Misperception

Art isn't exactly as it seems in Misperception, a new multi-media exhibition 62 featuring works by 55 St. Louis regional artists from Missouri and Illinois.

January 14-February 21, 2013 • FREE opening reception Saturday, January 19, 6-8 p.m. • FREE

Misperception
Jurors' Statement

“As Jurors of this exhibit, we were asked to select five artworks from this exhibit to recognize for Awards of Excellence. The works we selected are: Heartbeat by Jane Johnson Hoeltzel, Life by John Newman, Skyway 46 by Mark Pease, Mt. Rushmore by John Cooper, and Object Consumption by Nick Schleicher. It was a joy to review the many wonderful pieces in this show, with all their diversity, but the number and diversity of works also made it difficult to pick only five.

When you submit an artwork to a large group exhibition like this one, you have to remove it from the context of all of your other work. That context is a major aid to informing a viewer (or judge) of what the deeper meaning of the work is. The piece of course retains a lot of the meaning, but when it›s placed in the group show it gains a new context. For better or worse, that new context becomes a major part of what aids the viewers of the show in their understanding of the work, and a large part of the new context is the theme of the show. We tried to take both things into consideration—the context of the theme of the show, and what we could see of the context of the artist›s body of work—when making our decision. There were so many really exciting works in the show, however, that it made our decision a very difficult one. So we encourage everyone who has work here to keep making and showing great art!  

Hoeltzel’s Heartbeat was selected because of its impeccable craft, suppleness and ability to transform a hard, static material into something living and pulsating. While being a sculptural object, its lines and monochrome palette also seem to refer to drawing and black and white photography, making it an interesting and complex vessel.

Newman’s Life also hovers between motion and stasis, and between two dimensions and three. With strictly imposed limitations—a very spare palette of colors and an even more spare palette of shapes—it boldly states its own terms. It has a simple clarity at first glance, but transcends this simplicity to become more than the sum of its parts.

Pease’s Skyway 46, another seemingly simple yet very interesting image, presents, in a very succinct way, major contradictions between flatness and depth, place and no place, and enter and don’t enter. The piece beckons us to enter and then, at the last minute, says “stop.”

Cooper’s Mt. Rushmore presents a beautiful duality as well, between real and ephemeral, there and not there, moving and stationary, and between what is and what seems to be. The rich subtlety of the color palette has a great emotive draw; when you look at it you can almost feel the cool humidity of the fog enveloping you.

Schleicher’s Object Consumption also presents us with something that is not what it first appears to be:  a decontextualized piece of a rec room with cans, books, and a table turns out to be completely fabricated paper-maché replica. The seemingly random placement of objects suddenly becomes very intentional when you realize this, and forces you to consider the meaning more closely. While being a representation of a very specific moment in time, this piece, pulled out of its context, also manages to have a timeless quality.

Some interesting themes emerged in this show, like the dualities mentioned above of flatness versus depth, motion versus stasis, and of course perception versus reality. Perception versus reality was a very strong element in Dawson Morgan›s ceramic piece Leather?, in Bob Crowe’s Oh those eyes!, a photograph of two women with large open eyes painted on their closed eyelids, and in Mike & Samantha Hamilton’s Stripped, a series of three photographs of a drag queen. Another theme was the use of scale to create a contrast to reality, as in Jennifer Weigel’s Fascist princess dolls; Steve Moseley’s figures in bottles; John Bohac’s clever homage to a Morris Lewis painting called Louis, MO; David M. Yates’ painting Chickens**t, with its unlikely and gravity-defying line of objects; Megan Eysell’s Tool for Measuring, a tape measure spewing a highway from a roadmap; Carol Corey’s Enso #1, an Enso symbol woven into a city map; and Carlynn Forst’s acorn-like pods. Misplacement in time and space was another theme, strong in Bailey Davenport’s images of Vishnu and Lakshmi, and in Marvin Meyer’s Control Panel, a sideways photograph of stools at a diner.

There are too many great artworks here to mention, but suffice it to say that it was a true joy to look through them all and select a few for Awards. We were honored to be asked to judge the work and wish all who participated much success in their creative endeavors. Thank you to Art Saint Louis and Robin Hirsch for allowing us to participate in this wonderful show.”

— Ken Wood and Linda Skrainka
Jurors, Misperception

Some of the 62 featured artworks in Misperception:

Bailey Davenport. Lakshmi. 2012. Photograph, Van Dyke Brown Print, 29”x16”.	Linda C. Mueller. Glory Hole from the series Sins of our Fathers. 2012. Digital Photograph, 36”x12”.	Carlynn Forst. Home for Now. 2012. Paper, Adhesive, Wire, 36”x14”x12”.
John Cooper. Stock Tank, Ft. Morgan, Colorado. 2012. Color Photograph, 21”x26”.	Chintia Kirana. Fluffy’s Cafe. 2011. Oil on Canvas, 24”x30”.	Carrie Sleme. Disposition. 2012. Photograph, Mixed Media on Inkjet Print, 17”x22”.
Lana Gloschat. Anna. 2012. Oil on Canvas, 33”x25”.	Camden St. Claire. Blind Leading. 2012. Oil on Canvas. 38”x50”.	Christa Gearhart Denney. Dress. 2012. Digital Image on Canvas, Found Frame. 17”x27”.
Jason Bly. Bypass. 2010. Oil on Panel, 24”x24”.	Jane Hoeltzel. Heartbeat. 2012. Naked Raku Stoneware, All Glaze Removed, 6.5”x5”. The jurors selected this artwork for an Award of Excellence.	John Troy. Untitled. 2011. Oil on Canvas, 21”x21”.

MEET THE ARTISTS SATURDAYS

In conjunction with the Misperception exhibition, Art Saint Louis is hosting several Meet the Artists Saturdays wherein featured artists will be on-hand in the Gallery to greet visitors and discuss their works in the show. The artists may also present a demo of their work and techniques used. These very casual and unstructured events are free & open to the public.
 

Saturday, January 19: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Carlynn Forst, mixed media sculpture
Saturday, February 2: 2-5 p.m. John Troy, painting

Satuday, February 9, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Luke Allison and Charles Baunach, painting