Axis is proud to present “Containment,” a solo exhibition by Summer Ventis. In the city, we often feel distant from the landscape. The natural world, however, asserts itself in spite of—and sometimes through—the ways in which we try to contain … Continued
Axis Gallery is pleased to present “A Mechanized Pencil,” an exhibition of photographs in a site-specific installation by Nick Shepard on view from October 4 through October 27, with a Second Saturday reception with the artist on Saturday, October 12, from 6:00–8:00 pm. Shepard will present an artist talk Friday, October 4. This is Shepard’s second solo exhibition at Axis Gallery. Shepard’s work is grounded in a deep understanding of art history and the relationship between photography and other media. He makes frequent use of digital and analog processes to create images that are easily mistaken for paintings, but remain undeniably photographic.
Our conception of reality is really just a story that we tell ourselves to provide a coherent narrative that we can place ourselves within. Recent studies and emergent theories regarding the nature of consciousness, the illusion of free will, and theory of mind shed light on how precarious our personality traits and our “nature” are. With seemingly minor trauma to the brain, shift in gut-biome, or the ingestion of a psychoactive substance, a person can be permanently and radically changed. It is this volatile aspect of our “selves” that has become a recurring theme in my studio practice, both in regard to content, but also in approaches to the work, which at times produce results that seem both unfamiliar and alien.
Axis Gallery is pleased to have Amy Owen, curator at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, as juror for the 14th National Juried Exhibition. Juror’s Statement If Axis Gallery’s national juried exhibition competitions of the recent past have demonstrated … Continued
Axis Gallery is pleased to present a selection of work from former Axis Gallery member, Phil Amrhein. The Idea of Undoing: a 25 year survey of the art of Phil Amrhein displays the evolution of Amrhein’s work over a 25 year period from early figurative paintings to current, black voids. His exploration of the aesthetics of black began as a rejection of decorative painting styles, rendering a canvas without a discernible reference by removing what is recognizable. Amrhein’s minimalist sensibility engages with the painting as a visual object which, according to the artist, “engages the eye more than the mind.” His paintings embrace nothing and reflect his process of destructive reduction, freeing the work from the constraints imposed byrepresentation.
This collection of work by William Mead, along with guest artist Lauren Kelly, explores some of the many facets of working in a digital, Information Age, where our interactions with our colleagues is often mediated through the use of a keyboard and a screen. Our digital information driven work has seeped into our souls and is part of what defines our relationships as well as who we are as individuals. It stands, at times, in stark contrast to physical labor.
This body of works is based on the Eastern philosophy of allowing your thoughts to be, as in a meditation. The conundrum is our ego- where we may want to control and direct our thoughts.
In her latest exhibition, Everything That I Could Keep Inside, Angela Casagrande’s new work is centered around the afterlife of memory. Resulting from a fascination with the frailty of memory, her work examines memory as an aspect of liminal space, the beings that inhabit this space and the artifacts left behind, both physical and immaterial. Her graphoscopes serve the dual purpose of reliquary and assemblage – both housing sentimental mementos while displaying these items as narrative pieces. The act of encasing photographic images in encaustic wax refers to methods of Spiritualist communications with the spirit world through wax divination, along with preservation and occult binding practices. By coating these images in layers of wax, Casagrande binds the memory in place, saving it from decay.
When asked to draw a house a child will most often draw a rectangle and put an isosceles triangle on top. After adding a door and a window or two you have the standard drawing of a house. This rudimentary shape has become a universal symbol of a house. With computers this symbol has become simplified even more to become an icon. The “home” icon is used to return the user to the start, to back the user out of complexity and return the user to a place of relative safety.
Roma Devanbu’s use of intricate pattern reflects her ongoing fascination with the human compulsion to make things and decorate them. In this, her third, solo show at Axis Gallery, Devanbu contrasts these patterned elements, with representational passages, such as hands that hold on or let go of the objects, relationships and ideas of our making.
A chronic, but mostly manageable, hoarding disorder gives Devanbu a measure of personal expertise when it comes to understanding our attachments to things and to the meanings these objects hold. Devanbu explores these ideas in new drawings and paintings, as well as in interactive work which invite gallery goers to engage with the perpetual hoarder’s dilemma – Keep, Toss, Give Away or Sell?