{"id":4461,"date":"2013-08-02T06:10:41","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T14:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/?p=4461"},"modified":"2017-04-16T23:28:15","modified_gmt":"2017-04-17T06:28:15","slug":"its-a-small-world-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/02\/its-a-small-world-after-all-4461\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a Small World, After All"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared on August 2, 2013 in The Alamedan<\/a>. Michele Ellson, editor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rosie Morales had been up all night finishing installation of \u201cSmall Worlds,\u201d the show she has curated in K Gallery at Rhythmix Cultural Works. But rather than resting on her laurels, grabbing a beer and schmoozing, she plucked one of her own pieces off the wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ll add more text to this one,\u201d she said, and plopped down against a wall.<\/p>\n

\"No

No rest for the wicked. Curator\/artist Rosie Morales puts on finishing touches.<\/p><\/div>\n

She recently returned from a 10-day stay in Israel on a photojournalism program. \u201cI had a lot of interesting conversations and interactions with soldiers … I came back pretty changed by the whole situation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Morales is processing the experience through her art. She painted soldiers she met, including two volunteers from other countries. On the gallery wall they are ringed by paintings of gemstones that represent the 12 tribes of Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved it, and felt super connected to it,\u201d Morales said of her trip. \u201cNot politically or religiously, but ethnically and … ritually.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owen Everett, on the other hand, was enjoying the reception. His work is complete and installed on a wall painted to extend his drawings\u2019 designs. Judging by the meticulous detail, he could use a break.<\/p>\n

\"Owen

Owen Everett<\/p><\/div>\n

His images of robots and cityscapes are almost indistinguishable from each another, perhaps a comment on the depersonalization of humanity in our cities (and through Facebook?), and the simultaneous anthropomorphism of machines, from Transformers to virtual personal assistants on our smartphones. He describes himself as an \u201cartist\/wage slave\u201d and, when he gets home, his cats lord it over him. Yet another reason to express oneself as a city-crushing giant.<\/p>\n

Everett invited his studio-mate, Edward Swanson, to join him in the show, and Swanson doesn\u2019t say \u201cno\u201d to opportunities. This is only his second exhibition, but not for a lack of creative output: He said he engages in a \u201ctrifecta\u201d of art where his illustration work is owned by others, his tattoo art \u201cwalks out the door,\u201d and what\u2019s left is his fine art. It\u2019s hard for a busy professional artist to find time for that.<\/p>\n

\"lo_swanson_101\"

Edward Swanson<\/p><\/div>\n

He described his work in Small Worlds as \u201cvery personal, but with an illustrative aspect and formula.”<\/p>\n

\"Edward

Edward Swanson, “Wendigo”<\/p><\/div>\n

“All my work has some kind of narrative, allegorical and conceptual, but not abstract. I\u2019m purposefully trying to make it relatable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Can everyone relate to drawings of horned figures straddling a pentagram \u2014 part of a tarot deck he\u2019s been working on since last year \u2014 and flesh-eating ghouls? \u201cI see it like a visceral knee jerk reaction,\u201d Swanson explained. \u201cIt\u2019s very intrinsic in human development. It\u2019s a primal thing that shaped us to what we are now.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not about shock value. His cannibalistic wendigo is rooted in a morality tale. \u201cIt has this unending hunger. As it eats it gets bigger and bigger until it towers over the forest, eating whole villages,\u201d he said. \u201cThe idea was don\u2019t be the wendigo. Don\u2019t take more than you need because you\u2019ll never be full. You\u2019ll never be satisfied.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the lighter side, the creative and personal team of Cara Adams and Michael Tunk completely filled the largest wall of the gallery with more than 50 collages, some created collaboratively, others individual efforts, and all amusing and charming. Most of the images come from magazines and newspapers from the 1800s to the 1980s, Adams said.<\/p>\n

\"Cara

Cara Adams, “A Mother’s Touch,” collage<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cSometimes I find one image and I want to do something with that image,” she said. “Other times I have an idea in my head that I want to put together, so I go out and look for those images.\u201d One idea she developed was a particularly tactile piece. \u201cA Mother\u2019s Touch\u201d was dedicated to her own mother, who is blind.<\/p>\n

Michael Tunk is a prolific artist who once challenged himself to create a collage a day for a year. According to his bio, he moved from the \u201cknee-killing cold of the MidWest\u201d to \u201cthe island of Alameda, CA, where everything is beautiful and safe.\u201d With his statement equally ironic, speaking of how he \u201ctakes refused detritus and spins a yarn of gold\u201d and \u201ctakes the weight from a hoarder\u2019s home and fixes it into aesthetic candy,\u201d why should his art be any less tongue in cheek?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"lo_tunk_054\"

Michael Tunk, “My Daughter’s Imagination,” collage.<\/p><\/div>\n

His work on display includes two larger pieces previously exhibited in \u201cThe Altered Painting Show\u201d at REDUX. For one of them he added a bit of magic to a found print of a dreary landscape: Now a unicorn and alicorn munch the grass in “My Daughter’s Imagination.”<\/p>\n

There will be a second reception for the show from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, August 9, in conjunction with Estuary Art Attack. The exhibit continues through August 31. K Gallery is located at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Avenue, Alameda. (510) 865-5060 http:\/\/www.rhythmix.org\/current-exhibit\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Michael Singman-Aste
\nPostdiluvian Photo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared on August 2, 2013 in The Alamedan. Michele Ellson, editor.   Rosie Morales had been up all night finishing installation of \u201cSmall Worlds,\u201d the show she has curated in K Gallery at Rhythmix Cultural Works. But rather than resting on her laurels, grabbing a beer and schmoozing, she plucked one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[73,811,813,423,814,812,94,395,486],"class_list":["post-4461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists","tag-alameda","tag-cara-adams","tag-edward-swanson","tag-k-gallery","tag-michael-tunk","tag-owen-everett","tag-rhythmix-cultural-works","tag-rosie-morales","tag-the-alamedan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPxQO-19X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4461"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5516,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461\/revisions\/5516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}