In 2020, during the height of the covid pandemic, the 1020 Collective emerged as a multi-disciplinary art space that has since provided cutting edge programing and has become a staple in the Erie art scene. Their inaugural exhibition, Barracuda, featured veteran Erie artists, Ron Bayuzick, Tom Ferraro and Brian Pardini. In a review of the show in the Erie Reader, writer Mary Birdsong wrote that “one could get the feeling that the works emerged from the surrounding space and assembled themselves and if you are familiar with the works of these artists, this show will welcome you like an old friend.” This sentiment during the time of covid resonated with the artists, all old friends. They associated their studio practice during the pandemic to barracudas, a predator fish known by their sharp teeth and naturally inquisitive nature. A fish that lurks in the dark depths of the ocean and strikes its prey in quick bursts. After months of isolation the idea of the show was hatched by the three artists who often found their work grouped together in exhibitions, despite working in different styles and mediums. There was a recognition that their work complimented one another when presented within the same space.
Fast forward to 2024 and a sequel of sorts has emerged in “Barracuda, Ideas of Chance”. The original three artists met to plan the follow-up to the 2020 Barracuda show and while selecting a title for the exhibition, they stumbled upon a philosophy of Marcel Duchamp who stated that an idea of chance is “an expression of each individual’s subconscious personality and that your chance is not the same as mine”. To expand on this thought, the artists decided to invite Shelle Barron, Dorothy Kloss and Sarah Jacobs to join them in the 2024 version of the Barracuda exhibition. It was the consensus of the artists that the addition of these three veteran artists would compliment the exhibition and reinforce Duchamp’s thought that artists uniquely embody their own personality and expression. Furthermore, they felt that the work of these three artists embody the spirit of the Barracuda, their work is inquisitive, thoughtful and they all approach their art with the tenacity of a predator, teeth bared and ready to strike. They are a welcome addition to a group of friends who embrace ideas of chance as a source of inspiration for their creativity.
About The Artists + Their Work
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My paintings centers around my own identity as it is shaped by the accumulation of my experiences and the understanding of my history, my place and my time. It is fueled by the interaction of emotion created by figures juxtaposed on my canvases against natural and built environments.
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Come With Me Through the Looking Glass
‘Come with me through the looking glass’ is an oversimplification of what it is that I am trying to present to the viewer.
It has been a wonderful adventure where I am now able to pre-visualize creatively rather than technically by imagining what else is out there and continue wondering as my father would have me do. It is my reaction to what has been presented to me rather than being ‘on-the-hunt’ to ‘capture’ that decisive moment almost as if there were a spiritual relationship which, very few would understand.
For this exhibit, I decided to include only images made with my pinhole cameras, since these were the ones that tapped into my imagination the most.
So, when someone sees me with my camera and tripod and says... “…what do you like taking pictures of ???”… With a long pause, I'm going to say… souls...
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Walking the shore of Lake Erie searching for unique pieces of driftwood, I feel a spiritual connection to the Earth and the indigenous people who roamed this area for centuries, living in intimate daily contact with nature. The driftwood I choose to bring home amazes me with its figurative qualities that become the inspiration for the works that are sometimes displayed 'as is' or joined with other pieces to become real and imagined beings. My process: walking, searching, selecting, and assembling, fill me with satisfaction and wonder.
I feel connected to a long line of seekers and finders of gifts from nature that may touch the ancient soul in all of us.
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The year before I painted Votive a near-death experience had reoriented me to feel more interconnected with nature. That led me to make four paintings depicting people as other natural elements, one of which was Votive. I also disagree with the standard interpretation of Icarus. The poet Jack Gilbert wrote, “Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew… I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.” Even as we single-mindedly pursue our individual ambitions, often forgetting our interconnection, we are always part of nature.
I find delight in some of the common visual choices used in illustrations of marijuana, for example the plant floating before a plain or tie-dye background or the use of stars or wavy lines to indicate trippiness. Often these images are rendered in a comic or graphic style. I gave myself the task of incorporating traditional pot art compositional choices while rendering it in a "high art" style (pun intended) using an old masters layered glazing technique.
Adult Coloring Book depicts stages of that rendering technique. The tips of the palm leaves are white, as if I haven't started painting them yet. That fades into a grayscale underpainting, and further into full color. With the glazing technique I start with grayscale where the final color will be cold and brownscale where it will end up being a warm color. I then layer translucent cold and then translucent warm colors over the previous dried layers. The original base layer provides most of the value (light or dark quality of a color) and the upper layers provide the hue (blue, red, yellow, etc.) as tints over it.
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I Read the Book, I Changed My Mind. I Did Some Paintings.
The book, called “The Slip”, was about a group of artists living in the old dockside area of early 50’s New York City. The painters there were Jack Youngerman, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Indiana.
Together, they rebelled against the current Abstract Expressionist painting style that was prevalent at that time, codifying abstraction into becoming hard edged or anti-gestural. I made this series of paintings as a reflection of the ideas of the slip painters.
The work shows my effort to slow down or eliminate the dependency on gesture as the only way to show internal /external emotions and feelings, allowing hard edge shapes to generate thoughts and ideas into conclusion.
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How does a thought [without intention] become an idea?
During the many (many) years I have shown my work (or applied for a grant) I have been asked to write a statement. Looking back over all the “statements” I have written...I wonder about the truth in each of those writings. Now... as I read them... they feel alternately naive and arrogant.
Writing about art is like dancing about architecture. [paraphrasing Frank Zappa]
I believe that we are far beyond the era when two-dimensional art could instigate good trouble (think Goya in the 1700s/1800s). So...why do we continue to do it?... if not for profit, ambition, or recognition?...Perhaps because we have a need to understand ourselves by creating a dialogue with something [visual] that is well beyond our conscious comprehension.