Vanitas
Curated by Colton Stenke and the Mission College Curatorial group

Artists » Geoffrey Allen / Matt Driggs / Martin Durazo / Scott Katano /
Jared Pankin / Carrie Patterson / Steve Schmidt / Shirley Tse

Opening: Saturday, Sept. 10, 2005 7-10 p.m.
Dates: Sept. 10 thru Oct. 8, 2005
Hours: Fri./Sat./Sun. 12 - 5 p.m.
Where: The Brewery Project 676 South Ave. 21 #33

The Brewery Project presents “Vanitas”: a group show of eight Los Angeles based artists: Geoffrey Allen, Matt Driggs, Martin Durazo, Scott Katano, Jared Pankin, Carrie Patterson, Steve Schmidt, and Shirley Tse. The show centers around themes of transience, the passage of time, and by extension, mortality. Two of the core themes binding these artists is the material used, plastics, and the process to create the work.

“The work of these eight artists speak directly to the inherently transitory nature of their pieces, particularly when considering the material or processes incorporated by each artist. They are a construct of varied styles speaking to a common theme that is either contradictory to its origin or of having a byproduct of its inception that is in itself the creative process and derived from a point in time that is not seen by the viewer but paramount to the viewers perception of the work.

Considering the act, the viewer is reminded that the act has ended; such a concept brings forward questions of time, the viewers place within their own lifespan, and other places that remain unseen by the viewer. This concept directly evokes questions of the viewer's own mortality and the idea that as the original performance piece finished and its remnants are laid before the viewer, we too find ourselves, eventually, in the same predicament.

As the viewer contemplates the act they did not witness, or as the viewer is confronted with forms contradictory to the nature of its material, the viewer is reminded of materials whose existence before they have viewed them are varied and unknown. The viewer must reflect upon their own mortality; their relationship to the process/material and call to mind questions about their own existence. And so as Vanitas still life painting has done in the past, these contemporary artists evoke strong experiences about existence and the awareness of such concepts as time and mortality.”