Time… what happened?
October 3, 2006
Well, it seems that the entire summer has come and gone since my last entry. What is that all about? My third sememster of graduate school is alreay underway (well, almost half over) and the work is starting to get better. I am excited about the new sculpture and paintings that are comind forth, as well as a few shows that I have lined up for 2007.
Overall.. things haven’t changed much. I still miss Seattle and am planning on going back for Christmas again on Christmas Day and staying for two weeks. It will be a nice get away for my mind. Wichita is still Wichita, although today seems odd. It was almost 100 degrees (Oct 2nd). The past few weeks have been filled with cooler weather, promoting jeans and jackets… I have been eating it up. Especially after the hot summer that we experienced. I look forward to this warm front moving along, and Fall in Kansas coming back into play.
I will post some new work pictures when I get some free time. Until then…
Paul
Check out the following pages… I love these people and know them personally.
Stephen Atwood (sculpture)
Linda K. Robinson (photography)
Scott Heim (author)
John Sutton, Ben Beres and Zac Cullor (performance and installation)
Diem Chau (sculpture, painting and drawing)
Fernando Mastrangelo (sculpture and drawing)
Juan Alonoso (painting)
Upcoming Shows
May 24, 2006
Just a note of a couple of shows I have work in over the next week or two. The first is the last show at Tangent Lab; Chemical Burn. Stop by on Final Friday and have a look at a brand new piece of sculpture. This show is for one night only due to the gallery close in their current location. But, they are moving to a new spot soon. For info and directions to the gallery, go to http://www.tangentlab.com/current.htm.
The second is a one night event at The Shadow; Breathe. Organized by Cliff Bragg, the event is an exploration of the arts in Wichita as a springboard for more involvement and possibilities. A free for all of art, music and literature if you will. Stop by and say hello and enjoy a multi-platform event uncommon to the Wichita art scene. Sunday, June 4, 5pm-8pm, 550 N Rock Road (Rock and Central). There is a $10 cover for the event and it is all ages, so no booze will be served (sorry to my fellow drinkers). For info about the Shadow, http://www.wichitashadow.com/
Friday April 28, 2006
Fisch Haus Studios
Work by John Hammer
John Hammer, WSU Painting graduate student, showed his recent paintings this past Final Friday. The show consisted of 7 large scale, oil paintings of all male, homosexually suggestive portraits of life. The works dealt with societal situations in the male arena. Several were of early 1950’s “Physique Pictorial” posed males. These pictorials were originally advertised as depictions of the perfect male body in magazine format and mail order postcards. But years later, the realization of the almost all gay audience proved them to be the early start of the gay erotica industry. The paintings that Hammer has produced are generally basic reproductions and color studies of these male models. But due to the other imagery included in the show, the viewer realizes that this isn’t just a male figure study, but an inside look of the homosexual male in American culture. The other paintings included in the portray imagery of the American cowboy and rodeo culture and the American male as soldier and protector in the time of war. Each painting is well executed with loose, modeled brush strokes and a limited, light color palette very representative of Hammer’s style.
Although the subjects rendered in Hammer’s work are everyday portraits of life (bull riding, soldier comradery and body building for example) together as a whole, they each allude to one another via the culture of the American male with a twist of queer culture. The bull rider has been minimized to nothing but “below the belt” rider and bull in mid ride and the soldiers placed in sexually charged close proximity to one another.
While these paintings are of everyday, masculine situations, I believe that they are an excellent insight to the ideas of our culture towards straight activities and the hidden homosexual parallels that coexist. Overall the show seems to be a successfully cohesive body of work that isn’t in your face, but cautiously standing in the shadows of life, waiting to be tread upon and discovered. Sexual gratification or just a male bonding experience is an excellent question that is presented therein.
