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11/7/2003

Dirt Wizards

Brooklyn Fire Proof, New York

Frost, Hayuk, Jane, Johanson, Leines, Mcchargue & Samson

Brooklyn Fire Proof is pleased to present DIRT WIZARDS; a group show exploring the role of pattern and spirituality in the dialogue between East Coast and West Coast emerging art.

Both globally influential and up-and-coming artists will be collaborating to present not only ambitious instantiations of their own projects, but a collaborative piece filling the hallway of Brooklyn Fire Proof Inc. Chris' work has been expanding and mutating throughout his rigorous exhibition schedule of the past few years. His work has ranged from ponderously dark examinations of homelessness, real estate, and spiritual death, to rainbow-happy (yet fiercely political) celebrations of life and connectivity. Recurring imagery like "energy explosions", swastikas, and radiant energy fields betray the important role of abstract patterning in his otherwise predominately figural oeuvre.

Another established artist exerting a strong influence on East Coast emerging artists is Phil Frost, whose work proliferates beyond the fine art context, inspiring a devoted cult following. Phil Frost's huge pseudo-tribal totems of paint, ink and whiteout both hide and reveal his spiritual tendencies under layers of elaborate geometry. Faces peek out from behind a snowstorm of pattern that is part ceremonial face paint, part exuberant play. Also involved in patterned explorations of myth and ceremony is 21-year-old Keegan McHargue, a complexly talented artist from Portland, Oregon. Keegan's work circulates shamans and wizards in portentous ceremonies of hidden import. In meticulous and well-crafted works on panel and paper, he weaves a highly idiosyncratic mythology with a precise line and a subdued palette. Negating our educated dependence on received forms and structures, Keegan provides the viewer with a sense of joy in the disruption of conventional modes of expression. His almost cubist deconstruction of figural volumes with patterning gives the viewer the sensation that they are seeing a face or body again for the first time, accurately.

Matt Leines's pieces share a similar intensity and highly personal iconography, implying instead narratives of power and manipulation. Matt's pieces tend to focus on vintage technology, weaving strange analog circuits and crafting quasi-organic architectural objects with breathtaking precision. Hair, wires, blood, tears and natural objects all share a pulsating circuitry of interconnection, animating an alternative reality full of humor and insight into contemporary experience. Maya Hayuk, part of the Barnstormers group that brings graffiti-esque murals to rural communities, has shown extensively in New York and abroad, using hard-edge abstraction to riff on everything from corporate America to bodega simulacra. Spinning patterns in an anamnetically familiar commodity-palette, Maya's pieces have a rigorous conceptual underpinning that is not always readily obvious. She brings a nostalgic, but nonetheless sincere and unsentimental eye to a stylistic position honed from a provocative collision of media. Justin Samson deals in personalized artifacts as well, creating installations that are not diaristic or narrative per se, but rather that explore an eclectic range of cultural references and focus on the convergence of personal memory and social history. Justin's work indicates and describes a mind not only well versed in an early-80's childhood vernacular, but also confident in its selectivity and emotive response.

Color and pattern are manipulated by an HC Westermann craft and wit, creating ever-reinvented process-oriented installations that recall dens and playrooms from suburban homes. More aligned with the coloring book than Lisa Ruyter paint-by-number aesthetics, Justin uses the openness and generosity of a child's relationship towww.brooklynfireproof.com objects to craft a subtly suggestive and unquestionably adult melange, pushing materials to the extremes of their expressive potential. Xylor Jane 's work draws on mathematical algorithms to make intricate and staggering installations. Deriving her patterns from often basic arithmetic exercises (such as the Fibonacci Series, or prime numbers), she deals in both complexity and simplicity, finding hidden curiosities and subtle patterns amidst swarms of numbers. But while the conceptual component exhibits all the exactitude of a Sol LeWitt, the execution thereof exemplifies the loved, handmade quality that is shared by the other work in this show. Her rigorous execution does not negate the personal touch, but rather highlights the commitment and personal investment she brings to each piece.

In the image a Matt Leines's piece.

Brooklyn Fire Proof
101 Richardson St.
Brooklyn
tel. 718.302.4702

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