Imagined weight can be heavier than real weight, sometimes to the point where our perceptions apply more pressure and gravity than what can actually be accounted for. How does this happen? In today's world, where environmental disasters of tragic magnitude have practically become the norm, where ongoing wars are being fought simultaneously on multiple fronts, and where we’re in the midst of the worst economic catastrophe since the great depression, it’s apparent that we are living in "heavy times". In some way or another, each of us carries the weight of our times, if not in a physically tangible way, at the very least in the mind. How are we dealing with all of this? What is the current state of contemplation surrounding it? Where does the resulting energy find a resting place? Can bad things actually be transformed into good?
It is not the intent of this exhibition to address any of these issues directly, as much as it is to address the individual’s unconscious and conscious responses to the current state of affairs that dominates our political and social landscape. Oftentimes, we attempt to escape the heaviness, through expressions of laughter, serenity, or even music. Sometimes, we attack the weight head-on, using pent up energy that inevitably needs to find its release somewhere. In this exhibition, eleven artists address this placement, both definitively and abstractly, and in the two-dimensional and the sculptural. Featuring new work by Ben Venom, Casey Jex Smith, Glen Baldridge, Harley Lafarrah Eaves, Kevin Taylor, Kyle Ranson, Laurie Steelink, N.Dash, Shelter Serra, Thomas Øvlisen, & Vanessa Blaikie.
We invite you to join us for the opening reception of Weight Perception:
Kevin Earl Taylor
“Cenotaph”
oil on panel, 2010
A Great White shark becomes a cenotaph, erected in the name of a god who procures a presence in realms attainable to his earthly disciples only through death, yet remains physically absent from their unfolding mortal lives. The shark, sacrificed as a living monument, has no predators (other than man) and even those sympathetic to it’s plight simultaneously fear it. The Christ-like visage represents man’s earth based liaison unto the spiritual world, as he is erecting a structure to assist humans in their acts of worship towards the obscured deity.
The “natural” world responds accordingly to this seemingly absurd behavior. A crow’s interaction with evil, personified as a serpent, inspires chaos within a flock of unsegregated birds. Hoofed creatures below, respectively careless, outraged and concerned, see little more than their animal brethren undergoing crucifixion in the name of human selfishness and ego. In an attempt at resolution, a jellyfish chances the balance of neutrality and conviction while making efforts to align the disparate parties.
Through religion, humans negotiate earthly purpose, making it possible to proclaim superiority within the macrocosm and veil the reality that we are no more or less than blades of grass.
Via | http://www.kevinearltaylor.com/journal/cenotaph/