Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 2019, 5 – 9 PM during Art Loop
Over 40 sculptures and paintings by contemporary artist Jim Condron explore the ephemeral materials of life one chooses to collect. Nostalgia, remorse, repression, stamina, chance and vitality intermingle with paint, thickening mediums, solvents, adhesives, remnants, wood, foam, cement, scrap metal, plastic, repurposed animal fur, clothing, mannequins and trash cans through these operatic paintings and assemblage constructions.
Condron’s pieces are titled with a textual story fragment intended to add to each work’s rhetoric, rather than naming or defining it. Titles are applied to the pieces with the same method that Condron assembles materials. Phrases from literature that resonate with the artist are appropriated from an array of great authors such as Don DeLillo, James Salter, Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Oscar Wilde, Hunter Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemmingway, Henry Miller, Anais Nin. These works are paired with quotations by famous historical artists and authors “talking trash” about the work of other famous historical artists and authors. These humorous pairings affirm Condron’s view that someone’s meaningless trash is someone else’s art and history.
