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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Dogs, Bugs & Spam @ Rosalux Gallery
Wednesday 08 October @ 11:24:12 |
 by Valerie Valentine
Recently moved from their original Northeast Minneapolis home, Rosalux Gallery has a new location in the restored Open Book building on Washington Avenue. A tri-level space gives the 25-member artist cooperative an extensive arena for shows.
In this exhibition, Dogs, Bugs and Spam, three artists are thrown together in a wild phantasmagoria of media.
The creations of Kate Pabst undeniably lend the showing its frenzied feel. Her art takes diverse shapes, ranging from framed fauvistic canvases to sober wood sculpture, to paint-slathered tar paper curling off the wall. Some of her efforts hinge on a naive aesthetic; scribbles and thick squiggles wend their way across the paper. An immense creativity has inspired vast quantities of work. Intent is occasionally fuzzy, but titles aid in framing abstraction.
Pabst’s employment as a commercial designer for SPAM© has clearly found its way into her creative art. The piece “AmeriCan” links patriotism and the infamous processed meat product. Use of a commercial image in fine art can be traced to Andy Warhol’s legacy; pop art of this kind reminds people to define for themselves where commercialism ends and art begins.
"AmeriCan" by Kate Pabst
The subtle control exhibited in Bill Moran’s printings balances the whirlwind of Pabst. In “Letterpress,” a collage of gentle color with heavy paper and tissue, Moran manipulates happy accidents to form a seductive butterfly shape. By using galvanized steel pieces as backing, his prints are gorgeously framed in matte silver. The quiet colors juxtapose against the intensity of the other art. To some viewers it may come as soothing relief for the eyes; but Moran’s compositions contrast so much, they’re like misplaced punctuation, causing a halt and stutter in the viewing experience.
Alison Stout’s portraits are easily the centerpieces of this exhibit. The sheer size of the art makes them so. Enormous airbrushed paintings of dogs suggest the range of human emotion. “Anticipation” shows five hungry dogs drooling over a bone; their fiery red shade and expression makes the work tense and scary. A painting called “Security” shows a dog curled up peacefully; the solid pastel gold figure atop a golden wash background evokes comfort. The human portraits she does are very funny. If one combines her subject matter, it appears the people in her paintings are reacting to the dogs in her other paintings. One can clearly imagine the man in “Bring it On” is gesturing to a canine friend. Roughed out lines add angularity and sharpness to these skillful, sensitive portrayals.
An oddly poignant piece by Kate Pabst called “Minutes Moments” incorporates a frantically written adage, “Life isn’t a matter milestones but moments,” scrawled over what looks like a coffee stain. With this phrase we can contextualize each one of these works of art as a singular, meaningful moment.
Dogs, Bugs and Spam runs through Nov. 2. Rosalux Gallery, 1011 Washington Ave. S., Mpls. Hours: Tue.–Thu. 12–8 p.m.; Fri.–Sun. 12–5 p.m. http://www.rosaluxgallery.com.
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