JAMES AUSTIN MURRAY Distant Stars
CARMON COLANGELO Happy Planet
BUNNY BURSON Rise
LAURA BEARD Acoustic Shadow
April 13 – June 1, 2018
Opening Reception & Meet the Artists: Friday, April 13, 2018, from 5 to 8 pm
Painter James Austin Murray presents a new series of black paintings where viewers can find wonders. Carmon Colangelo presents two new series of monotypes created at the Flying Horse Editions in Orlando. t Bunny Burson presents an exhibition of new prints, sculptures, and a video work on politically and poetically engaging the viewers. Laura Beard’s new paintings in this exhibition are inspired by the acoustic shadow phenomenon that was first documented during the Civil War.
James Austin Murray presents an exhibition of new abstract black paintings titled “Distant Stars.” Murray’s black paintings, created with ivory black oil paint, are little like searching in a dark room with a flashlight that only brightens the few inches in front of it. Feeling our way along the walls, trying to identify the furniture and layout of the place we found ourselves in. The paintings look like a landscape you could walk right into. It’s a visual place that is both disconcerting and overpoweringly seductive. As a NYC firefighter during the 9/11 attack in New York City, Murray paints because it is how he justify his life following this atrocious day. Nothing else seems to hold up. He loves paint – love the smell of oil paint and the warm buttery consistency it has while it’s being pushed along by the brush. His current work is both about the paint and the light that reflects on and in it. If you spend time with one of his paintings you might find yourself thinking about the light in the room, with you and that painting. Murray says, “Sometimes the dark is where you find the best surprises.”
Carmon Colangelo presents a series of new monotype prints exhibition titled “Happy Planet.” Happy Planet is composed of two new series of prints, Colorful World and Happy Plans combining watercolor monotype and woodcut relief processes. These recent prints are a playful and somewhat saccharin response to the current state of political affairs; a form of escapism from the sadness of the everyday news cycle. The prints are unique synthesis of ideas generated from contemporary discourses and precedents in modern art and architecture from Alexander Calder’s Circus to Cedric Price’s Fun Palace. The Happy Plan series is composed of laser cut wood plates that operate like architectural sections while the Colorful World prints are multilayered with deep embossments having a marshmallow like effect. Expanding on Colangelo’s daily practice of drawing, the works are derived from chance operations, maps, found materials and printing from discarded laser cut wood plates from architectural models; the result is a generative series of colorful and works where meaning is adaptable to shifting cultural and social conditions.
Carmon Colangelo is a pioneering printmaker whose work combines surrealism and abstraction with the exploration of art history, science, and technology. An enduring feature of Colangelo's work is the unraveling of free-floating symbols and texts in an aggressive exploitation of various print media. He challenges conventional readings, producing disorienting spatial topologies and striking visual poetics.
Bunny Burson presents an exhibition entitled “Rise” of unique cast paper pieces, made with cotton pulp from a matrix of shattered glass, sculpture and, video work. Using diverse media, Bunny Burson continues to address the consequences of elections. Her video and the snow globes, And Still I Rise 2017, were inspired by her installation in the Bruno David Gallery’s Window on Forsyth last spring (2017). They contain the confetti, which never fell from the Javits Center ceiling on election night, November 8, 2016. They motivate us to act, to vote, to resist. The cast cotton artworks (It Will Happen, Momentum, and Rise) reference the glass ceiling, and the need to continue to empower young people to pursue their goals. Through her artwork, Burson speaks politically and poetically to engage the viewer and to stimulate dialogue about the important issues we face.
Laura Beard presents an exhibition titled “Acoustic Shadow” of recent paintings. The new paintings in this exhibition is inspired by the acoustic shadow phenomenon that occurred during the Civil War. Where sound goes to die, acoustic shadows are areas where sounds, from a certain direction and on a given day, will not penetrate; these acoustic phenomena occur either because the sound waves are absorbed, refracted or simply blown in a different direction. Relatively unnoticed in our modern, wired world, acoustic shadow played a significant role in some of the most famous battles of the American Civil War. Her research is nonobjective paintings, so she is not doing an illustration of acoustic shadows. She is creating visual images that are inspired by descriptions and the concept regarding sound. Beard says, “It is fascinating and challenging to conceptualize sound in the silent language of visual form.”
Public Hours: Tuesday through Friday 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Bruno David Gallery
7513 Forsyth Boulevard
Clayton, MO 63105
1.314.696.2377
