COLORFAST: Sculpture by Brad Mosby & Photographs by Claudia Smiley
Through May 31, 2008
Armstrong Gallery
Sponsored by Alexis & Mike Kalish, Rodney & Sarah Litwiller
Artists Brad Mosby and Claudia Smiley both utilize the effects of color and light to explore and heighten abstract forms.
Laminated wood sculptures by local artist Brad Mosby feature simple, graceful arcing shapes whose interiors pulse with a solid primary color. Mosby explains “There is much to be said for what isn’t there. Objects made become the backside of thought. Perhaps speaking of a past not far behind. Half circles of an uncompleted life or laminations of personal experience.”
Digital inkjet prints by Claudia Smiley (a Chicago artist, formerly from Bloomington, Illinois) feature images of train graffiti. Smiley isolates and frames a compelling fragment of graffiti and further abstracts the image and heightens the color with digital or computer alterations to produce inkjet prints that serve as a “painterly interpretation of the graffiti rather than a strict photographic record.”
Artist Statement:
This new body of work consists of images of train graffiti. Graffiti is used as a language to communicate to a specific audience in a specific way. Train graffiti began as simple chalk or paint stick monikers left by hobos or railroad workers. Current writers spray paint images covering an entire train car. Train graffiti consists mainly of elaborately depicted names or nicknames of the writers. Applying the graffiti to trains allows the writers a larger audience as it may be seen throughout the country. One writer describes it as a traveling art show. Many see graffiti as defacement or vandalism. Others find beauty in it. Either way, it has become a part of our landscape.
My work is always about color and light. Train graffiti opened an opportunity to capture color and abstract form. My particular view is of an isolated part of the total image. The use of the spray paint creates a soft texture juxtaposed with the hard metal of the train car. The scrapes & imperfections in the metal add layers to the image similar to the way a painter may apply paint to a canvas. The color has been manipulated by computer much in the same way color can be manipulated by film developing and darkroom techniques. The resulting image becomes a painterly interpretation of the graffiti rather than a strict photographic record.
-Claudia Smiley 2008