PHANTASMA
ARTISTS: JENNIFER D. ANDERSON, JILL GALLENSTEIN, AMANDA HUGHEN, LISA KELLNER, MARY ANNE KLUTH, KRISTINA LEWIS, KATY STONE, MASAMI TSUCHIKAWA
EXHIBITION DATES: NOVEMBER 7-DECEMBER 17, 2009
RECEPTION: NOVEMBER 14, 6-8PM
In this exhibition of paintings, sculptures and installations, Tarryn Teresa Gallery explores the landscape of the subconscious. Dream-like states, trances, hypnosis and fantasy serve important personal and even societal functions. Americans relentlessly, yet often superficially, espouse scientific explanations. Is our quest to explain everything by scientific (or pseudo-scientific) means an attempt to mitigate and control the influence of the “unexplainable” in our own lives? If we reduce our nightmares to symbols relating to our day-to-day concerns, does that upend their ability to terrify? If undergoing hypnotherapy helps us to quit smoking, does that render the trance-like state comforting rather than frightening?
While attempts to define the meaning of subconscious have been as varied as the visions they try to contain, a definition which is too rigid flattens meaning instead of illuminating its complexity. The eight artists in this show toy with expectations of conscious reality: whether the work deviates from an anticipated size and scale, confuses the distinctions between inanimate objects and animate beings or details an existence that wobbles between decay and growth. In Phantasma, the gallery presents dreams, fantasies and visions that cannot be reduced or compressed in meaning; rather, their interpretations are as limitless as the subconscious of the viewer.
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