-Kolman & Pryor Gallery’s first exhibition of 2017 is Worlding, a bold foray into alternative realities that compels us to experience identity and culture, landscape and consumerism; and popular culture and technology with fresh eyes. Co-curated by gallery co-owner and curator, Patrick K. Pryor, and gallery artist, Kate Casanova, Worlding brings together six artists working in diverse media who create work informed by their culturally specific perspectives: Andrea Carlson, Preston Drum, Andy DuCett, Nicole Gordon, Sarah Faye McPherson and Lamar Peterson. Worlding opens January 5 and closes February 18, 2017. A free artist reception will be held on Saturday, January 21, 7-9 p.m.
The exhibition explores world making, a subject that Casanova has explored in her own artistic investigations into non-human perspectives. “One’s worldview is largely shaped by your identity. You may be in the same room with someone or something, but it doesn’t mean you are seeing the same world,” she says.
“Patrick and I selected artists who remix images and objects from everyday life to create surreal worlds that reveal how very strange the idea of ‘normal’ actually is.” Andrea Carlson’s collage-like paintings deploy imagery to investigate appropriation and assimilation of Native American culture. Lamar Peterson’s work creates worlds that appear bright and playful, but look critically at domesticity, race and class through the lens of African American identity. Nicole Gordon’s vibrantly askew landscapes and Andy DuCett’s intricate installations create worlds that recombine and exaggerate contemporary life and play with ideas of memory and nostalgia through everyday objects.
“The work allows the viewer to navigate fascinating, alternative worlds that provide an expansive sense of possibility, much like digital worlds,” says Pryor. For example, Sarah Faye McPherson creates images and sculptures that merge photography and 3D digitally rendered objects. For this exhibition, she will present a sculpture that visitors can walk and sit on. Similarly, Preston Drum is creating a world out of cardboard with a video component that visitors can literally enter and immerse themselves in. Both artists play with the relationship of high and low-tech experience.
Unifying all of the work in Worlding, is its accessibility. The visually rich and colorful artworks run the gamut from serious to lighter subjects. Their visual appeal makes it possible to enter into sometimes difficult conversations around such subjects as identity, the environment, and consumerism, to name a few. This exhibition will draw viewers in by creating a sense of wonder, but won’t let them off the hook.