Subversive Suburbia exhibited at Mindy Solomon Gallery

Through Sat Jul 27, 2019

Mindy Solomon Gallery exhibits Subversive Suburbia, in both its art spaces. Artist featured: GAS (Generic Art Solutions), Jeremy Chandler & Shawn Cheatham, Kate Macdowell and Scot Sothern. From Film to Photography to Sculpture, this exhibition features a wide arrange of media about many contemporary and society-focus issues.

Shawn Cheatham and Jeremy Chandler will present the experimental documentary film: Invasive Species. Striking cinematography and a haunting original score guide the viewer through a contemplative glimpse into the Florida’s ongoing struggle with the Burmese Python. Told from the perspective of “the local”, Invasive Species explores how pythons were artificially thrust onto this fragile ecosystem and continue to challenge the ethical, social, and psychological paradigms of a people learning to live side-by-side with a new predator.

Kate MacDowell has spent her career studying and interpreting the animal world and the intersection between man and nature. She explains:
We may also choose to look toward our own destiny as we track early casualties of our transformation of the environment–from the spread of invasive species such as pine-bark beetles to historical extinction events such as the destruction of the passenger pigeon.  In each case our desire or longing for a psychological union between man and nature is complicated by friction and the discomforting feeling that we too are vulnerable to being victimized by our destructive practices.”

Scot Sothern is an urban explorer. Sothern states: “I grew up in Springfield, Missouri, in the 1950s and ’60s. I left shortly after high school and headed for Southern California looking for sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. I’ve moved around a bit since then, but Los Angeles is home and where I have spent most of my life. My father had a portrait and wedding photography studio so I was in the darkroom and behind a camera at an early age. Photography for me, at that time, was merely bread and butter and had little to do with art. I was groomed to take over the family business and, while that never happened; photography just felt like the only thing I knew how to do.

Generic Art Solutions (GAS) is the collaborative efforts of Matt Vis and Tony Campbell. This New Orleans-based art duo utilizes nearly every art medium as they examine the recurring themes of human drama and the challenges of navigating the social and political issues at play within contemporary society. Using history as a springboard for reinvention, the artists’ re-contextualize existing imagery, often well known and recognizable. Pointing out the absurd and dysfunctional- GAS shows us how very alike we really are.

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