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Butterfly Clover

Three Daisy Jazz

During the month of November, stop by Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage to see, Nerve, a collection of some of the gallery owner’s personal work.  His drawings and paintings are worth an extra trip downtown when his gallery is not crowded with people and conversations, but if one only has time to view them during a First Friday, stop by the opening on November 6th.

The drawings and paintings deserve more than a cursory glance.  Do not pass them by as minimalist renderings of form, but envision the works as simplified mirrors reflecting both physical and metaphysical thoughts. Open and honest communication is at their core. Parallel to his work, his artist statement is a simple poem that opens Laku up to the viewer and leaves room for abstract ideas to breathe.

In the gallery’s main area, he has work from 1993, inspired by a county road north of Zionsville, IN (and a Burger King cup).  Within this group, he juxtaposes negative/positive space, layered paint, planes of solid color, and value transitions.  One can see a simplification of nature–very direct, concrete but beautiful in Butterfly Clover.  This piece has three sections.  1) The background is a completely smooth green color. 2) The butterfly is a simple triangle that contains a slight amount of brush strokes.  3) The purple clover is the focal point.  Here alone, the color changes in value and the strokes are free and visible.  This group is connected to his later work (mostly from 2001) that is found in the red room through the conscious simplifying of nature.

The later work refines the simplification. The work’s referent is less obvious, but not less important. The color palette and texture of the images are limited, yet they are not minimal–only simplified. Three Daisy Jazz (located in the red room) represents the continuity, journey, and conversational quality of the entire show.  This medium-sized painting shows process with its un-erased graphite lines, leftover tape, straight and jagged edges, and additive pieces.

Based on my visits to Laku’s gallery over the past year, he appears to enjoy displaying multiple stages of an artist’s work. This both contrasts and unites one body of work to another to showcase the development that defines an artist’s style. Laku continues this practice with two prior bodies of his own work.

While you are viewing Nerve, be sure to check out Nancy Lee’s beautifully designed metal jewelry.

A small disclaimer: Laku has represented my work at his gallery, so I am not a complete stranger to him.

My three latest butterfly works, After Thistles, Fluttering Cosmopolitan, and Cynthesis will be on display this Saturday, October 19th from 8pm to 2am at Oranje, a contemporary art & music event. Wug Laku of Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage is representing my work at booth 17.

Wug will be displaying his drawings, digital art prints, light boxes, and furniture along with the jewelry of Nancy Lee (I’m sure she’ll be there, too!) and the mixed media of Cagney King –among others. They will be recreating the feel of his gallery in their 22′ x 24′ mega-booth for an intimate discussion with the artists. This past weekend, they were practically living there getting the space ready.

Tickets to the event are $20 and is only open to 21 and older.

Oranje
Wug Laku / Booth 17
2323 North Illinois
Indianapolis, IN 46208

First Friday for May is quickly approaching and there are several places around town that my art work can be found.  I have one piece each in three group shows.

Wug Laku is hosting his retrospective show Eye Music in his gallery, Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage.  This show will include artists that have been featured in the gallery during the last two years.  You can see one of my first butterfly paintings in my upcoming series at this show.  I have included Wug’s poster promoting the event.

The official hours for this event are 6 – 9 p.m. on May 1 during the IDADA First Friday Gallery Tour. The following artists’ works will be on display: Bernadette Ostrozovich – Patrick Flaherty – Eric Jones – Rachel Steely -Mark Pack – Jim Gerard – Pam Fraizer – Nancy Lee – William Ray Denton – James Ratliff – Wug Laku. This gallery is located just above Massachusetts Avenue at 1125 Brookside Avenue C7.

Also, I will be showing one of my studies of Asian Lilie’s, Three Stages, in the Athenaeum ArtSpace’s “Spring” exhibit.  The Athenaeum ArtSpace is located in downtown Indianapolis on 401 East Michigan St, 2nd floor.

The Yarn Burners are “bombing” the Harrison Center for the Arts with knit graffiti on May 1,2009.  I look at my piece as a type of art instillation that I made out of yarn for one of the stairwell railings.

April 3, 2009 – Part I:  Circle Center Industrial Complex

This month had a pleasing array of good art shows in the downtown gallery scene of Indianapolis, Indiana.  I started off my evening by visiting wUG LAKU’s STUDIO & gARAGE.  The current show is a representation from Wug’s earlier work, and is entitled “Raw.”  The developments of his ideas concerning his investigation into nature and language are shown through several unfinished sketches and early paintings. The early paintings are different from the digitally manipulated photographs of his more recent work, and yet somehow they seemed the same.  Unfortunately (or fortunately) a First Friday is also a time of socialization, and I did not delve into the art show as much as it deserved.  There are deep questions, thoughts, and art making going on in the garage.

From there I ran into a show by another artist I know, Dave Voelpel.  Dave does abstract landscape paintings and had his show in the Five Seasons Studio Gallery.  Lately he has incorporated the palate knife into his work giving long soft strokes in his thick paint.  I have seen paintings of his where he has used a variety of things to thicken the paint…even coffee grinds!  Dave Voelpel also had a few collages on display.  It was interesting to see the designs he made with his patchwork of recognizable images.

The final stop in the circle city complex was at Matthew Davey’s new studio.  The studio was sparse, but had a few nice figurative works in it.  There were two drawings of female nudes on one wall, a huge (10 feet? by 6 feet?) painting against one wall, another drawing on a third wall and a medium sized sculpture set up in an adjoining room.  This little adjoining room was set up reminiscent to me, as a shrine.  The sculpture (Lily, Lily, Rose) was sharply lit from the front (which was disappointing to someone who wanted to study it from all angles, but provided excellent, sharp lighting for the front of the sculpture), and there was soft music playing in the background.  It was a wonderful, detailed bronze sculpture of a nude woman with her arms above her head and her face cast upward.  It was set upon a pedestal that is reminiscent of a nail.  Around the foot of the pedestal was a pile of smooth rocks.  It was beautiful.