Lost in memories and transit

Although I was continuing on with my February Gallery Fest as planned, maybe I just wasn't in the artsy mood today, or didn't really feel welcomed at either of the places I visited, but whatever it was...the art I saw today didn't really click with me. Though I did love one piece that was at SPACE, the gallery as a whole didn't really impress me and Wood Street Galleries was a little far-fetched to my eye. But in art, everyone's a critic and I know that my opinion certainly doesn't stand for everyone's which is why I encourage everyone to check out these galleries for themselves. Only take my opinion at face value.

HC Gilje: in transit
This is the exhibit going on until April at Wood Street Galleries, which must have been having an elevator problem today because I had to go all over the place to get to the actual gallery and since it was split between floors, I actually only got to see the second floor. So that in itself makes my opinion biased I guess, but let's be real, this kind of stuff should just work if you expect people to enjoy their experience.

Anyway, in a little pamphlet I picked up about a week ago that is about this exhibit has an explanation by HC Gilje's work and it says, "I often work with projection as an advanced light source which can be masked to the shape of different surfaces of a room or an object, affectingly modulating the light and sound I project into it...Being able to control what is visible and when it is visible gives me the opportunity to influence both perception of time and space." Well. That's all well and good and I'm sure it took great effort to figure out each idea of what would be projected and how, but let's just say it wasn't my cup of tea. This exhibit would probably lead to a great discussion of whether or not it is really art because it is basically just manipulation of a projector. But, I guess the art would be in the way this everyday object is manipulated.


Overlapping Memories
This exhibit, currently at SPACE is "exploring memory and introspection through contemporary uses of collage in digital media" and has various artists featured from Spain and the US. I was more open to this exhibit because I like the gallery better in general and it had more pieces that I could actually want to get into, though most I must admit I was turned off to because there were a lot of digital pieces and I, frankly, didn't want to watch them all. Wow. I should probably revisit both of these when I'm in an artsy mood, gosh I sound so mean!

part of Elementary Excursions by Andrew Ellis Johnson

Detail of Elem. Excursion

Now of course, because I'm a stupid American, my favorite piece was one by fellow land-of-the-braver, Andrew Ellis Johnson, with his piece, Elementary Excursions. This work made me so happy. Simple lines of paint on the walls with little baseball card sized pictures of animals thumb-tacked to each line. This piece reminded me of my bedroom at my parents house, because I have vertical stripes that take up an entire wall and then poster-sized frames with regular 4x6 pictures in the middle of them in each stripe- so I must admit that that familiarity of this piece to my own "art" in my bedroom is what initially drew me in. But I also loved the uniqueness of each of the little pictures - it all reminded me of an elementary field trip to the zoo, which is just a quality feel good piece of art. It was a great ending to a kinda bummed-out start in the art world.