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| Jiayi Young, Shih-Wen Young, M. Azevedo, 7.9 M2, post-consumer materials, flour, paint, 2-channel audio, visualized sound, 2011 |
Chaotic Consumers
Designed to resemble 85 square feet of living space, 7.9 M2 is a collaborative installation on display at Axis
Gallery, where post-consumer products were used to reconstruct a single-family home
from Shanghai, China. The multi-media exhibition designed by artist/physicist
couple Jiayi Young and Shih-Wen Young along with collaborator M. Azevedo, brings
to the fore the social and environmental issues of a voracious consumer society.
Jiayi Young reproduces from memory the apartment where she
lived with her parents as a child. By piecing together product packaging, the
configuration is limited to two beds, a small table with two chairs, and a
study area with shelves. A blue marker on the ground delineates the dimensions
of the confined space. Disturbingly, the arrangement disrupts our expectations
of lifestyle and underscores the over production of waste.
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| 7.9 M2, (detail) |
A sound visualizer projected onto the middle of the room magnifies
our experience. By weaving sound clips from a 50s and 60s film produced by the
US Department of Energy, a late-night commercial, and sci-fi sound effects, the
omniscient narrator and spiraling waves produces a hypnotic trance. The
collaborators aimed for the installation to “examine energy consumption and
generation,” resulting in evidence of a carbon footprint of devastating proportions.
Even the crude rainbow leaves a dreary sign of hope.
City/Country
The exhibition Clusterfucks and Countryfolks of the work by Melinda and Melissa Arendt at Bows & Arrows continues the polarized argument
between rural and urban environments.
Nostalgia for a more rural living plays out in the
woodblocks by Melinda Arendt. The distinct hatch marks of carving with and
against the grain of woodblocks compliments Melinda’s subject. However, these
images are presented in a pre-packaged format, a rehashing of Warhol’s Campbell
Soup Cans, such as in her print of banjos, steins,
and rockers.
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| Melissa Arendt, Layered Landscape 1, oil and pencil on wood panel, 2011 |
The paintings by Melissa Arendt updates the binary discussion
of environments by utilizing contemporary iconography fused together with
clustered motifs. Layered Landscape 1 is
a comparative contrast of glaciers and skyscrapers. Melissa developed as a unifying
motif what appears as cellular clusters reminiscent of DNA, calling to mind the
underlying organic structure shared amongst living organisms.
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| Nathan Cordero, Untitled, wooden door panel, 2008 |
Recycling
Nathan Cordero’s solo exhibition titled Are you destined
to become your mother? at the Nelson
Gallery brings together a prolific body of work predominantly from 2011. Cordero
meshes the everyday in all aspects of his art—from object to subject. His primary
material is found wood (door panels, plywood, etc.), which Cordero then
reconstitutes into an aesthetic arrangement distinctly his own, forged relentlessly
and continues to refine.
An example of his earlier work can be viewed in the 79” x 32”
untitled, wooden door panel from 2008. A dense composition of staggered bottles
in which to search for referents to memories and ruminations: playing cards, question
marks, a pistol, Cordero in Old English
lettering. The jagged, thinning panel is reinforced for a continuation of the
delirious dream, simultaneously violent and delicate.
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| Nathan Cordero, Five Things, found wood, 2011 |
He is openly honest with his contemplations of common vices:
cigarettes, alcohol, sex. He uses a language of his own, from simplified
graphics to coded messages that reference the everyday. Works from 2011 give
evidence of technical growth and refinement as seen in Five Things. Cordero demonstrates his mastered skill in carving intricate
lines in unconventional supports. The simplified forms iconographic of his
craft, sit pronounced within a void, imbuing the banal objects with an
exquisite quality.
The 15" x 45" untitled, found wood and mixed media from 2011 is a formal investigation of his medium by stripping away at the found material, baring its raw processed fabric. Cordero reveals the splintering and jagged characteristics of the grain that he in turn constructs into an engaging, minimalist composition. Cordero delights his viewer with the flexibility and breadth of creativity that is reworked into what was once discarded.
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| Nathan Cordero, Untitled, found wood and mixed media, 2011 |
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| Untitled, (detail) |
