Wednesday, June 23, 2010

July: Institute du loop, Kelly Price-Colston, Matthew Lyman and Gailen Hudson

Fayetteville Underground First Thursday Opening Reception July 1st 5-8pm

This July, Fayetteville Underground will host four new art exhibitions. In the Hive Gallery, the mysterious Institute du loop from Taipei, Taiwan will show a series of photographs, in their premier international exhibition,
A place to drown. In the Vault Gallery, Fayetteville Underground artist Kelly Price-Colston's exhibition entitled "The Super Cute Show" will feature her multi-media collages. The Revolver Gallery will be filled with the works by area artist Matthew Lyman whose show will include UV reflex paintings, an animated UV lighting installation, custom furniture and a surround soundtrack. In the E-Street Gallery, pottery by Gailen Hudson will be on exhibit. It's going to be another exciting month at the Fayetteville Underground!

Institute Du Loop

In the Hive Gallery:

A Place to Drown
Institute Du Loop

Institute du Loop will present its premier international exhibition,
A Place to Drown, in the Hive Gallery within the Fayetteville Underground during the month of July. This exhibition, curated by artist Megan Chapman, comes to the Fayetteville Underground from Taipei, Taiwan. The Institute du Loop is the brain child of English born visual and sound artist, "Mr. Loop." Mr. Loop has lived in Taipei for two years, and this body of work reflects his sense of being lost in the city, drowning in emotions, submerged and dreaming on the strange island he now calls home.

The photographic works presented capture what the artist's eye misses, he is using his camera to “see” what he cannot. The camera gives the artist a chance to lose himself in fleeting moments again and again. Mr. Loop sees his work as a form of emotional documentation: through these images he is finding his eyes and his heart. The Institute du Loop's exhibition presents the viewer with an archive of images, words, and sounds, or as the title suggests,
A Place to Drown.


Kelly Price-Colston

In the Vault Gallery:
The Super Cute Show
Kelly Price-Colston

Kelly Price-Colston is a mixed media artist residing in Farmington, Arkansas. She has been published in the book We Feel Fine about bloggers and social media. She also is a regularly featured artist in the magazine Sew Somerset Mixed Media and will be contributing to Somerset digital magazine in September. Her studio is located in the Fayetteville Underground artist collective where she also teaches mixed media collage classes Wed. nights at 6:45pm. This is her second solo exhibition at the Fayetteville Underground Vault gallery. Cupcakes, happy child-like illustrations and paintings will set the scene for the next First Thursday show. This will be a great family event for everyone.


Matthew Lyman

In the Revolver Gallery:
Poor Traits & Land Scapegoats
Matthew Lyman

Matthew Lyman lives in the woods, with his cat Lonely Jay Kadogan, on the northern most outskirts of Northwest Arkansas. It’s all too easy to say “Unusual” when dissecting his brand of mixed media painting. When asked about his influences he names a cross section of his favorite nineteenth century scientists and twentieth century cartoon animators. When asked about his education he proclaims: “I didn’t know anything until I knew nothing.” In fact, the more you ask Matthew about his art, the more he makes it abundantly clear that art should be the last thing on your mind. For Matthew, this is simply an attempt at connecting.

A self-proclaimed existentialist weightlifter, art bodybuilder, long distance drummer and magical wizard, Matthew seems to perpetuate his own mythology which bleeds through every pore of his highly personal catalog of characters. Portraits of closed-eyed figures appear from darkness, radiating their own light reflected by a canopy of neon sky. Landscapes cascade to occupy space like slow migrations of house and hill. The ever-changing array of pattern work acts as a system of iconic folklore, unrefined ideas and rhythms. The narratives are subtle, singing quiet songs of Jungian duality, existential dilemma, high anxiety, irony, satire, desperation and beauty. It’s the kind of poetic storytelling that is abstract and painfully absurd but, somehow, everyone can still relate to. Matthew has created a whole world of imagery and iconography. There is a certain all encompassing, big bang to black hole feeling about viewing even the smallest and simplest of his multi layered paintings. Something vaguely familiar. There is, at first, an immediate connection with the obvious, the vivid color palette, two-dimensional cartoon like rendering and often quite humorous text sprinkled throughout but, there is still something more to be felt. The work tends to leave the viewer reeling for more of that deeper, invisible and unexplainable connection.

Matthew has exhibited paintings and sculptures in New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Atlanta and Dallas. In July 2010, he intends to bring it home to Fayetteville. Matthew’s first solo exhibition at the Fayetteville Underground titled Poor Traits & Land Scapegoats promises a selection of over thirty new UV reflex paintings, an animated UV lighting installation, custom furniture, a surround soundtrack orchestrated by none other than the magic wizard himself and, possibly, some balloons.


Gailen Hudson

In the E-Street Gallery:
Gailen Hudson

"Clay is a fascinating thing to me. When I am in the woods or along a creek, I search for this material derived from the natural processes of chemical weathering and erosion of the bedrock and soils. I enjoy the formless natural and primitive character of clay and its manipulation and creation into an entity of my choice. The process of this raw earth material and its interaction with fire, transforming the clay into a man-made stone is exciting to me and when opening the kiln after the work of the fire is complete on the clay, I know that something new and never before seen is waiting inside.

Clay lends itself to many processes of manipulation, ideas, dimensions, form, color, texture, volume, scale, and function. I enjoy making forms on the potter’s wheel and hand forming pieces and combining forms. My influences include the functional ware of the Southern Folk Pottery tradition of wood ash glazed functional ware with storage jars, bowls, urns, and whiskey jugs. The earthenware of the Mississippian / Central and Southern Plains tradition of Native American pottery have always been a favorite of mine for its decorative designs used to enliven the fragile pottery in daily use. The stonewares of the Japanese Shino and Chinese Sung Dynasty always have my attention, as the soft boldness of the clay bodies and the covering glazes have created forms that entreat you to physically interact with the work, to feel its form, its mass, its texture and color. I like the post-fired reduction of American Raku, playing with fire, smoke, and color.

Clay is a natural organic form which can be made into a coffee mug to hold and feel the transmitted warmth of the liquid it carries, a piggy bank to hold my pocket change, a casserole pot in which to cook my supper, or a sculpture to create and define a spatial identity in my home. Or, it can be engineered into a design of a 3200 degree fabric blanket for the space shuttle, ceramic cutlery, or as a material of cold fusion technology research. I like to think of myself as somewhere in the middle of this process … but leaning more towards the coffee mug."

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through July 31st.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com