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CURE/RATED: BIGOTRY, A SOCIETAL CANCER
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VIRTUAL GALLERY
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WALK THROUGH THE EXHIBITION IN THE MAYFAIR GALLERY
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Carlson Hatton
Carlson Hatton is a Los Angeles based painter and arts educator. His psychologically charged paintings explore the many layers that constitute daily life. Hatton filters through advertising, art history and documentation of daily life to create imagery that is highly saturated, densely layered and designed to be deciphered and discovered.
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"I find the exhibition theme to be very relevant and I really appreciate the comparison of bigotry, in its various forms, to a cancer that takes over the organism. The fact that both curators are medical physicians adds another level of understanding to how sickness, if left undiagnosed, can fester and spread. On a global scale we hear daily reports about the rise of bigotry that plays out through larger social structures. This reminds me of an allegory comparing institutionalized racism to a conveyer belt which needs to be questioned; the surface needs to be pulled up to understand the mechanism that transports us and is largely accepted. I’m interested in how the exhibition description brings bigotry down to a cellular level that begins within the individual and grows outward to larger systems.
As an artists I’m fascinated in medical and phycological descriptions that make some sense in how they manifest themselves but are not something that can be easily described visually. My artwork strives to harness the energy of those invisible forces that shape our worlds in ways that can’t be traced back to the origin or elude common sense. This can include beauty, but it can also include the darkness of unconscious bias, the influence of media, and fear of that which seems foreign."
- Carlson Hatton
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Katelyn Ledford
Life Ain't a Picnic, 2021Acrylic, oil, gouache, and molding paste on canvas over panel.
80 x 63.5 cm
31 1/2 x 25 in -
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"The work I have included in this show, Clear Vision, expresses resilience and celebrates femininity. The female figure in this work cleanses herself with her tears, growing through the pain and sadness that she experiences. She embraces the capability of her strong and sensual body. Through this period of societal unraveling, this metaphorical self-portrait represents a determination to awaken through our tears towards a clearer vision of the future. "
- Lindsey Kircher
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Brian Robertson
The Tiny Teacup Meets the Big Black Mass, 2017Within the hyper-specific lies the universal.
It is from this ethos that Brian Robertson takes thoughts, images, and narratives from inside himself and translates them into painting, forming a kind of surreal investigation of self within each piece. Far from solipsistic, Robertson records and translates these intimate and vulnerable parts of himself into a painting in order to share them, in the hopes that the viewer can take that act of unguardedness and mimic it themselves, opening up a space from which mutual self-discovery and communication can occur.
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Chained
A Poem by Christian BermanFlesh of my flesh
bone of my bones
Who said that?
A backwoods pharaoh
or Mississippi mechanic,
fixing the body,
mending the broken axle.
The whites of my eyes
are just saucers licked clean
of life without the iris
of depth without the pupil.
Do you know what matters,
but also what’s needed?
What is as much of love
as the scarred bark
that makes possible
my green growing?
What is as much
a part of my home
as the love of my
brother?
Only now, together clasped
in the breaking night
can we say it,
what has always been felt
but is never uttered,
that we are a puzzle
waiting to solve itself,
that we are chains
bound by chains
of fear and of doubt,
a tangled mess of nooses
useless ideas
and deliberate unknowing.
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Jacob Hicks
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Jacob Hicks is currently creating a series of female icons in a project called 100 Women, started in 2016 as a form of resistance to misogyny and racism. The series represent a vision of Utopia, of celebrated cultural pluralism and empowerment.
"I am a gay white male living and working in Brooklyn. I am thrilled to be included in an exhibition that shines a spotlight on the rampant historical inequalities the world must contend with if it is to cure the devastating pandemic that is racism.
I’m typing this on January 6th as a band of radicalized white Americans are literally storming our nation’s capital, led on by the inept wannabe tyrant that is Trump. Their bigotry, fear, and ignorance unite them in committing atrocities that threaten to destroy our beleaguered democracy. This nation has never been a place of anything close to equality. It began with a European takeover and genocide of Native Americans, it was built on the backs of humans stolen from their homes in Africa and forced into the most brutal, industrialized form of slavery the world has ever seen. Police forces in the United States literally were formed from white bandits whose jobs were to capture escaped people fleeing from a life of violence and slavery and lynch them.
We are in a time where it is absolutely necessary to snuff the fire of hatred. If we cannot commit as a globalized culture to end the nightmare our brothers and sisters have had to endure for generations, then evil wins and hope is lost. I’m an optimist, I believe the world is waking up and doing its best to destroy this evil, and that’s why a show like this, and every effort to educate and diminish the power of hate, is absolutely necessary and should be celebrated."
- Jacob Hicks
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Jacob Hicks
Woman 21, 22 & 23, Trinity, 2020Oil on panel.
61 x 76.2 cm
24 x 30 in -
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Sam and Richard, 2019
ALANNAH FARRELLEven though it has grown more recognized in popular culture, BDSM is still often misunderstood. BDSM and kink exist based on consent. It is gender and sexual orientation spectrum inclusive.
In Sam and Richard, two friends are shown in an apartment amid consensual kink play. A cat, lower right, wears a medical hood, in a playful nod to the toys and sometimes medical tools utilized in BDSM play. Even though it has grown more recognized in popular culture, BDSM is still often misunderstood. This painting was recently shown online, via New American Paintings, receiving a great deal of attention, including backlash and threats to the artist.
Some viewed the imagery as condoning rape, specifically cishet rape of a man by a woman. In reality, it is quite the opposite. BDSM and kink exist based on consent. It is gender and sexual orientation spectrum inclusive. Gender is unknown on both individuals depicted. It is presumptuous to assume they are cis-gendered. With rising violent crimes against gender non-conforming individuals, we must continue to fight assumptions of gender. Destigmatizing and decriminalizing kink, BDSM play, sex work, and sex workers will only positively impact individuals whose lives, safety, and rights can be at risk due to societal misunderstandings.
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Michael Cline
"I’m a chronicler of ordinary characters, weather worn objects, private worlds, and awkward moments. "
- Michael Cline
Michael Cline's paintings of people embroiled in the imaginary day to day experiences of American poverty fuse elements of surrealism and traditional realism. His work engages contemporary social critique, sometimes hinting at satire, in which ambiguous narratives are supported by poignant details, obscuring as much as they reveal. There is a subtle sense of turmoil present in Cline's loosely defined narratives. Often forlorn and down on their luck, the characters in Cline's paintings are exposed in private moments, providing the viewer with a voyeuristic glimpse into lives on the fringe of society.
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Michael Cline
The Puppeteer, 2019Oil on linen.
33 x 43.2 cm
13 x 17 in -
Erik Foss
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"It’s just in the air so much that’s it’s choking us now isn't it."
- Erik Foss
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Meet THE CURATORS
Fadi and Dan, although both physicians, of two generation, cultures, backgrounds, had a major common ground : a cohesive synergistic understanding and passion for contemporary art. They manage to communicate almost daily, exchange ideas, discuss artists, galleries, challenges, potentials, and a million ideas about the future of the field.
Although they knew each other for years, they never met in person: a true reflection of the good social media and virtual words are offering.
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CURE/RATED: BIGOTRY, A SOCIETAL CANCER: WITH DR FADI BRAITEH AND DAN NGUYEN
Past viewing_room
