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Artist Statement:
In life, time lends itself to
specific moments; Jesse La
Flair’s work captures the
emotional experience and
beauty within those moments.
He expresses and intrigues
through questions that he asks
in his creations. La Flair
Says “I lose myself in hours
of painting a specific moment
in hopes of creating an
emotional experience that
projects the beauty within
that particular moment or
thought.”
La Flair is a public driven
artist who makes it a point to
present his work and
experiences to the community.
Upon graduating form the State
University of New Paltz with a
Bachelors of Fine Arts in
Sculpture, he will have had
shown in and out of the city
of New York, as well as out of
the state and country going as
far as Russia, Spain, Sweden
and Thailand.
Jesse La Flair’s ability to
successfully employ a wide
rage of technical and formal
approaches has granted him a
vast field of opportunity in
his explorations and
creations. La Flair Says “Art
is a silent conversation
between the artist and the
viewer, which sometimes can
make quite a bit of noise.”
...
Further Information
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Artist Exhibitions:
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2008
“SoundOBJECTS”, Juried
Show, Valencia, Spain
“Art Video Screening”
Juried Show, Örebro, Sweden
“The 5th Bangkok
Experimental Film Festival
(BEFF 5), Bangkok, Thailand
“Ann Arbor Film Festival”
Show Cased, Ann Arbor, MI
“The Persistence of A
Moment In Time”, Solo Show,
The Cunneen-Hackett Arts
Center, Poughkeepsie, NY...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
Coming Soon!
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Reviews for Jesse La Flair:
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It might be under 2 minutes long, but this film says more than films that are 2 hours long. We're each on unique journeys in this life, seeing the world (and ourselves) in different perspectives. People have always been intrigued by the act of reviewing one's life. When faced with the actions of yourself in the past, you sometimes wonder how that person could be you. Yet, all fractions of yourself make up the whole. "Finding Himself In A Thaumatrope," seems to be depicting the mind's attempt at integrating the separate parts, and the processes toward that end. In this film, Jesse La Flair uses his considerable skills to confront the viewer with questions of personal identity, using optical illusions to present the merging of a dual character searching for himself. Aesthetically, the viewer thinks the character finds out who he is, while technically, he never does. Definitely check this film out for its poignant philosophical symbolism.
***** Brilliant
Be sure to check out more of Jesse's work at http://www.myspace.com/jesselaflair
Alina Skye
Editor
Phosphorescence Magazine
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Upon walking into the Smiley Art Gallery, the first thing one notices is an irregular mechanical clacking coming from the center of the room. Once you walk around, you see four long wires hung from the ceiling attached to four separate small mechanical gadgets, vibrating strongly against the hard floor.
On closer inspection, the gadgets are actually the removed inner mechanisms of speakers, vibrating randomly based on the bass notes of computerized music tracks transmitted to them through the wires.
This otherworldly racket sounds nothing like music. It’s more like something robotic, as if each one of these little speaker parts were really tiny, sentient automatons, clacking and thunking loudly in desperate cries for the viewer’s attention.
This set of four twitching, dismembered speaker innards is called “View of Vibrations,” one of BFA student Jesse LaFlair’s installation pieces in the art show held with fellow New Paltz student Christina Jones in Smiley Art Gallery in late November. The show consists of abstracted acrylic and ink paintings by Jones and oil paintings and installations by LaFlair.
LaFlair’s other installations also pertain to the idea of seemingly sentient mechanical objects: a series of video monitors display images of peoples’ eyes in extreme close up, showing, as Jesse said that “We’re all driven by the same inner emotions, wherever you are.”
Next to that stands a small box that occasionally lets out prerecorded sneezes. The artist explains that it fools the viewer into thinking a sneeze came from an actual person, producing confusion if the viewer is alone, or the automatic “God bless you,” if a crowd is in the gallery with them.
LaFlair also has numerous well-executed oil paintings in the show, employing some of the same techniques and themes as his other work, but the lively, energetic and clearly more enjoyed-by-the-artist installations easily take the attention away from the silent, static panels of canvas on the wall.
Also competing for attention with LaFlair’s clacking, glowing multimedia installations are the equally worthwhile, but subtler, paintings by art education major Christina Jones. Almost all of the pieces have a subdued pencil and ink background that resembles a geometric drawing, similar to a blueprint or a scientific illustration.
Organic, energetic strands of colored acrylic paint and black India ink are overlaid on top of this restrained, cold surface. In one piece titled “Let the Golden Age Begin,” curves resemble an Asian landscapes and brightly-hued flowers burst out over a solemn background reminiscent of a technical drawing.
In a series of small paintings titled “Places I’ve Lived: What I Do and Don’t Remember,” Jones presents all of the interiors of houses she has lived in, that she can remember, in a style dominated by lines and solid planes of color. The domestic details that she can recall, she paints accurately; however, there are some areas she can’t remember accurately, which she improvises, making the entire series a playful mix of reality and the imagined. By connecting these architectural spaces to personal experiences, she explores the relationship between our emotional lives and the artificial spaces we navigate in daily life.
Jones’ art portrays organic elements represented by memories and flowers, overcoming the artificial world of blueprints and technical drawings. LaFlaire’s installations, on the other hand, play with the concept of technology as sentient with its various sneezing, twitching and staring gadgets. In this way, both of the artists’ work questions the relationship living beings have with the synthetic, ordered world built up around them.
E-mail Sylvia at sylkates@yahoo.com
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