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18/7/2007

The World Is Yours

Oliver Kamm 5BE Gallery, New York

Curated by Liz Jonckheer

Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to present a group show featuring the work of five artists: Jonathan Allen, David Brooks, Luke Butler, Rä di Martino and KB Jones. The World Is Yours suggests that the world is what you make of it, and points to the artists' creation of their own language.

Jonathan Allen's paintings and works on paper recycle pop imagery, abstraction, political iconography, and the mundane to evoke his eccentric vision. His surreal dreamscapes often examine the bizarre contradiction, and absurdities, of today's cultural and political climate. Allen weaves together a variety of media and techniques; oil/acrylic paint, pen/ink rendering, pencil, pastel, and collage elements to create seamlessly relevant works of art.

David Brooks' work considers the relationship between the individual and the built and natural environment. The fact that the world is comprised of countless ecosystems and innumerable autonomous relationships within them inspires Brooks in his attempt to define and map the individual within the "seemingly endless environment of now". The whole is implied by the parts - and in Brooks' case, the parts are the medium of his sculptures.

Luke Butler toys with contemporary mythology. To him, "The End" is a classical figure that looms in our consciousness despite our ability to see right through it. As a static image floating in a frame it seems contradictory, absurd, and poignant - an anti-picture. He also suspects that ubiquitous, overpowering figures like the Presidents of the United States must also be little human men, vulnerable characters whose preoccupations could look a lot like his, and maybe even yours.

Rä di Martino is interested in the relationship between our intimate sphere, memory, subconscious and the fictions we create around ourselves. Her most recent film, The Red Shoes, recalls a story and resembles something - a hazy memory or dream - from somewhere - déjà vu, perhaps. The Red Shoes can be read as found footage and a sort of day dream, (the film was shot `day for night') and while the title and scene are familiar, the viewing experience is more than what it seems.

KB Jones' subject matter is drawn from images of her childhood in Africa, and her life today in Brooklyn, and speaks to the powers of association and suggestion. Her paintings manage to be both familiar and enigmatic at the same time. She has developed her own visual vocabulary which subtly communicates itself to the viewer - figures emerge from textures, only to dissolve into the surface of the picture plane, once again.

Oliver Kamm 5BE Gallery
621 West 27th Street, ground floor - New york

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