 Donnie & Travis Mil Siluetas John Connelly Presents is pleased to announce the debut solo exhibition of New York based artists Donnie & Travis. Working in collaboration, Donnie & Travis create photo based figurative works on silk that are embellished with textile dyes and silk & cashmere embroidery. Donnie & Travis's subjects are usually solitary or paired figures situated in pastoral or metaphysical landscapes. They gaze directly at us, hide behind tangled shrouds or interact with ambiguous geometric structures. Using the process of cyanotype, Donnie & Travis embed their subjects in a pictorial reality that begins and ends with a reflection on the body and it's physical indexes. By the time Donnie & Travis's subjects inhabit their framework, they have gone through three generations of mechanical reproduction. Already approaching drawing through this physical degeneration, the figures are then suffused with hand-made elements, washes of textile color and elaborately embroidered details. Embroidery is what holds the image to the canvases, as everything else becomes liquid dyes, skin, blood and vapor. Donnie & Travis's work investigates a unique territory within their polar processes of the mechanical and the handmade, creating an amalgam of mediums that treads a beautifully distorted line between portraiture and allegory. In the JCP Annex: Butch Queen Realness with a Twist in Pastel Colors video program curated by assume vivid astro focus "butch queen realness with a twist in pastel colors (bqrwtpc)" is an ongoing video program curated by assume vivid astro focus which was first presented in Miami at the Rosa and Carlos De La Cruz collection in December 2004. "bqrwtpc" began as a compilation of emerging and established (mostly) american artists works (Ara Peterson, Forcefield, Cory Arcangel, Devin Flynn, Black Leotard Front, Lovid, Takeshi Murata, Dearraindrop, Kembra Phaler, Miguel Calderon, Lothar Hempel), plus music videos (Les Rita Mitsouko, Sylvester, Blondie, Jefferson Airplane, Devo, The Residents, Kraftwerk), documentation of nightlife and performances by Nelson Sullivan in New York in the 80s, anonymous documentation of vogue balls in Harlem, dance excerpts from music programs aired on Television from the '70s and '80s (like "Soul Train", "Graffiti Rock") and excerpts from movies (Derek Jarman's "Jubilee" with Adam and the Ants, excerpt from "Style Wars", excerpt from "Code 46", "Morvern Callar" and "Beau Travail"). For assume vivid astro focus's solo exhibition at the Tate Liverpool in Spring 2005 the program was expanded and screened simultaneously on three video screens. avaf spent three months in the UK researching local artists such as Dick Jewel and Raw Sewage to add to the program which eventually expanded the program to nearly 17 hours. Subsequently "bqrwtpc" is an evolving subjective project of borrowed, appropriated and found video and film that seeks to offer a glimpse of avaf's inspirations while paying honor to those included. Both entertaining and provocative, "bqrwtpc" is both a subjective archive and an iconoclastic present to it's audience. As Ian White suggested in August 2005 ArtReview magazine "(avaf's) video program is not so much an artwork in its own right but a social service." Exhibition: June 27 - July 26, 2006 Gallery hours: Tues-Sat 11am - 6pm John Connelly Presents 625 West 27th Street, Ground floor USA-New York, NY 10001 Telephone +1 212 337 9563 Fax +1 212 337 9613 Email info@johnconnellypresents.com www.johnconnellypresents.com |
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