Materializing New Space

While I was unfortunately unable to attend the Artists Reception and Lecture on opening day of this exhibit "Materializing New Space" by artists Jaime Kennedy and Kelly Urquhart, I recently toured the gallery and viewed these works on my own. The art exhibited was a collaboration by the artists using drawings, sculpture, digital film photography, and in some instances hand crafted ink.

Upon first glance the collection did nothing to spark any feeling of real interest in me other than, honestly, the need to somehow gather information to use in my class assigned critique. I rarely have found myself this ambivalent toward the artwork that I have seen hung here in the Pearl Conard Gallery. While I am usually quite drawn to the simple starkness and contrast of black and white
art, this collection took some time to "grow on me".

I guess I was mostly drawn to the "Hung, Drawn and Quartered Series", and in particular the "Nesting" series. These images were very interesting visually, and I appreciated them for their artistic value.

In the Artist Statement I found some very useful information that helped me to look beyond my original
confusion and to appreciate the great thought and idea process that went into this work. Not to mention the fact that so many steps had been used in completing each of these composites where I had quickly
assumed they were probably created mostly in Photoshop. This made me stop and really view the pieces in a more enlightened frame of mind . Suddenly they came to life and I started to understand
some of what I think the artists were trying to provoke in thought. Very interesting that the artists were
hoping to show "the dichotomy that exists between the natural systems that function within the world against the human systems, which attempt to modify, control , and improve upon these natural systems of order.

Perhaps my favorite of the collection was #17, "Steal a March". Being the largest print in the exhibit, I think it anchored it quite nicely. It had a rather "dark" vibe to it like a Grimes Fairy Tale, or something of the such from my childhood. Many things caught the eye as one tried to put the "story" together. The most surreal being the bird in the giant flying apparatus. This , I think, gave the piece it's overall ominous tone.

All in all , I believe with all of the very tedious work these two artists put into these pieces that they
have succeeded in their quest. The work in the end pulled me in long enough to examine their idea.