Strange Beasts, Sci-Fi Figments, Monsters and Bio-Hybrids
Avenue A Storefront Galleries, 106-112 Avenue A, Turners Falls
June 15 through July 20
Presenting artists include Rob Kimmel (painting and sculpture), Bruce Kahn (photography), Sophie Argetsinger (drawing), Gary Smith (illustration), Darrin Martin and Torsten Zenas Burns (video). Opening reception is July 18 during the Third Thursday RiverCulture event, Creature Feature.
Rob Kimmel was taught graphic design at Pratt Institute for 8 years, and has worked as a designer and illustrator since 1999. His personal art reflects his fascination with monsters, the grotesque, and the theatrical. Kimmel is inspired by storytelling traditions from across the world and embraces hybrids, sampling, mongrels, and mutants. His art has been shown in New York City, Chicago, and throughout Western Massachussetts. robkimmeldesign.com
Bruce Kahn was born in a log cabin on the Indiana plains in 1835. He served with distinction as Minister of the Bizarre in the cabinet of Abraham Lincoln. After the death of his beloved President and lover, he returned to a quiet life on the prairie where he invented the wooden cardiac pacemaker, the personal foot massager, and the wheel. After inventing the digital camera, Kahn took up photography. All of his photos are as they appeared in nature, with no digital manipulation whatsoever. Really. You just need to know where to look.
Sophie Argetsinger has been drawing animals, monsters, and imaginary worlds since childhood. Through her drawings, she enjoys connecting to nature and animals, as well as escaping into other worlds, and allows the viewer to do the same. She graduated from Smith College in 2007 and is currently working as a book designer and illustrator in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Sophie is most recently the author/illustrator of the graphic creation story A Tale From Beginningless Time. More at sophieargetsinger.blogspot.com
Gary Smith is a graduate of the Joe Kubert School for Cartoon and Graphic Art. He has done various freelance work for Valiant/Acclaim Comics and the Canson Paper Company. Gary is the author/illustrator of a series of comic books, “Doe-Nild” and “Tales of J’lleen”, which are distributed throughout Western Massachusetts. Additionally, Gary paints landscapes and romantic themes. The luminous surface of his oil paintings are achieves by separating individual colors of with layers of varnish.
Torsten Zenas Burns and Darrin Martin began their collaborations in the video and sculpture programs at the School of Art and Design at Alfred University, where they both received their BFAs. Together, they have based their single-channel videotapes, installations, workshop performances and curations on their research into diverse speculative fictions including crypto-utopian musicals, séance-fictional workshops, kaleidoscopic psi surgical communication, man-infestations, cryptozoological musicals, and cos-play infused android love stories. They will present a unique screening of their 17 year collaborative archive: RECALLATHON: TURNERS FALLS (30:00) and their newest work: ARK3:THE WORKSHOP SCENARIOS (15:00). torstenzenasburns.blogspot.com