- Grier Edmundson
Tonight at 6:30 pm, Fourteen30 Contemporary is hosting the first of four Skype conversations in support of the gallery’s current group exhibit, Summer Show. During tonight’s session, Montreal-based painter Grier Edmundson will be piped into the exhibition space for a chat with ex-Mercury visual arts critic John Motley. They’ll be talking about Edmundson’s oil paintings— described on Fourteen30’s website as “[examinations of] society through the reconstruction of appropriated images.”
Pictured above is one such “appropriated image,” an example of Edmundson’s work circa 2006, depicting the Challenger space shuttle (which exploded in 1986 while exiting the earth’s atmosphere). Here, the Challenger’s iconic, splintered dart of smoke prods the viewer towards rethinking the cultural impact of tragedy. However, Edmundson’s newer works, those shown at Fourteen30 back in 2008 and 2009, side less with recognizable source materials, and more with calculated psychological footprints: In “Progress Progress IV,” a seemingly innocuous bird is copied from a photo, shown perching with a worm in its beak— though no information is given as to where or how the bird caught the worm. Apply this lack of information to humanity’s relationship with industrialized food sources, and the image begins to resonate uncomfortably.
Edmundson’s work will be on view in Summer Show through August 14, and Fourteen30 Contemporary is located at 1430 SE 3rd Ave. For more information on tonight’s Skype session, and those of the coming weeks— including a talk about John Fahey on August 5 between Tom Greenwood (of Jackie-O Motherfucker) and Justin Luke (of Audio Visual Arts, New York)— check out the gallery’s website.
So all we have to do is assume that the tweaking of the Challenger image or a picture of a bird with a worm has some sort of really deep and maybe provocative meaning? It sounds like you’re the one creating the art; you could do that with anything.
<-philistine
“Here, the Challenger’s iconic, splintered dart of smoke prods the viewer towards rethinking the cultural impact of tragedy.”
So, guys, I thought about it. The Challenger blowing up still sucks just as much as it did in when I was a kid.
“…though no information is given as to where or how the bird caught the worm.”
I’m going to assume he plucked it out of the ground and shit, because that’s what birds do.