The Story of the Creative
At 7pm Eastern on the evening of July 25th, my work will be opening in the exhibition “Story of the Creative” in New York; three pieces, including The Yellow Window – which is simultaneously part of an exhibition in Gallery Fifty Five, will be on display. How is this double-up possible? Because large images of my work will be projected from the walls of the gallery, along with a broad selection of work from of an international selection of artists, in the brand new digital display room of the See.Me Gallery in Long Island using flat screen plasma monitors.
For over a month now, the exhibition’s curators have been hard at work creating a beautiful and cohesive show; an exquisite collection of work featuring a diverse range of mediums, styles, influences, and inspirations including sculpture, works on paper and, of course, the launch of the newly built digital exhibition room which will be displaying my work stateside for the first time.
An invitation-only opening reception is taking place at Angel Orensanz in Manhatten on 25th July following which the work will go on display at See.Me’s Long Island City gallery through to September 10, which is freely open to the public, so make sure you take a look if you happen to be nearby over the summer. The exhibition team will also be live blogging the opening event via Instagram and Twitter on July 25th so that its possible for the artists to take part in the celebration no matter where they are – this really is 21st century exhibiting.
See.me is a new concept gallery offering large scale exposure to up-and-coming artists in ways that completely break the mould. In a 2012 feature article, the New York Times calls See.Me a “website that illuminates artists” and “identifies artistic talent, exposing it to an international audience” and PandoDaily describes how “What began as a modest side-project in 2008 under the name Artists Wanted has evolved into a global community of creatives sharing their work with an audience of millions”. It has built its success on the practice of thinking outside the box, wondering “what if…” and then following through; one of its most notable events having been the display of artists’ work on several giant billboards in Times Square last year, an event that drew the attention of countless thousands in a way that is the stuff of dreams for a start-up artist.
Interconnected through art
What fascinated me about the fact the gallery had caught the eye of PandoDaily is that Pando’s raison d’etre is to highlight an underlying and fundamentally organic connection between all of us that is the “start-up root system” that enables new growth to spring forth, to creatively regenerate, time and time again. It is named after a colony of aspen trees in Utah called the Pando Trees (“pando” being the Latin for “I spread”), which are a single colony of trees interconnected by a complex root system and, as such, considered to be virtually the oldest and certainly the heaviest living organism in the world.To quote PandoDaily’s founder, Sarah Lacey “No matter what happens above ground, that root system stays alive, and continually shoots up new trees” just as a metaphorical root system is increasingly “stretching around the world, shooting up new colonies of trees in more and more uncommon places”. This organic, synergistic, unboundedly creative and fundamentally inter-connected view of the world mirrors my own entirely as I negotiate my way around an art culture that was in serious danger of becoming self-defeatingly insular and rather stuffy before these kinds of innovation started throwing up new shoots. “Root”, after all, is a synonym for “source” and since it is my most fundamental viewpoint that, as a collective of diverse and acutely individualistic beings, we are the very embodiment of source then it is my feeling that when we work to this premise, we hook into the power, dynamism and sheer creative flow of our most natural state. The inclusion in PandoDaily of an enthusiastic feature about see.me as “the perfect example of an accidental startup” has only added to my thrill at being part of this exhibition as I seek innovative ways to “be” the artist that I envision and then share this with an ever-more interconnected world.
The Story of the Creative runs from 25th July until 10th September.
See | Exhibition Space
26-19 Jackson Ave.
Long Island City, NY 11101
