And/Or Gallery Press Release #21: Protagonist
And/Or Show #21: Protagonist
Wendy Red Star + Kara Hearn + Jonn Herschend + Victor Offen + Susan O'Malley and Alex Clausen + Raymond Uhlir + others
Dates: January 24 - February 28th
Opening: January 24, 6pm - 9pm
with a screening of Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special
presented by UTD Central Trak (Co-op Lab #2)
Wendy Red Star
Wendy Red Star blends photography, collage and multi-media to investigate
complex topics such as feminism, identity and cultural perception in her work. Originally
from Montana, Wendy Red Star grew up on a Crow Indian Reservation. Her work focuses on her
complex cultural heritage of being half Crow Indian and half Irish. Staging herself in elaborate
photographic settings, Red Star both pokes fun at cultural perceptions and fantasies as well
as creating a thought-provoking clash between beauty and illusion. Wendy received her MFA from the
University of California in Los Angeles, and has exhibited with Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, CSULB Gallery
in Long Beach, and with J 'EN Reve Fondation Cartier Pour L'Art Contemporain in Paris.
Jonn Herschend
Raised in a Midwestern amusement park, Jonn Herschend taps into the inherent tragedy, humor,
and beauty of awkward situations, confrontations, break-ups and other emotionally charged or
confusing situations. Through paintings, video and multi-media work Herschend displays the
absurdities and profound realizations inside relationships and friendships, as well as how the
facts and emotional truths of a conflict begin to blur and tailspin. Working out of San Francisco,
Jonn Herschend has exhibited both nationally and internationally, he was recently selected for the
Yerba Buena Center for the Art's Bay Area Now exhibition, as well as showcased at the
Stuttgarter Filmwinter Film festival in Stuttgart, Germany; the 2006 Flaherty Film Seminar at
Vassar College in New York, Southern Exposure in San Francisco, and The Pacific Film Archive.
He is also co-organizer of The Deadpan Exchange which will be priemering their IV Festival
in Izmir Turkey this April, as well as co-founder and co-editor of the quarterly subscription based art project, "the thing."
Victor Offen
Dance is a central theme to many of the performances and video work of Victor Offen, a simultaneous
reverence for the working class aspects of the disco as well as confessionals alluding to his
somewhat troubled upbringing. Victor Offen's performance history can be traced to several interventionist
activities from the late 1980's and early 1990's, as well as body of work that deals with painting and
video on personal, biographical terms. Based in Mexico City, Victor has exhibited at XFC,
in Mexico City, Club Marquee in Mexico City, Azul y Azul in Mexico City, and at The University of Texas at Dallas.
Kara Hearn
Whether acting out scenes herself or working with actors, Kara Hearn creates short films and
videos where characters are in the midst of internal or external conflict. Highly charged yet
ambiguous conflicts merge with the norm of awkward conversations or moments of self reflection; bending
the cinematic troupes of identity, narrative, and gender. Kara Hearn is currently based in Houston where
she is Core Fellow at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. She has also exhibited with museums and galleries
including Dunn and Brown Contemporary, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Vertexlist, Brooklyn, White
Columns in New York, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
Susan O'Malley and Alex Clausen
Susan O'Malley and Alex Clausen
are interdisciplinary artists based in of San Francisco. Exhibiting both
together and separately, they share an interest in documenting and breaching social rules, anxieties, and
assumptions. With individual projects such as inspirational posters, living room invasions, and pep-talks,
their work focuses on inspiring a more genuine exchange between people and communities. This exhibition will
feature their joint-project and documentary, "Desire to Fly," on the bicycle passions of Alexander La Riviere,
proprietor of Faber's Cyclery in San Jose. Susan O'Malley and Alex Clausen have exhibited in galleries throughout
the Bay Area and internationally including, Koh-i-noor Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark, The Lab in San Francisco,
and Spare Room Project in San Francisco, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in San Jose.
Raymond Uhlir
Working on paper or canvas Raymond Uhlir's paintings combine pop-culture,
political figures and religious icons, with cartoon characters and childhood heroes, animals and villains. His paintings
are as visually exciting as they are disturbing, as a protagonist is circled by menacing sharks, falls from the sky, or
is left to bleed to death in the forest. His paintings seem to show us the moment where childhood story-books merged with a chaotic,
specular, and irrational adult world. Raymond Uhlir is an MFA candidate at University of California Santa Barbara,
he was recently selected for the Austin Museum of Art's, touring exhibition "20 to Watch." He has also exhibited at
Project 4 in Washington, DC, Deborah Colton Gallery in Houston and will be featured in the 2009 Texas Biennial.
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