It’s been a busy couple of art months recently.  The latest is an installation called Ghost Town for the Annual Art Faculty Exhibition in the University Gallery at EMU.  What you don’t see is one of the best aspects of the piece: there’s a song.  Mark wrote the most amazing song recently that I dubbed Ghost Town and I knew it had to be part of this piece.  He rigged speakers in the rafters above the installation that plays the song subtly, so that you only really hear it when enveloped in the gold cut paper.

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To get an interwebby version of the effect, listen to the mp3 while scrolling through the images.

I made the components of this piece at different times.  The gold paper cut-outs and small oil painted panels were all made for my solo exhibition Still at Paint Creek Center for the Arts in April 2009.  The skull pieces (gouache and gold leaf) were made in Budapest this last summer.  They are essentially portraits of the skulls in the artist/stylist/designers’ homes featured on The Selby.  I plan to make more of these and am excited to see where I can go with this piece in the future.

The opening is Tuesday night February 2 from 4 – 7 p.m. in the University Gallery in the Student Center at EMU.    There’s a lot of great work by all of my colleagues.  Come see the show!

One show just came down at the Gallery Project in Ann Arbor and one show just went up at Paint Creek Center for the Arts in Rochester (MI).  I am honored to have been/be a part of both of them.  Here are some photos of my work from Presence/Absence at PCCA (including some new work hot off the drawing table):

back right wall of gallery; all small pieces are propped up on scrabble tile trays mounted onto the wall

In Lights: oil on canvas with theater light and glass window blocks. Gobo projection reads Amelia Earhart's last words: We are running north and south.

Last Map drawings: gouache, ink, and gold leaf on blue paper

Object Lesson panels: gouache and gold leafing pen on birch panels

back left wall of gallery

Slides From the Trip- slideshow of stills from silent film project, a collaboration with Budapest-based artist Nannette Vinson

white drawings

Captured Island: gouache and ink on paper

Longitude: gouache and ink on paper

Navigation: gouache and ink on paper

Skullscape: gouache and ink on paper

Presence/Absence runs from January 15-February 20 with an opening reception at Paint Creek on Friday the 22nd from 7-9.  I am accompanied in the show by four amazing artists: Faina Lerman, Luzhen Qiu, Alison Wong, and Sun You. Here is a sweet blurb about the show in Real Detroit Weekly. Hope you can make it out to the opening!

I sort of love buckthorn roots.  They are these insidious, craggly, deep black, evil looking beauties. I spray painted one gold and it hangs from the ceiling in my studio.  If I could get hold of a bunch of these, I would have a subterranean inverted forest sprouted from my ceiling.

So, naturally I was googling the term “buckthorn root” to see if I could purchase some on the internets.  In doing so, I serendipitously stumbled upon the work of a contemporary artist that I really like.  I promptly emailed Gregory Euclide and told him so.  Then lo and behold, his work appears on the sweet art blog My Love for You is a Stampede of Horses the very next day.  Here are some images of his work.

i flattened whatever pushing made the valley tremble, Acrylic, buckthorn root, cigrette butts, found foam, goldenrod, grass, lichen, Moss, mushroom, mylar, netting, paper, pencil, photo transfer, pine needle, polyurethane foam, sponge, sumac, wood 29 x 23 x 3

capture #12, acrylic, cedar tree, lichen, paint can, polyurethane foam, sponge, stone, wood

a new kind of quiet, warm in the air, bursting forth from the furrow, acrylic, paper, pencil, PETG, bees wax,wood 26 x 42 x 13

C’est belle, non?  This is the work of a visionary.

And then today Daily Serving serves up the work of Adam Friedman.  Downright gorgeous.  And I really like the whys and wherefores of his work, which you can read if you visit his site or the Daily Serving feature on his work.

"A Sky of Rock" 2009 Acrylic, Screen Print, Gel Transfers, and Collage on Panel 18"x14"

"No Vestige of a Beginning, No Prospect of and End" 2010 Screen Print, Acrylic, Gel Transfers, and Collage on Panel 16"x16"

"Oceans Before and Behind Us in Time" 2010 Acrylic, Screen Print, and Collage on Panel 18"x12"

Inspiring.