Urban Decay showcases artists who live in the New York City area and whose artwork is a
response to an urban environment. New York City is a hub for media outlets, advertising,
urban planning gone awry, multiple voices, and home to a completely different worldview.
Each of the ten artists in Urban Decay has either recycled or appropriated urban viewpoints,
city scenes, mass-produced matter or objects, urban architecture or visual noise into their own
unique take on the city. Urban Decay presents the city in all of its wonderful and bizarre quirkiness. The exhibition is cocurated by Leah Oates and Laurence Asseraf.
Theresa Bloise’s paintings depict building facades of high-rise structures that are so plentiful
in crowded cities. Bloise transforms them into beehives of intricacy and everyday beauty.
A.J. Bocchino’s digital photographs focus on the repetition of sensational newspaper
headlines (Bill and Monica, 9/11, etc.) and the disintegration of public discourse generating
mainly from the New York Times, which is the most quoted newspaper in the world.
Jessica
Cannon’s paintings depict abandoned F train cars that are bathed in artificial light and are
empty of people. Cannon’s images imply a late night train ride and have a dreamlike sense of
unease.
Samantha Mae Dorfman’s digital photographs capture storefronts in Paterson, New
Jersey and peeling walls in Long Island City. Dorfman utilizes a documentary photographic
style to depict architecture aging, before gentrification and in transition. Dorfman captures the
beauty of these neighborhoods before they are neutralized for higher real estate value.
Carl
Eckhoff’s paintings depict growth systems gone awry and the accumulation and decay which
is a constant in cities.
Les Joynes’s drip culture series is an entropic view of landscape replete
with semi-recognizable fragmented forms.
Greg King’s work transforms the unintentional
aspects of the urban grid and observes the random marks made on the urban landscape by
a society- interacting within a transitory environment.
John Muggenborg’s large-scale pinhole
photographs offer multiple views and vantage points of the city much like our memories of
place and time passing.
Leah Oates’s photographs of trash capture the over abundance of
mass-produced objects and reveal a global culture of disposable matter in urban settings.
Oates’s work highlights the abject beauty of such discarded items. Oates has been a Portfolio Artist at absolutearts.com since 2002. View more of her work at http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/r/rhinofly/.
Julie Peppito’s sculpture
and installation creates hybrid forms from the massive amounts of consumer goods and the
scraps of refuse disposed of everyday in cities. Peppito bundles, collages and embroiders this
excess matter to create unique narratives.
IMAGE
Leah Oates
PARADURA 4
c-print
30" X 40"
2004
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