Now that we’ve all washed our hands of 2014, it’s time to bring in 2015 with a bang. While many of us spent last week reflecting on the past year– the accomplishments and even the hiccups, others were simply looking forward to the next big thing that would kick 2015 into gear.
For artists Jenny Granberry, Jaelah Kuehmichel and Joe Sinness, that next big thing is “After Some Reflection,” an art exhibit dissecting social undercurrents, personal identities and cultural language. It sounds like heavy stuff, but in actuality, the artistic and creative ways in which these three artists target conversations concerning social constructs, society, culture and identity is nothing short of brilliant.
Granberry brings to the table detailed watercolor portraits that create a heightened sense of ambiguity, leveraging “a disjointed sense of walking through [one’s] inner mind,” while Kuehmichel’s mixed media paintings take on LGBTQ identity, exploring queer identity, sexual power dynamics and the sociopolitical context of the growing queer movement. Sinness’ vibrant pencil drawings merge queer icons with thrift items to create still lifes – “melancholic [tributes] to queer performance.” The exhibit kicks off this Friday with an opening reception and runs throughout January.
Burning Question
How do you discover new and inspiring art?
Ingredients
paint, watercolors, canvas, thrift, identity, art, colors, culture, design
Essentials
Opening reception: Friday, Jan. 9, 7-10pm
Exhibition dates: Jan. 9 – Feb. 8
grayDUCK Gallery, 2213 E Cesar Chavez St.
More from the artists
Jenny Granberry
There is a sense of ambiguity in my paintings. The figures exist in a hazy world filled with vague shapes that melt into the white space that exists outside of reality. Each image is a fleeting view of my frame of mind as one idea dissolves to be replaced by another. Taking these ideas and fractured images out of my head and giving them a visual presence allows me to acknowledge my fears, ponderings, or frustrations before letting go of them. It brings me to a point where I can move on and find new issues to wrestle with in a never-ending stream of consciousness.
Jaelah Kuehmichel
A series in progress exploring queer identity, sexual power dynamics, and the sociopolitical context of the emerging queer movement. The beauty of the contemporary use of the word “queer” lies in its subjectivity and its absence of a definitive definition. It explores the grey area between commonly accepted binaries such as man/woman, feminine/masculine, dominant/submissive, married/single, right/wrong, and normal/aberrant.
Joe Sinness
In my drawings, cinematic performance and sexual desire is filtered through the genre of still life. Through the process of selecting and arranging objects and subjects that I adore, photographing them, and then re-presenting them in colored pencil on paper, they – the drawings – become yet another type of fetishized commodity. The seductive trappings of photorealistic drawings of staged still lifes become glossy, yet melancholic tributes to queer performance. This performance is a type of strip tease and creates an erotic tension loop between what may be considered the sacred and the profane. I am interested in the preservation of the codes and languages of queer history and culture. Much like coded discourse, the still lifes tease but never fully reveal.
