Are You a Summer?
curated by Melissa Walker
June 12- July 3, 2015
Opening Reception
June 12, 2015
6-9pm
Participating Artists:
Joyce Chan
Kelly McCafferty
Anne Spurgeon
Debra Zechowski
Academic Gallery
47-39 35th Street, 2nd Floor
Long Island City, NY 11101
218-56-LEARN
Long Island City, NY 11101
218-56-LEARN
The title, Are You a Summer?, comes from a make-up color system that identifies a person’s pigmentation by season naming them a winter, spring, fall or summer. It is likened to finding out a zodiac sign assigning rules to personality as well as defining what colors look best on you. This system assumes that one will be looked at and judged aesthetically. All four artists in this show have decided for themselves what they like and how they like their work to be looked at.
Kelly McCafferty’s works are aura laden, diary-like paintings that display more like shrines. Each object that is carefully attached to a work commemorates extremely intimate events for the artist while re-igniting viewers personal memories.
With a scavenger’s eye Anne Spurgeon creates self-defined trophies after “hunting” for objects on the street. She completely transforms her objects so that they visually pendulate from repurposed materials to animal-free hunting trophies.
Joyce Chan’s work investigates what Chinese-American identity can be, through her personal interactions, travels, and memory. Unsolicited interactions experienced in her day-to-day life record unfiltered experiences and become reframed as part drawing part photograph in her Sketchbook Series.
Debra Zechowski re-examines her family and herself in a monumental way by painting photographs from candid shots of daily life. The largest work of her two works in the show measures 7 by 8 feet and while both are not quite photorealistic they do not abstract the content, which is unavoidable and working class.
Photos from the Reception:
