‘DARK MATTER’ explores the invisible forces behind the decisions we make and the narratives we create. The dark matter hypothesis proposes that 85% of all matter in the universe is unseen. Astronomers have observed that galaxies seemingly do not have enough mass to account for the gravitational forces needed to hold them together in clusters. However, there is evidence of a nearly undetectable, or “dark”, matter that generates binding forces in the universe while remaining a complete mystery.
In this body of work, Giorgiko plays with the idea that a significant percentage of our lives may be made of a different “dark matter” — one of untold stories, hidden agendas, and powerful feelings — which plays an equally significant force on our lives and our relationships with others. With so much unknown, what is perceived with the senses may only reveal a part of the story. Through this exhibition, we invite viewers to consider what we really know, what we don’t, and the mystery that holds us all together when, theoretically, we should be flying apart.
For this exhibition, Sentrock presents a new signature mural in the galleries as well as animated video projections, a ten-foot-tall sculpture, a life-size birdhouse installation, paintings, and works on paper that reveal narratives about the Bird City Saint character, and its origins in the artist’s biography. The exhibition, across numerous galleries, will explore the dreams of a little boy living in an urban environment, the importance of his Mexican-American community, and why the boy has a bird mask.
On view September 9, 2022 to January 29, 2023 in the SRP Room
Opening Reception: Friday, September 9 from 6-10pm
Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum One East Main Street Mesa, Arizona 85211
Dark Matter explores the invisible forces behind the decisions we make and the narratives we create. The dark matter hypothesis proposes that 85% of all matter in the universe is unseen. Astronomers have observed that galaxies seemingly do not have enough mass to account for the gravitational forces needed to hold them together in clusters. However, there is evidence of a nearly undetectable, or “dark” matter that generates binding forces in the universe while remaining a complete mystery.
In their new body of work, the artist duo Giorgiko play with the idea that a significant percentage of our lives may be made of a different “dark matter”, one of untold stories, hidden agendas, and powerful feelings; which plays an equally significant force on our lives and our relationships with others. With so much unknown, what is perceived with the senses may only reveal a part of the story. Through seven oil paintings and 13 special edition sculptures, Giorgiko invites viewers to consider what we really know, what we don’t, and the mystery that holds us all together when, theoretically, we should be flying apart.
About the artists:
Giorgiko (pronounced jee-OR-jee-koh) is the product of a collaborative experiment between Darren and Trisha Inouye melding minimal, expressive character illustration with large-scale classical painting. Conceived in 2012, the Giorgiko universe is home to lost boys and wayfaring girls, and explores the stories of their wanderings and their dreams of being found again. Urban and classical youth are portrayed in city and nature scenes as part of their journeys through the world.
The husband-and-wife team first met while studying art at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. Darren was attracted to Trisha’s authenticity and quirkiness, while Trisha was drawn to Darren’s dashingly good looks. Trisha hails from a Korean immigrant family in the San Francisco Bay area and was noticed at an early age for her talent in drawing. She brings a cuteness and sweet innocence to Giorgiko’s characters. Meanwhile, Darren is a 4th generation Japanese- American from Los Angeles who fell in love with hip hop dancing and graffiti in his youth, and the underground influence is evident throughout the Giorgiko universe. Darren and Trisha’s work blends street and cute to create relatable images for wanderers of all ages.
Darren and Trisha are parents to identical twin boys who keep the young artists occupied with finger foods and baby babble. Their greatest accomplishment to date is keeping their children alive.
On view September 9, 2022 to January 29, 2023 in the Project Room
Opening Reception: Friday, September 9 from 6-10pm
Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum One East Main Street Mesa, Arizona 85211
There is an idiom that says “it’s written all over your face,” which gave me an idea that regardless of what we say, our true feelings can still be emancipated by our facial expressions. For me, it’s a silent way of communicating something without noise. It’s where I find the inspiration to literally remember those facial expressions and create artwork out of it. This mix of facial expressions with different symbols and patterns have led to the development of characters known as “ohlala” dolls.
We humans have the same mold. We all have the same attributes. What differentiates us is the circumstances that we were born into. And one thing that I want to emphasize is the amount of detail each ohlala artwork has. Like humans, some have little while some have more.
In many of my works, I discreetly take on socio-economic classes. Some people are born rich, some are born middle
class, some are born poor. But the common ground for everyone is, we all have to deal with it.
I cover all the ohlala dolls heads with canvas cloth to give a freedom to paint their own symbols on their heads; as if they are designing their own fate. I guess that’s what we all have in common; the power to make things happen for ourselves.
Acrylic, oil, and aerosol paint are my choice of medium in painting. Many times, I let accidents like drips, smudges and splatter help me to decipher what to do next. I start with very loose abstract figures to overcome the fear of an empty canvas staring at me.
