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5.29.2010
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Exhibitions Opening
Saturday, June
19
Picture Planes: Robert Mellor & Alexa Meade
June 19-July
24
Gaia: The Urban
Romantic
June 19-July
24
Opening reception with
the artists: Saturday, June 19,
6-8PM
Book
Signing with Gaia:
Celebrating the
publication of his work in Beyond the Street: The 100 Leading Figures in
Urban Art (2010),
6-8PM
Picture Planes:
Robert Mellor and Alexa
Meade
Irvine Contemporary is pleased to present
Picture Planes, an exhibition of paintings, photographs, and
installations by gallery artists Robert Mellor and Alexa Meade.
Opening reception with the artists: Saturday, June 19,
6-8PM.
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| Alexa Meade, Portrait of a Self Portrait 3, 2010. C-print,
direct painting on human subject, artist's installation. 20 x 16
in. |
Robert Mellor, Parted, 2010. Acrylic on canvas over panel. 24 X
30 in.
Detail. |
Robert Mellor has been developing a
new body of work with ever more complex planes of space and compositional
layers that reference landscape imagery, Japanese woodcuts, and multiple
approaches to abstraction in highly original combinations. Mellor composes
multi-layered paintings in acrylic in which the space of the painting is
fractured through visibly cut overlapping planes. His new paintings expand on
his use of multiple planes and layers of space in figurative abstraction works
that combine ground layers of ink and acrylic washes on which the multiple
layers of acrylic, representing multiple genres and styles, are imposed in
sharp
relief.
About the
Artist
Robert Mellor has an MFA from Claremont University in California. He has
has had two solo exhibitions at Irvine Contemporary, and has also exhibited in
Los Angeles and international art fairs. He now lives in works in Salt Lake
City.
New Irvine Contemporary gallery artist
Alexa Meade will present a series of her recent photographs of unique
portrait images executed by painting directly on a subject's body and clothing
to render unexpectedly flattened three-dimensional figures in composed sets or
staged in real world locations. Alexa Meade's photographs are at once records
of a performance, a portrait session, and a reflection on three- and
two-dimensional representational spaces. Meade calls attention to the
expectations of representational space in the picture plane through
displacements in medium: she presents not simply photography and
painting as instances of two-dimensional picture planes, but transforms
painted bodies and objects by presenting them as cohabitating within
three-dimensional photographic space.
Alexa Meade will also create an onsite
installation for composing a series of live on-site portraits that she will
photograph and exhibit weekly during the exhibition.
About the
Artist
Alexa Meade has a B.A. from Vassar College,
and has exhibited in Washington, DC and New York City. She lives and works
in Washington,
DC.
| Exhibition information | Robert Mellor: Image Gallery & Resume | Alexa Meade: Image Gallery & Resume
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Gaia: The Urban
Romantic
June 19-July
24
Irvine Contemporary is pleased to present
new works and on-site installations by gallery artist Gaia. In Urban
Romantic, Gaia will present new compositions that combine decollage,
linocut prints, and painting on wood panels, and new on-site street mural
installations. Opening reception with the artist: Saturday, June 19,
6-8PM.
Gaia’s “Urban Romantic”
concept is neither utopian nor nostalgic, but grounded in his practice of
placing specific imagery in the context of city locations. Drawing on his new
and evolving body of imagery depicting human and animal figures, Gaia's new work
reflects on the ancient themes of animal and human sympathies, but now in the
context of the city and the human built environment. Working with myth and
symbolic animal figures, Gaia's street murals are like the works of an urban
shaman drawing on a positive force from animal protectors.
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| Gaia, Emissary, 2010. Screen print, paint, and collage
on wood panel.
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Gaia, Rooster and St. John, 2010. Screen print, paint,
and collage on wood panel.
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Gaia constructs an image of a reversal of
the "natural order" where animals intervene as protectors and avatars
for a new awareness of the human condition in the natural world. He is known
world-wide for street murals placed in decaying or neglected areas to elicit
surprise and reflection by passers-by who encounter the symbolism and fragile
narratives of his
work.
About the Artist
Gaia grew up in New York City and is
currently a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore,
Maryland, concentrating on printmaking and sculpture. Combining a street-studio
practice his studio work and gallery projects have been exhibited in Brooklyn,
New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. His street work
has been documented and featured in several recent books on urban art,
including, most recently, Beyond the Street: The 100 Leading Figures in
Urban Art, (Berlin, 2010). Gaia lives and works in Baltimore, MD, and
Brooklyn, NY.
| Exhibition information | Artist's Image Gallery | Artist's
Resume
Book Signing
with
Gaia:
Celebrating
the publication of his work in Beyond the Street: The 100 Leading Figures in
Urban Art
(2010)
Saturday, June
19,
6-8PM
For further information and images, contact Lauren
Gentile, Director, 202-332-8767 or lauren@irvinecontemporary.com.
IRVINE CONTEMPORARY
Martin Irvine, Proprietor &
Director
Lauren Gentile, Director
Thomas W Powell, Gallery
Manager
Matthew Shelby, Gallery
Assistant
1412 14th St.,
NW, Washington, DC
20005
www.irvinecontemporary.com
Phone: (202) 332-8767
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