First Friday November 2009

Well it is (or was) 3:15am,  I've been home for one hour after a good evening on the town looking at art, socializing, and drinking free booze of course - isn't that the real reason we go out to First Friday- if it is, it shouldn't be!  Nonetheless, I  saw a lot of art tonight, some good, some better, some worse.  All in all it was a good FF, I crossed paths with a lot of different friends and people, and passed out a bunch of Artmelt handbills.  Tonight was like our official exiting of the closet.

Being that we were advertising the blog we came across a lot of discussion regarding the blog, art, art criticism and its role in Missoula.  We got a lot of good feedback, and discovered a lot of ideas for future posts. So our first official First Friday adventure was a success.  Let us begin the journey after the jump.

First off, I stopped by Bernice's Bakery to see my good friend,  Penelope Baquero's opening "Eco-Sapien."  These works explore human's relationship to the natural world and the concept of the eco-sapien.  Her paintings don't really tell us how to become eco-sapiens, but rather the paintings visually and emotionally explore the meaning of Eco-Sapien. For example, in one piece a human heart is topped with trees (much like a sea stack in the pacific northwest) and obviously trees could never grow out of your heart, so the meaning and symbolism emotionally suggest what it may be to have some eco-in-your-sapien. The highly detailed acrylic paintings are well executed and the style reminds me of a modern day Frida Kahlo. Good work Penelope!

 

 

 

I discovered two new galleries this FF. The first, Gallery @ studio D and  secondly, Contraption (which I find to be an excellent name btw). The audience at the first was filled mostly with people 30+ years older than me, and the work there by Dennis Sloan & some others, was well out of my price range. Contraption, owned by two guys named Phil and Lucas, is intended to cater to a younger crowd and a younger style of art. I was talking to Phil, and he said that younger adults can be intimidated to walk into some of the fancier galleries in town, and that they wanted to create a space that was friendlier toward them; not to mention there were 2 kegs of beer and a DJ playing all night. The space is small but great, and I am looking forward to seeing where these guys take this contraption.

 

 

 

So back to Gallery @ Studio D

I am wondering what these guys are contemplating here...is it the dynamic colors, the interweaving of form, or is it the hot chicks on all fours? Let us hope it is the previous, but nonetheless the figures are certainly idealized and aesthetically proportional, to which I am not sure what to make of?  Is there some kind of sexual objectification occurring? In some ways painting anything is a form of objectifying. When making these works he claims to have been in his female-form phase, according to an article in the Missoulian.  As a painter from a different generation I didn't know there was such a phase, but frankly I do not think his conceptual framework holds up enough to suggest there is no objectification occurring here.  I am less worried about the firearms, as was the Missoulian's focus, and consider the idealized forms and sexual positions to be the point in question.  The paintings themselves are large and technically flawless. Surrounded by so much color, to which Sloan says is inspired by Montana skies, is visually engaging, but ultimately I view them to be no more than a modernist exercise in form and color.

My favorite show of the night was at the Catalyst featuring Sheilah Healow and Patrica Thornton. Like myself, both of these artists have studios at the Ceretana, so lucky for me I have been able to see a lot of their work. I believe their work compliments each other well, and their painting share a similar feeling even though they are worlds apart...it might be their color pallets and ambiguity. My favorite piece is this one by Sheilah Healow. The sheep and the head wrapped in wire, with the aggressive power of the white bull is latent with meaning, what specifically I am not so sure, but  I am happy to leave that question unanswered and just be with it.

 

I love T-Rex in a ball gown

 

 

 

 

Then off to the Missoula Art Museum, ran in to a lot of people there - Wolf Redboy, the museum staff, Ed Morrisey of the art dept, some graduate art students, and a handful of others.  There are a few good exhibits up at the MAM. One Being Roger Shimomura's "Minidoka on My Mind" and the other being a series of cardboard sculptures titled, "Big Trouble - The Idaho Project" by Scott Fife.  Both shows, well-worth-seeing, are rather powerful in content, size, technique and scale, but perhaps get a little redundant for me.

 

 

The texture created by the cutting, gouging, drilling, tearing of the cardboard creates a raw surface, and remarkably captures the likeness of these figures.

This one is certainly the exception to redundancy as the interaction between horse and wood board is rather intriguing, probably one of the few horse sculpture I actually like.