AutoErotica 2
"It's all about the Car" A group show featuring:
Phillip Hall - Digital light painted photography
Bill Silveira - Auto inspired assemblage sculpture
John Sheridan – Paintings and prints
Bill Silveira - Auto inspired assemblage sculpture
John Sheridan – Paintings and prints
Opening party, February 1st, 6 – 9pm
Show runs through March 8th, 2014
Let’s face it…. Big old beautiful cars are sexy!
The US, with its love for the car, is still fighting the need to become fuel efficient, healthy and green. But no, we don’t want to adorn our walls with mini porn car art! Huge American cars are in our blood and we aren't letting them go easily.
Each of these three Bay Area artists has their own unique take on the love of the car. They honor our rapidly disappearing, uniquely American, decadent automotive past.
About the Artists:
-Philip Hall
Philip Hall takes photographs of classic cars. Or, at least, at first glance that’s what the viewer might assume he does. However, on closer inspection, it becomes clear that while the classic (and sometimes not so classic) car is the predominant object in the pictorial field, it certainly isn’t the only subject. In fact, what Philip Hall does quite remarkably is use the classic car as a vehicle (pun intended) through which he can talk about highly sophisticated concepts in contemporary art and photography.
The US, with its love for the car, is still fighting the need to become fuel efficient, healthy and green. But no, we don’t want to adorn our walls with mini porn car art! Huge American cars are in our blood and we aren't letting them go easily.
Each of these three Bay Area artists has their own unique take on the love of the car. They honor our rapidly disappearing, uniquely American, decadent automotive past.
About the Artists:
-Philip Hall
Philip Hall takes photographs of classic cars. Or, at least, at first glance that’s what the viewer might assume he does. However, on closer inspection, it becomes clear that while the classic (and sometimes not so classic) car is the predominant object in the pictorial field, it certainly isn’t the only subject. In fact, what Philip Hall does quite remarkably is use the classic car as a vehicle (pun intended) through which he can talk about highly sophisticated concepts in contemporary art and photography.
Philip Hall graduated
from the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) in Southern
California and as this might suggest he has a very thorough
understanding of contemporary art concepts and the mechanisms of art
criticism and appreciation. His images are littered with visual quotes
from Contemporary Art. One of the artworks being shown is “California
Cruisin’.” Hall has layered warm, diffuse sunset tones over the contours
of a rare vintage 1953 Corvette. The car’s cherry-red taillight and the
flesh-colored curves subliminally evoke the nude female form. The
filtered, patterned light in
this composition is
the direct influence of cinematic lighting techniques Hall learned in
his Hollywood years: shadowy fronds, like palm leaves in a coastal
breeze, fade into and out of focus. Hall’s dreamy composition equally
encapsulates the sensuality and nostalgia of an imaginary ideal—an ideal
not only personal to Hall, but nearly archetypal to an entire
generation. Philiphallimagesandlight.com
-Bill Silveira
Slightly curmudgeonly, a bit on the eccentric side and possessing a rabid enthusiasm for the automobile, Bill Silveira enjoys making art out of discarded auto parts, rusty scrap metal and other unique items that seem to find their way into his vast collection of interesting and eclectic junk. A long term resident of Oakland's Jingletown Arts District, Bill can often be found wallowing through the skeletal remains of his rusty old vehicles while pondering the future of what was left behind. Picture a maniacal Fred Sanford with a warehouse full of crap, a scruffy dog named Scrapmeister and an old welder.
-John Sheridan
Slightly curmudgeonly, a bit on the eccentric side and possessing a rabid enthusiasm for the automobile, Bill Silveira enjoys making art out of discarded auto parts, rusty scrap metal and other unique items that seem to find their way into his vast collection of interesting and eclectic junk. A long term resident of Oakland's Jingletown Arts District, Bill can often be found wallowing through the skeletal remains of his rusty old vehicles while pondering the future of what was left behind. Picture a maniacal Fred Sanford with a warehouse full of crap, a scruffy dog named Scrapmeister and an old welder.
-John Sheridan
Imagine
trying to find the Muse of artistic inspiration in an American culture
that is both expanding and deflating at the same time. Where a minute is
like a century. And where its people can only recall the past as a kind
of blur.
John
Sheridan chooses and arranges images found in a long (endless) search
for meaningful content in American culture. He has discovered and
learned much from the past 50 plus years of portable, commercial and
short-term imagery - put it on canvas and painted and printed the
results.
The
artist uses a large, colorful and surprising palette of existing
images, words and paint which strike resonant chords because they are
both art and also come from and target the American working class. The
paint is simple house paint, saved before it becomes landfill. The
images he uses often contain logoistic corporate and other mesmerizing
and controversial elements, which cannot be separated from the great
energy that has always marked the poor, blue collar and working culture
of the country. These works on canvas explode with cars, pinups,
superheroes, numbers, logos and images from the deep (or not so deep)
popular unconscious as well as from the most persuasive propaganda
machine the world has ever seen – American advertising. johnsheridanart.com
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