2 x 2 Solos: Michelle
Blade
Curated by Jackie
Im
March 8 - April 8, 2011
Reception: Thursday, March 10
6 - 8 pm
Oakland,
CA:
Pro Arts presents 2 x 2 Solos: Michelle Blade,
curated by Jackie Im, on view March 8 - April 8, 2011 at Pro Arts' gallery in
downtown Oakland.
Oakland-based artist Michelle Blade creates paintings that
push the medium into the realm of sculpture and social environments.
Influenced by anthropology, philosophy and nature, Blade's paintings
reflect on the mystical and the spiritual. For her first solo exhibition at Pro
Arts, Blade brings together sculptural paintings, photography and projections to
create a ghostly environment, using a variety of materials including translucent
Dura-lar to highlight her works' other-worldly appearance. Bringing to mind the
work of filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky and Romanticism, the resulting installation
is a meditation on the mysteries within dualities, exploring the real and
unreal, light and dark, and the natural and man
made.
Michelle Blade works in Oakland where she directs Sight School, an
alternative artist run storefront. She received her MFA in studio art from California College of
the Arts. Her work has been featured at Triple Base, Jack Hanley, and David
Cunningham Projects, San Francisco; the San Jose ICA, Carl Berg Gallery and
Broad Art Center, Los Angeles; Space 1026, Philadelphia; Union Gallery, London;
V1 Gallery, Copenhagen; and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Stüttgart. She is
a 2007 recipient of the Murphy-Cadogan Fellowship and recent SFMOMA SECA
finalist.
Jackie Im is an independent writer and
curator based in Oakland. She received her BA in Art History from Mills College
and her MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts. She has
curated exhibitions at the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art and the Mills
College Art Museum. She currently is a curator and co-administrator of
MacArthur B Arthur, a gallery and project space in Oakland.
About 2 x 2
Solos
2 x 2 Solosis a series of solo exhibitions featuring new
work commissioned from four accomplished emerging artists based in the
Oakland/Bay Area. The program recognizes artistic excellence and supports the
freedom to create challenging and noncommercial work. It provides a platform for
cutting-edge, risk-taking art and situates artists in a critical contemporary
art context. Supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts,
California Arts Council, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 2 x
2 Solos engages multiple layers of the region's arts ecology by providing
institutional and monetary support for artists, curators, and writers in the
Oakland/Bay
Area.
About Pro Arts Pro Arts supports the arts within communities by
serving the ongoing needs of artists. This Oakland-based arts organization
provides critical access to contemporary art in the region and serves as a
regional hub for arts activities, independent curated exhibitions, advocacy, and
capacity-building artist services. Pro Arts' visual arts programming showcases
for the best new work made in the Oakland/Bay Area, including cutting-edge,
risk-taking contemporary art, and important works by artists representing
under-served populations and communities of color, and working artists. Pro Arts
provides fiscal sponsorship to artists and professional services matching
artists with community partners. Additionally, Pro Arts'
Youth Fellows program integrates arts education, exhibitions, arts training, and
youth development. Last year Pro Arts exhibited 690 artists
and produced 62 events drawing an annual audience of
72,000.
For
more information please contact: David Huff, Exhibitions Coordinator:
David@proartsgallery.org or
510.763.4361
Image: Michelle Blade, Untitled, Projected C-Print, Variable,
2011
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