Plus Gallery artist Allie Pohl is getting a lot of attention in LA since her move there in 2010. Her latest group exhibition is "Futuro Anteriore", curated by Simmy Swinder and also featuring Sarah Danays, Elyse Graham, Gerit Grimm and Lewis Mauk. The exhibition takes place at the Carmichael Gallery, 5795 Washington Blvd. in Culver City, the hotbed for contemporary art in LA. The exhibition opens with a reception on Saturday, February 11th from 6-9pm and remains on view through March 10th.
Sarah Danays meticulously photographs her sculptural works, which combine self-created elements with found and repurposed antiquities, to create a powerful merger of fictional object and archived curiosity that is often spiritually-based and reinterprets ideas founded on Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation. Her translation of Baudrillard's theories manifests in the exchange of physical objects and actual experiences for secondary visual stimuli: with the tangible out of reach, Danays proposes that it is no longer of consequence whether or not it exists, as our relationship is only with its copy. Danays received her BFA from University of the Arts, London and her MFA from Goldsmiths. Elyse Graham searches for ways in which to document and substantiate time as a means of understanding human existence. Geodes in particular have served as "objects of wonderment for me since childhood... I continue to be fascinated with the notion that seemingly ordinary objects have the possibility of harboring something unexpected and beautiful." Her own description of her distinctive creative process underlines its deceptive simplicity: "I build my geodes around the void created by my exhaled breath. When each piece is finished, there is no evidence of what may lay beneath its surface. As I create the piece one layer at a time, each time covering up the layer that preceded it, I have no idea what will reveal itself once the geode is split open." Graham is also interested in the notion of the geode as time capsule, as exemplified by the exhibited video of a geode CT scan that accompanies her sculptural pieces - a cavity is slowly encroached upon by external elements, creating a history from the inside out. Graham received her BA from Brown University. She recently exhibited with Grey Area at the Bass Museum of Art, Miami and The Hole, New York. Upon emigrating to California from Germany, Gerit Grimm became fascinated with the cult-like quest for the perfect body, which is exemplified in her ceramic sculptures by a seemingly effortless and endless exchange of body parts. Grimm studied ceramics at Burg Giebichenstein, Halle, where she earned an Art and Design Diploma in 2001. In 2002, she was awarded the German DAAD Government Grant for the University of Michigan School of Art and Design, where she graduated with an MA in 2002. She received her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2004. She has taught at CSULB, Pitzer College, Doane College and MSU Bozeman and has worked at major residencies, including McColl Center, Bemis Center, Kohler Arts & Industry Program and Archie Bray Foundation. Lewis Mauk collects everyday objects that most overlook and / or easily discard. These objects, which range from razors, toothbrushes, prescription pill bottles and rose thorns to wishbones, fortunes, horoscopes and a plethora of other contemporary quotidian objects, serve as an autobiographical time capsule. Mauk then utilizes processes such as photography, lithography and sculpture to represent these objects in a novel and artistically thoughtful way. "My subject matter," he says, "is both index and evidence of obsessive-compulsive behavior, prescriptive and self-medicating and the matriarchal influences in my life." Lewis received his BFA in 1997 from the University of Tennessee and his MFA from CalArts in 2000.
From the gallery press release:
Carmichael Gallery is pleased to present Futuro Anteriore, a group exhibition curated by Simmy Swinder and featuring works by Los Angeles-based artists Sarah Danays, Elyse Graham, Gerit Grimm, Lewis Mauk and Allie Pohl. Through a variety of media, the artists explore the multifarious concept of the artifact and its transfiguration through time. There will be an opening reception for Futuro Anteriore on February 11. The exhibition will remain on view through March 10, 2011.
Allie Pohl's work examines projections of female beauty and perfection and the ways in which they dominate women's lives. She developed the symbolic Ideal Woman, based on American cultural icon, Barbie, to question the social constructs of these unattainable and ultimately illusionary ideals. The Ideal Woman serves as an avatar that is repeated throughout Pohl's sculptures, installations, prints and jewelry. Pohl received a BA from Hamilton College in 2007, an Associate of Applied Science in Graphic Design from Parsons in 2008, and an MFA in Electronic Media Arts & Design from the University of Denver in 2010. Her artwork and branded merchandise have been featured in over 40 print and online media outlets, including USA Today, LIFE Magazine, Marie Claire, Elle, The Orlando Sentinel, The Denver Post, Cool Hunting and The American Contemporary Art Magazine.
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