Inside Outside: Installations

As a visual artist accustomed to typically hanging two dimensional paintings on walls in traditional settings, I jumped at the opportunity to exhibit at Tom Burtonwood and Holly Holmes' Home Studio/Gallery, What It Is. Their space offered me a chance to present my work in configurations that I've thought about but haven't been able to realize until now.
Years ago as part of an exhibition I had suspended cut out canvas figures around pieces of furniture. It added a different dimension to both the space and the furniture. This is the same idea that I wanted to reexplore at What It Is. On both the front and back porches of Tom and Holly's home I arranged free standing figures in front of two larger paintings. The front porch features a grouping of collaged canvas figures mounted on wooden stands called Walk-Abouts, that I described in an earlier blog, stand arranged in front of a painting called 'Show Time.'
Behind them is a piece comprised of small cubist collaged portraits that I call 'Cosmo Girls' because the features (eyes, noses, and mouths) were cut out from my daughters' Cosmopolitan Magazines. The piece itself is created from an old dresser that disassembled and cut apart.
Next to the Cosmo Girls is a small self-portrait homage to Alexander Calder made from recycled bits and pieces.
In the dining room is an assemblage of framed Cosmo Girl portraits that I call 'Boxes' because they are mounted in free standing boxes and frames. Although they are stylistically quite different from the other Cosmo Girls assembled in the old dresser, both series evolved from the same source: Cosmopolitan Magazine.
On the back porch is another painting/figure installation. But these figures called 'Remnants' are collaged drawings that I also described in an earlier blog created from disparate parts of cutout drawings that are secured together with string instead of glue. They are suspended on dowels set in front of the painting that titles the show, "Inside Outside.'
And finally, in the backyard, are a series of large panels that I described in an earlier blog. They were originally created as part of set for a production of 'The Three Penny Opera.' Here in the backyard I've arranged them in a semi-circle and placed some Walk-Abouts where actors would stood to once again break up the space. In the actual theatrical production the panels were meant to be the backdrop in the show. In this presentation they are to be the focal points.