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Wolves & Urchins
and Warlord Sun King: The Genesis of Eco-Baroque
For Release: February 05, 2009Wolves & Urchins: Hayley Barker, Wendy Given, and Anne Mathern
Warlord Sun King: The Genesis of Eco-Baroque by Bruce Conkle and Marne Lucas
Exhibition: February 23 - March 25, 2009
Artist reception: 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday, February 22, 2009
Gallery talk noon, Tuesday, March 10
The Art Gym, Marylhurst University
Wolves & Urchins and Warlord Sun King: The Genesis of Eco-Baroque will open at The Art Gym, Marylhurst University on February 23 and continue through March 25, 2009. A reception will be held with the artists on Sunday, February 22, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
At noon, Tuesday, March 10, curator Terri Hopkins will moderate a gallery talk with artist Bruce Conkle, Marne Lucas, Hayley Barker, Wendy Given and Anne Mathern. Admission is free for both events.
Curator Terri Hopkins writes:
Wolves and Urchins is an exhibition of drawings, photographs and videos about the stories we tell ourselves about the dangers and lure of the forest, the cave, the mountaintop, the swamp, and by extension the bushes in the backyard and the weedy ditch by the side of the road. Hayley Barker, Wendy Given and Anne Mathern all make works that pull at the guts of our relationship with the wild or marginal. In one way or another, like children and the adults they become, they not only observe, they pretend.
Wendy Given’s series The Wilds is made up of large-scale photographs of forests and fields that appear at first to be uninhabited. Given is interested in perceptual blindness, or the inability to see things that are present, and explores this phenomenon in her work. Hayley Barker uses gouache, ink, and pencil to create monsters she describes as conglomerations of bird, insect, human, plant and sea life. Anne Mathern is exhibiting several photographs and a video that explore ideas of wilderness and wildness through the persona of a wild woman. Mathern’s Doomhawk, is a video done in collaboration with a fantasy-metal band with gay, straight, and transgender members. Doomhawk has been described by Mathern’s dealer Scott Lawrimore as "an escape from everyday reality and return to a darker, primal age," and as a work about the contemporary tribes we form and project through common "tattoos, make-up, jewelry and clothes."
In The Art Gym’s Gallery 2, Bruce Conkle and Marne Lucas are presenting their installation Warlord Sun King: The Genesis of Eco-Baroque. Conkle and Lucas are two Portland-based artists known for their individual works in drawing, sculpture and photography and for their Blinglab collaborative performances at PICA’s 2006 Time-Based Art Festival. For this exhibition in The Art Gym, the two artists have coined the term "eco-baroque." They seek to combine a sensibility to the natural world that includes acknowledgement of many of its baroque, over-the-top manifestations that are not unlike the excesses of the Baroque era. Curator Terri Hopkins writes, "If you imagine the Palace of Versaille crossed with the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, you will be ready for Warlord Sun King."
The artists received funding from the Regional Arts and Culture Council for the exhibition, which is accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by Portland artist and writer, Ryan Pierce.
About Wolves and Urchins
Wendy Given began exhibiting photographs and video in Los Angeles after graduating with an MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2002. Recent exhibitions include "No Man's Land" at Solomon projects in Atlanta. Given lives in Portland, Oregon. Hayley Barker has an MFA in Intermedia from the University of Iowa. In addition to painting and drawing, she is known for her video and performance work. Barker lives in Portland, is represented by Charles Hartman Fine Arts, and is a member of the Marylhurst University faculty.
Anne Mathern lives in Seattle, Washington, where she is represented by Lawrimore Project and is a member of the cooperative gallery Crawl Space. Mathern’s work was recently included in Thermostat: Video and the Pacific Northwest at the Seattle Art Museum.
About Warlord Sun King: The Genesis of Eco-Baroque
Marne Lucas and Bruce Conkle write: "We draw inspiration from moss, lichen, crystals, minerals, honeycomb, coconuts, Native American culture, reflections, gold leaf, fountains, dioramas, chandeliers, most shiny things and psychedelic patterns found abundantly in nature. Our collaborative process is very spontaneous and allows us to push the boundaries of each of our individual oeuvres, often to absurd dimensions. We share a similar sense of humor, political, social and eco-based attitudes about the world and making art. Individually, we have produced work that explores Pacific Northwest regionalism with both humor and reverence for the place where we have been raised and live."
Artist and author Ryan Pierce writes in his essay for the exhibition catalogue: "Warlord Sun King: The Genesis of Eco-Baroque is inspired largely by the mythical extravagance of King Louis XIV of France and the culture of decadence and hubris that flourished under his rule. Lucas and Conkle have hijacked formal details from the Palace of Versailles, the converted hunting lodge that served as Louis’s showcase, and supplanted them with a mixture of mirth and mayhem to create a commentary on the endurance of societal negligence and pomposity. The result is something that more closely resembles the original hunting lodge than a palace: organic materials and gathered rubbish, a tanning bed from Craigslist and some specimens from a rock hound’s collection set the stage for the inevitable erosion of modern luxury."
The Art Gym
The Art Gym programs are supported in part by the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Art Gym is on the third floor of the B.P. John Administration Building at Marylhurst University, which is located one mile south of Lake Oswego on Highway 43. The Art Gym’s regular hours are Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free. For additional information, call 503.699.6243.
Founded in the fall of 1980, The Art Gym at Marylhurst University has a 28-year history of presenting work by hundreds of artists based in the Northwest. The Art Gym has published more than 50 exhibition catalogues and sponsored more than 100 conversations about art in the region. In 2004-2005, The Art Gym was a recipient of the Governor’s Arts Award.