SUMMER MARATHON PART I
KRISTINA CHAN & ITAMAR FREED, Oh Deer, 2019
Round 1: (8 July – 26 July) Kristina Chan & Itamar Freed: Lucid Dreams
Round 2: (29 July – 15 Aug.) Miles Debas: Thousand Mile Smile
Round 3: (19 Aug. – 5 Sept.) Valentin Van der Meulen: Strip Cities
Our second Summer Marathon takes a revitalised approach to the traditional ‘group show’, presenting 4 artists in back-to-back solo exhibitions (in lieu of one group show) over the summer. Through this unconventional approach, each exhibiting artist is able to stage their envisioned solo show over a two-week period.
Note: Due to COVID-19, this year’s remaining artists will show in January 2021. The outstanding artists are Ariela Gotenberg & David Noro as well as Shinuk Suh and Ehryn Torrell.
ITAMAR FREED & KRISTINA CHAN: LUCID DREAMS
Itamar Freed and Kristina Chan present photographic works that search for the idea of realness in the natural world. Influenced by post-impressionism, ideas surrounding the classification and preservation of historical artifacts, nature, and Japanese printing techniques, the works question the veracity of the photograph in the interplay between the real and the fantastic. The works are digitally and analogously manipulated, combining both curated environments (such as museums, zoos, and digital materials) along with nature photography to question verisimilitude and how we shape our memories. The photographs include cyanotypes printed on hand-made Japanese paper, lithographs, etchings, and pigment prints. The artists utilize both historic and contemporary techniques to decontextualize the image and our expectations of how these traditional techniques can be presented.
MILES DEBAS: THOUSAND MILE SMILE
Inspired by his wife’s pregnancy, the new series of works by American artist Miles Debas looks at the creative power of the human body, using emblematic figurative imagery to illustrate ideas about love, communication, and interrelationships between persons, places, and things. The works create a type of visual language about the malleability of the body and the object. The title of the show is named after one of the paintings and it refers to the idea of separation/connectedness that we are all experiencing at this time. Both the work and the title point to Debas’ effort to manufacture a bit of joy and positivity in order to counteract the stark realities of the moment. He states, ‘I want to present the possibility of optimism’.
VALENTIN VAN DER MEULEN: STRIP CITIES
Starting with a hyperrealistic charcoal drawing on paper, French artist Valentin Van der Meulen than begins a physical process of obfuscating, erasing, or deconstructing his imagery until what remains is a drawing that is part performance, part conceptual artwork, part happening. The work challenges pre-established codes and modes of visual representation, dislodged from reality and something that questions its own value and worth.