In this collection of work, I try to become as personal as possible, using ohlala as my main character to depict some of my experiences that led me to where I am right now as an artist.
About the Artist: Born in Paris, France, Filipino artist Reen Barrera didn’t have a lot of toys during his childhood in the 90s. He vaguely remembers owning two or three action figures but considers himself a “toy deprived” kid. Out of sheer boredom, he started repurposing materials, like wood and fabric, into mixed media figuartive sculputures and paintings.
Barrera studied fine arts and majored in advertising in college. Before becoming a full-time working artist in 2014, his professional work consisted of sculpting bobble-head portraits, graphic design and illustration. He has shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions all over the world. He currently lives in the Philippines.
On view September 10, 2021 – January 2, 2022 at: Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum One East Main Street Mesa, Arizona 85201
Phoenix painter Wiley Wallace creates luminous and ostensibly radioactive worlds intersecting the real and imagined. Under a neon-hued glow, his realistic and surreal renderings of children and adults are placed amid Arizona landscapes, creating “near-magical” references of the supernatural. Through narratives of connection and communication, Wallace’s imagery suspends the viewer with a playful and macabre innocence.
‘Lucid Fate’ is Wallace’s debut solo museum exhibition.
Presented in co-operation with Thinkspace Projects
Thinkspace is pleased to announce Petrichor, a mid-career retrospective at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum dedicated to the surreal and darkly stylized work of Japanese American artist, and Mesa AZ native, Esao Andrews. Known for his minutely detailed and narratively suggestive paintings, Andrews brings haunting imagery to life through his uniquely mannerist distortion of subjects, both human and animal, and the strange undertow of his desolate, Gothically inspired landscapes. Themed around homecomings, departures, and afflictive transformations, Andrews’ works feel drawn from the same collective imaginary reserves as myth.
Andrews attended New York’s School
of Visual Arts where he studied illustration and completed a B.F.A in 2000. An
accomplished figurative painter, he participated in the BP Portrait Award at
the National Portrait Gallery, London, in 2002. The artist has worked
commercially in tandem with his fine art practice which has, in recent years,
grown to include large-scale murals, and produced iconic album cover artwork
for American rock band Circa Survive. He has also created numerous comic book
covers for DC’s Vertigo Comics, and memorable deck designs for Deathwish and
Baker Skateboards.
Petrichor
will feature over a dozen iconic
works by Andrews, borrowed from private collections worldwide, and will include
the original artwork from the Circa Survive album releases. Also included in
the exhibition are never before seen sketches and maquettes, objects and
skateboard decks, and twelve new, never before seen works alongside a
site-specific mural created for the retrospective.
Staging a world of unlikely
combinations and unexpected tensions, Andrews revels in the surreal elasticity
of the subconscious and its penchant for the poetically absurd. No hybrid is
too unimaginable, no character too fantastic, no anthropomorphous invention too
unthinkable. Objects, animals, and people are all dynamically animate and
sentient, subject to the inexplicable rules of their living fictional cosmos.
Always one for compelling epilogues, Andrews has revisited past characters and
themes throughout his career, building on earlier works and weaving a sort of
narrative continuity throughout his output. Though the tone of his imagery
often borders on the grotesque or even macabre, a literary impulse links
Andrews’ works to the fabric of fable and myth, its folkloric threads binding
it to something vaguely archetypal and collective in its haunting resonance.
Andrews lists diverse sources of
inspiration for his work, everything from art history to skate counterculture.
The immersive manga fantasies of anime master Hayao Miyazaki figure prominently
among his influences, as do French 19th-Century Academic painting styles,
particularly its neoclassical revisitation of myth and the tenebrous cast of
its moody contrasts. Andrews also cites the heightened emotional drama of
Gustav Klimt’s Symbolist Art Nouveau style and Egon Schiele’s Expressionistic
sensual grotesque as other stylistic sources. Contemporary painters James Jean
and Inka Essenhigh list among his inspirations too, as does visionary
cartoonist Al Columbia for his masterful, ghoulish reinterpretations of
Americana.
“Petrichor” is said to
be the fluid stone coursing through the veins of the Gods in Greek mythology,
it is also the warm earthen smell after a downpour on desiccated land, the
relief of rain on hot desert and dry air that signals a moment of elemental
transformation and all the inexplicable micro-metamorphoses that attend a
relieved and changing landscape. This is the dark but beautifully redemptive
imaginary Andrews is continually bringing to life – one in which endings and
beginnings are indivisibly bound.
Last month, American Art Collector magazine covered two of our exhibitions, Flourish at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum and Brain Mashburn’s Axiom in the Thinkspace Gallery project room. You can view the articles in more detail at the following link.
