Exhibition Dates: May 20 – June 30, 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 20 from 5-8pm
Featured Artists: Sophia Allison, Bernadette DiPietro, Christine Gray, Gerardo Hacer, Linda King, Christine Morla, Ruby Osorio
PDC neighbors den contemporary art and Sam Lee Gallery present simultaneous group shows focusing on the common theme of “backyard.”
den contemporary art is pleased to present Not In My Backyard, featuring paintings, drawings, photography, and sculpture by seven artists whose works take us to that psychological place which forms the idea of “our” territory, with imagery associated with the backyard and its boundaries, as well as with works that evoke childhood memories of the backyard – foreboding or treasured.
“Not in my backyard” – a statement made by residents expressing an unfavorable response to projected conditions or changes to their neighborhood. The process by which one determines their personal space or territory is often formed during early experiences learning the physical boundaries between family and the people on the other side of the fence.
As opposed to the interior home surroundings, it is within the backyard that often offers one’s first experience with a sense of freedom: activities in the open air, the opportunity to connect with nature, and to explore both with uninhibited imagination. With the safety and comfort of “home” extended to the outdoors, memories are formed and a sense of privacy and security is developed. One defines and will defend against threats contrary to preserving personal space, property, community, territory –that which is the concept of “my backyard.”
Extending beyond the backyard to also include surrounding landscape, Sophia Allison and Christine Morla create works inspired by their respective childhood environment. Allison’s house installation and sewn thread “drawings” are literal depictions of the family property nestled among a dense wooded area in North Carolina. In “Strawberry Fields,” Morla meticulously weaves strips of multicolored packaging paper into geometric, semi-abstract floral shapes, representing the bountiful fields in her hometown neighborhood in Ventura County.
Gerardo Hacer and Linda King’s works are associated with subjects of a more personal attachment such as pets and gardens: kept life forms within safe containment. King’s large abstract paintings have botanical references, through which dual forces of positive/negative planes and fluid fields of color inside hard-edged geometric outlines, represent change, transformation in nature. Hacer’s sculpture explores one’s relationship to the formative process of childhood, represented in “Foxy,” the artist’s intimate family pet as an origami Pomeranian dog made of powder-coated steel.
Bernadette DiPietro’s series of color photographs suggests private and utilitarian use of the yard with images of laundry hanging next to homes located in various countries.
Representing the freedom to explore, Christine Gray and Ruby Osorio create works depicting an
imaginary environment where fantastical narratives are set in nature. Gray’s use of electric hues in her paintings evoke drama in a backyard setting, where mysterious objects combining natural and man-made materials are used in the search of meaning with our relationship to nature. Osorio’s drawings/paintings include cultural and gender references in the rituals and dark games played out in the context of pastoral scenery.
With the exception of Christine Gray from Virginia, all artists live and work in southern California.
Not In My Backyard will be on view through June 30, 2010. den contemporary art is located in the Pacific Design Center Blue Building, 8687 Melrose Avenue, 2nd Floor #B275, West Hollywood, CA 90069. Hours are Monday – Friday from 12-5pm and by appointment.
For information and visual material, please contact the gallery at (323)422-6340,
info@dencontemporaryart.com, mailing address: P.O. Box 6602, Beverly Hills, CA 90212.
For Members of Press: Complimentary parking is available by calling the PDC at (310) 360-6409.
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www.dencontemporaryart.com
www.pacificdesigncenter.com
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Design Loves Art is a residency program shaped by artistic viewpoints and experiments in design.
