Positive/Negative, 2012, Acrylic and flashe on Polystyrene, 30" x 49" x 5" |
Cobalt Tower, 2012 
Ah, The Good Life, 2012 |
Current ExhibitionJaime ScholnickArtifactsSeptember 5 – October 7, 2012 CB1 Gallery is pleased to present Jaime Scholnick’s CB1 Gallery solo exhibition debut, Artifacts. Discarded, unaltered polystyrene packing material is both the artist’s canvas, as well as her source of inspiration in creating a dialogue about this current moment of consumerism, abundant permanent waste, and the temporary nature of life itself. Spontaneity and formal color harmonies combine with shaped-foam forms to create colorful transformations of a consumer-driven society. The exhibition will be on view from Wednesday, September 5 through Sunday, October 7. A reception for the artist will take place on Sunday September 9 from 5-7 pm. Jaime Scholnick’s series Artifacts explores the dichotomy between our ability to produce state-of-the-art devices, each new model outdoing the former, and human attributes such as our wants, lust, envy and gluttony. Acknowledging packing material as a modern-day fossil, Scholnick’s sculptural pieces juxtapose man’s nature against the machine, attempting to achieve a positive outcome from this waste filled reality. The hierarchy of the object vs. the garbage is inverted, usurped by an ornately adorned packing material, transformed into a coveted object of art. Pondering the use and importance of the foam forms viewers become quasi archeologists, occasionally able to recognize an imprint of the original object the Styrofoam once cradled. Grouped together, the works take on a feeling of lost civilizations and artifacts. The longevity of the polystyrene material suggests a possibility for future rediscovery and an ensuing dialogue about the temporary nature of the civilization that produced them. A series of manipulated photographs, “Greetings from Earth and Other Places”, position the artist’s sculptures in familiar places and situations, both real and fictional, further reinforcing them as artifacts of our contemporary culture. Also on view in the West Gallery, “Chuckles”, are a series of glitter paintings of recent political figures, artifacts in their own right. These paintings were the impetus for the artist’s current sculptural work which removes the obvious figurative and political content, creating a more abstract solution while maintaining line work similar to the background treatment of these paintings, The line work of the more recent sculptural work remains paramount and using unaltered polystyrene allows for an intrinsically “loaded” canvas. Jaime Scholnick received her MFA from the Claremont Graduate University in 1991. From 1994 - 1999 she resided in Japan, studying papermaking and immersing herself in Japanese society. Awarded a papermaking residency from The Museum of Art, Tokyo (1997), Ms Scholnick’s work has been included in exhibitions in Japan as well as Amsterdam and Berlin. Scholnick’s work has been shown throughout the US and locally including CB1 Gallery, ANDAZ West Hollywood (Hyatt), Angles Gallery, PØST, The Torrance Art Museum, Defamation of Character at PS1, Cross-Cuts, Otis College of Art & Design, Big Plastic, The Armory Center for the Arts, and Guns and Knives, Fahrenheit Gallery, Kansas City, MO. Her video short Hello Kitty Gets A Mouth has been included in various film festivals such as The Santa Fe Film Festival, Women In The Directors Chair Film Festival, Chicago, Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee, Kansas City, MO and The Silverlake Film Festival. In 2013 Ms. Scholnick will install a polystyrene sculpture at Los Angeles International Airport as part of the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) program, in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. |