEOTERICART

Poise appears conscientiously injected into the current exhibition at the David Weinberg Gallery. The abstract paintings of Daniel Kim, combined with the photography of Michael Parker make for a very impressive introduction to the new year, stepping from the holiday vestibule into a pantheon of sometimes sharp-edge, yet eloquent art. It’s a fine gathering of work.

“In my work, monochrome paintings deal with very important aspect of painting”, says Kim. “In order for a painting to be successful I believe 3 things have to work together, and that’s color, image and the paint application. If the 3 work, it’s like flicking a switch and activating a painting to make it come alive. I do this to speculate what beauty might look like.” His work is not shy. Early on in the show the viewer catches his erudite use of basic grays, of fundamentals, of shadow and of space.

In speaking to his own work, Parker holds, “Architecture begins on paper. Photography is the method by which it returns”… my official slogan. I honestly believe the relationship between photography and architecture is a unique one. Architecture, being such a detailed medium is best recorded with photography for most purposes. Be it for commercial use, fine art, or historical record, photography is really the only way to put an immense physical structure into your briefcase or on the wall.”

Curator Aaron Ott has consciously ‘zig-zagged’ the works early on in the exhibition. Ott appreciates mixing mediums in joint shows, and in this instance pieces settle, more than dominate in such fashion.

In many of Kim’s paintings the viewer is introduced to cloud shapes, to explosions of chaos and areas of the larger works appearing to be paintings on their own. “Oil paint for me has enough range that I almost feel its part of who I am, and the paint becomes a tool to complete my other half,” he says. “The decision I make with the paint is personal and very much reflects who I am as person.”

Moving deeper into the exhibition, one comes upon large color works of Kim’s. Here the dialogue continues with traces of pastel whispering on the canvases of brilliant color. “Color paintings which are bit more challenging to make is also driven by my speculation of beauty, using the formal elements I know and composing them to become a interesting visual stimulation. In a simple term I try to make interesting paintings, because that is what visual artist do.”

Many of Parker’s works approach the mystical. The stark, geometrical designs freeze in camera. His, ‘Disney Concert Hall, LA, CA’, Pigment print, sweeps and slashes and swoons with the titanium of the structure itself. “When I step back from my work,” he says, “I realize that I am working with three elements that everybody loves…photography, architecture, and travel. The questions of “where? how? and what?” are easily answered… so the work is very user friendly. I purposely shoot with traditional B&W film in order to commit the images to a life of fine art. I considered shooting digital photos in order to maximize the value for various stock photo purposes but abandon the idea in order to preserve the integrity of the black and white.

Both artists share the trials of their work. “I wrestle with my work there are times in my studio where I spend more time starring and thinking about the paintings then executing” says Kim. “I actually enjoy the times when I am wrestling with my work, I feel that’s when I use my brain the most and try to squeeze out all the knowledge I have about painting and apply it on to my paintings.”

Parker adds, “Life is a constant struggle. Photography is no different. There are photos I love and there are photos that sell. Its pretty obvious, when you see the show you’ll see a few images of trees that are stretching the theme of the show, we sell so much of this work for its aesthetic appeal. The only problem I have with these images are that they overlap a bit with other photographer’s work, as an artist I really want to create something new and distinct.” He concludes, “The good news is that my abstract architectural work does well. I really believe that I’m on to something new.”

What now? Parker says, “I’m sticking with the plan. I’ve have standardized sizes, frames standardized sizes, frames, and printing methods, which has helped to make a recognizable a piece in such a crowded genre.” Sharing, “I simply intend to continually travel and expand my archive. I had a wonderful installation in Atlanta composed of fifteen wall size murals, all in black and white. Since I shot everything on medium and large format film the images were very sharp in the grand scale.”

“I use to be very inpatient after graduating from school, thinking I have to show in New York or LA”, says Kim, “but now I realize patience isn’t such a bad thing. All I can do is try to make good art and hope people will notice, so my answer is I am not really sure where my art is headed in the future, but I am very ambitious.” With many of his works, ‘untitled’, the show calls for revisits and imagination to roam and name them.