Inflorescence of Sparkling Evil * July 16

Inflorescence of Sparkling Evil July 16th – August 6th

Opening Saturday July 16th 7pm- midnight, including performance $5 at the door, refreshments provided

Artists: Alexcalibur, Charles Allen, Katherine Bauer, Roman Chikerinets, Brendan Coyle, Amanda Curtis, Nathan Gwynne, Michael Mallis, Janina McCormack, Mikey McParlane, Katie Torn.

“Inflorescence of Sparkling Evil” is a group exhibition, which explores themes of cultural decay and the resurgence of the primitive within a technologically advanced society. Confronting the fragmentation and alienation intrinsic to the contemporary world, the artists featured in the exhibit envision works that variously reflect the transformative and life-altering potentials of technology. Acknowledging the individual's dispossession of any immediate contact with material reality, the works presented can be considered testimonies to the existence of a separate space, an abstract surface born at the limits of technological invention, where the ciphers of a new mythology come into form.

Although the featured artists work in different media, and emphasize different aspects of traditional art, they all share in confronting the complexity of the world with a stark simplicity—a maneuver which has less to do with minimalist uniformity, and more with making a satirical attack on the grandeur of our industrialized society. As the title suggests, a sense of irony qualifies the works gathered in “Inflorescence of Sparkling Evil." The discordant themes which clutter our culture are turned back on themselves, like an elaborate game of mirrors; and the resulting images are both larger than life and pathetic—a homage to the absurdity surrounding us on all sides. The overall result is something like laughter born of tears: the genuine reaction of the ingénue.