Artist Talks with Kanetaka Ikeda, Stephan Soihl, Corey S. Pressman & Christopher Shotola-Hardt: May 18, 2pm
MAY 1 - JUNE 1 • MAIN GALLERY
Suns, Stars and Cosmic Tree
Kanetaka Ikeda
Kanetaka Ikeda — Leaves and Branches of the Cosmic Tree, mixed media, sculptural installation
Decades ago, Ikeda had a dream. In this dream, he was shown an ever changing tree-like form, a web of invisible lines of gravity and dark matter as the branches and trunks of an impossible and vast Cosmic Tree. Suns and stars as its fruits and flowers, the Tree has provided Ikeda with a mystical measure of his life. The paintings and sculptural works in Suns, Stars and Cosmic Tree share the charismatic and transportive character of the artist’s original vision.
Instances of Art
Stephan Soihl
Stephan Soihl — Sweet Williams, Tomatoes, and Evening Primrose, charcoal pencil and watercolor, 24" x 31.25"
For over four decades, Blackfish founding member Stephan Soihl has been tinkering with materials, machines, flowers and the spaces between. Instances of Art presents a retrospective of clever kinetic sculptures, other 3D works, and his glowing watercolors. The latter are perennially delicate depictions of garden flora, each work made by roaming the garden with an easel, pairing plants that would otherwise not mingle.
These works highlight the artist’s role as creator of realms, places where small machines chirp for you, where tomatoes ripen beside the sweet williams. Here, we come together to participate in Soihl’s somewhere, a place where we ourselves may become instances of art.
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GALLERY 2
Return, Return
Corey S. Pressman
Corey S. Pressman — Now & Again, No. 4, waxed powder painting on panel, 16" x 20”
They all return, the pilgrims of the realm: sun, moon, and stars; songbirds of spring; yawning bears and reaching tides; summer cicadas and crows coming to roost. Also too our loves and sorrows; episodes of elation, terror, and care; the bright burning of our best selves flickering against the dark beyond the wick.
Return, Return offers a meditation on this round adventure. Along the way we realize near things in new places. This is how we know that what we really seek is—according to the law of return—return.
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JAMES HIBBARD GALLERY
Elegies
Christopher Sholola-Hardt
Christopher Shotola-Hardt — Post-Anthropocene Tanagers, acrylic on paper, 11.5" x 7.5”
What if, at the conclusion of the Great Acceleration, we are left with only relics of our avian species – images, art objects, taxidermy, sound recordings, documentaries? Or, will Nature ultimately persevere, leaving birds to roam through the relics of humanity’s past existence – ghost cities and towns?
Seeking a path to ecological optimism, Christopher Shotola-Hardt offers Elegies, a collection of stunning paintings depicting the winged ones who have inherited the earth.
Kanetaka Ikeda
Stephan Soihl
Corey Pressman
Christopher Shotola-Hardt
Blackfishers Doing Cool Stuff
See what Blackfish Artists are involved with outside the gallery this month.