Rough Topography

June 20 - Aug. 16, 2003

Hillary Bleecker
Angelina Gualdoni
Shane Huffman
James Ireland
Justin Lieberman
Tim Lokiec
David Noonan
Chris Oliveria
Anna Shteynshleyger

Vedanta Gallery is pleased to present the group exhibition
Rough Topography, including work by Hillary Bleecker, Angelina Gualdoni, Shane Huffman, James Ireland, Justin Lieberman, Tim Lokiec, David Noonan, Chris Oliveria, and Anna Shteynshleyger.

Rough Topography represents a number of young artists whose work openly explores the harsh terrain ranging from the physical topography of the landscape to its cultural, political, social, personal and fantastic idiosyncrasies that influence the way one perceives and strives to make sense of the world around them. The artists in this exhibition approach their work from disparate directions and mediums yet underlying is a parallel motivation stemming from a lingering preoccupation with the perplexities, anxieties and "roughness" that permeate our lives.

Rough Topography includes work that ranges from Hillary Bleecker's subtle drawings of displaced acid colored trees to David Noonan's horror influenced video depicting a woman lost within a world blurred between nightmare and reality. Angelina Gualdoni's paintings of the destruction of Epcot Center's Horizon's Pavilion poetically comment on Disney's failed visions of utopia, while Justin Lieberman's tie-dyed embracing "Klansmen" represent the clashing of two extreme failed ideologies; KKK and utopian hippie culture. A more unassuming approach is seen in Anna Shteynshleyger's photographs which depict remote picturesque locations in Siberia and James Ireland's landscape assemblages created from such household materials as mirrors, fluorescent lights, shelving and magazine clippings. Tim Lokiec creates thick, muddy paintings possessed by a stoned teenager and inspired by third and fourth plateau consciousness, kidnappings, prom car crashes and animals. Quietly, personal universes are diagrammed and probed through Shane Huffman's collaged constructions while Chris Oliveria uses a small dreaming character whose visions depict a struggling civilization.

Image:
Anna Shteynshleyger
Untitled (Siberia Series), 2002
c-print
30" x 40"
edition of 5