Post by gamma888 on May 4, 2010 16:59:44 GMT -8
Guerrero Gallery is pleased to announce These Are The Days of Miracle and Wonder, a solo exhibition by Alex Lukas. With an awareness of contemporary society’s desensitization to the aesthetics of destruction, the result of a multitude of visuals presented by the entertainment and media industries, Lukas’ work aims to call into question our collective acceptance of the urban environment as an arena for disaster.
The works in this exhibition depict an intentionally ambiguous near future where cities have been abandoned and overgrown; where communications are carved into trees and scrawled on Jersey barriers; where overturned vehicles and abandoned landscapes reveal the fragility of our society. In addition to Lukas’ works on paper, the artist appropriates photographic spreads of well-known metropolises from vintage publications and transforms these aging illustrations with screen-printing and paint.
Continuing his exploration with the cultural fascination surrounding our national mortality, Lukas’ depictions of a potential future strive to examine the fragility of our society and the physical infrastructure built to support it. His work also looks to examine, with a quiet optimism, the worst might not be so bad; that with devastation comes renewal and rebirth.
Alex Lukas was born in 1981 in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in nearby Cambridge. With a wide range of artistic influences, Lukas creates both highly detailed drawings and intricate Xeroxed ‘zines, comics and booklets. Lukas’ imprint, Cantab Publishing, has released over 30 small books and ‘zines since its inception in 2001. Lukas’ drawings have been exhibited in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Stockholm and Copenhagen as well as in the pages of Swindle Quarterly, Dwell Magazine, Proximity Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice, Philadelphia Weekly and The New York Times Book Review. He has contributed writings to Apenest, Juxtapoz, Providence’s The Agenda Newspaper and Swindle, and has lectured at the Philadelphia Print Center, The University of Richmond and the Megawords Storefront. Lukas is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and now lives in Philadelphia, where he is a member of the artist collective Space 1026.
Guerrero Gallery is pleased to announce These Songs Are True, an exhibition of new paintings by Matt Leines. Leines’ imagined world, which appears to draw influences from pseudo historical and cultural elements, is comprised of a society of extraordinary humanoid characters. Through intricate line work, detailed patterning and collage, the artist presents us with a collection of intimate glimpses of those creatures, masked and obscure, that exist in his world.
Progressing from his archetypical style, the works in These Songs Are True mark a departure for Leines into new visual territory, while returning to earlier themes and influences. Leines alludes to multiple dimensions and times, evoking an expression of the imagined, escapism and play. The works evoke a fresh looseness and subtleness amidst his signature tight linework. Evident in the exhibition is an evolution of the elements that comprise his works’ aesthetic.
Matt Leines was born in 1980 and grew up in suburban New Jersey. Leines has established himself as one of today’s promising young artists, having been showcased in exhibitions and collections around the world, including the Deste Foundation Centre of Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece, IVAM in Valencia, Spain, Galleri Loyal in Stockholm, Sweden, and Deitch Projects in New York. Leines is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and now lives and works in Philadelphia.