Aug. 2007, "Urban Shelter"
••• Urban Shelter •••
Anthony Discenza, Caleb Duarte, Emily Hall, Huong Ngo & Rob Allen, Doug Kerr, Eric Medine, Michelle Wasson, John Watson
“Urban Shelter” is the third multi-media group show exploring the interconnections between architecture and the environment. This show will present how artists use the symbol of a house to express the fragility of survival, the lengths people go to create safe havens, and their social and cultural implications.
Caleb Duarte’s work consists of painted figures on construction-type frameworks suggesting basic shelters. The intention is to create objects that explore the ideas of shelter within the “first” and “third” worlds. Emily Hall’s wood constructions are colorful and elegant but under close examination, reveal that things don’t make sense; doors are nonexistent, and roofs are upside down. Doug Kerr uses references to “freeway architecture” in wall sculptures that reflect upon the isolation of the American commuter culture. Clear polycarbonate buildings are as abstract as possible, thus hiding their architectural beginnings, and like freeway architecture, they rarely break this seamlessness by revealing the entryway. Michelle Wasson’s paintings propose a non-linear excursion through a network of interdependent scenes. Arching pathways connect landscapes consisting of flora and unconventional architecture of futuristic houses. John Watson’s material is driftwood that he collects and hammers together into forms suggested by the wood. His metaphor is architectural and although the works serve no practical use, they refer to temporary quality of shacks, the fragility of survival and the lengths people go to create safe places in an indifferent world. In Microtecture, Huong Ngo and Rob Allen use architectural models as starting points for creating objects and animations. Encapsulated inside toy machine bubbles, tiny replicas of cityscapes or landscapes sprout on the floor like vegetation. Anthony Discenza’s video is a compilation of fragmented images of houses for sale designed to obtain the picture perfect dream house. Eric Medine uses goggle map for searching random descriptions such as the “most corrupt place”. The outcome is a series of 3-D architectural elevations that become an illustration of the ultimate uselessness of labels and location.
Anthony Discenza, Caleb Duarte, Emily Hall, Huong Ngo & Rob Allen, Doug Kerr, Eric Medine, Michelle Wasson, John Watson
“Urban Shelter” is the third multi-media group show exploring the interconnections between architecture and the environment. This show will present how artists use the symbol of a house to express the fragility of survival, the lengths people go to create safe havens, and their social and cultural implications.
Caleb Duarte’s work consists of painted figures on construction-type frameworks suggesting basic shelters. The intention is to create objects that explore the ideas of shelter within the “first” and “third” worlds. Emily Hall’s wood constructions are colorful and elegant but under close examination, reveal that things don’t make sense; doors are nonexistent, and roofs are upside down. Doug Kerr uses references to “freeway architecture” in wall sculptures that reflect upon the isolation of the American commuter culture. Clear polycarbonate buildings are as abstract as possible, thus hiding their architectural beginnings, and like freeway architecture, they rarely break this seamlessness by revealing the entryway. Michelle Wasson’s paintings propose a non-linear excursion through a network of interdependent scenes. Arching pathways connect landscapes consisting of flora and unconventional architecture of futuristic houses. John Watson’s material is driftwood that he collects and hammers together into forms suggested by the wood. His metaphor is architectural and although the works serve no practical use, they refer to temporary quality of shacks, the fragility of survival and the lengths people go to create safe places in an indifferent world. In Microtecture, Huong Ngo and Rob Allen use architectural models as starting points for creating objects and animations. Encapsulated inside toy machine bubbles, tiny replicas of cityscapes or landscapes sprout on the floor like vegetation. Anthony Discenza’s video is a compilation of fragmented images of houses for sale designed to obtain the picture perfect dream house. Eric Medine uses goggle map for searching random descriptions such as the “most corrupt place”. The outcome is a series of 3-D architectural elevations that become an illustration of the ultimate uselessness of labels and location.
