Inman Gallery is pleased to present Animal Crossing, an online exhibition of paintings and sculpture organized by Dana Frankfort and Jackie Gendel.
The exhibition will be online July 3 - August 29. Click on images for more information.
Artists in the exhibition are: Bill Adams, Sachiko Akiyama, Helen Altman, Polly Apfelbaum, Debra Barrera, Hannah Barrett, Richard Bosman, Natasha Bowdoin, Bridget Caramagna, Jennifer Coates, Jillian Conrad, Holly Coulis, Gilad Efrat, Jonathan Ehrenberg, Andre Ethier, Matthew F. Fisher, Kevin Ford, Walton Ford, Francesca Fuchs, Chie Fueki, Peter Gallo, Mark Thomas Gibson, Glenn Goldberg, Suzy Gonzalez, Karen Heagle, Fox Hysen, Vera Iliatova, Breehan James, Jules Buck Jones, Marina Kappos, Anna Mayer, Sarah McEneaney, David McGee, Melissa Miller, Jiha Moon, Katrina Moorhead, Kristin Musgnug, Alexis Pye, Alan Reid, Adrianne Rubenstein, Zoe Pettijohn Schade, Judd Schiffman, Beth Secor, Duane Slick, Kyle Staver, Lanecia Rouse Tinsley, Jemima Wyman.
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Human art has featured animals since the cave paintings of Lascaux. That simple statement might imply an equally simple distinction: between artist and subject, shepherd and flock, humans and everything else. But for longer than we’ve been painting animals we’ve been living with them, in a jumble of fascination, suspicion and dependency that collapses comfortable objective distance.
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Polly Apfelbaum, Stacked Animals, 2016
bed sheet, ribbon, fabric, spray paint, 104 x 81 in
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Peter Gallo, Blue Butterfly of Devotion, 2018-2019
oil, wood on sewing table top, 18 x 26 in
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Fox Hysen, Monarch, 2019
oil and acrylic with two table coasters, 45 x 57 in
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Anna Mayer, Pale Clay (Idol), 2019
hooked rug mounted on panel, 16 x 21 1/2 x 2 1/2 in
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We eat animals. We steal from them. We press them into service. We displace them, flee them, fight them, emulate them, experiment on them, worship them, and keep them as companions. They monopolize our iconography and imaginative lives.
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Jennifer Coates, Battle of the Amazons, 2020
gouache and colored pencil on paper, 9 x 12 in
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Alexis Pye, Individual with Dog, 2020
oil and pastels on primed stretched canvas, 48 x 48 in
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Breehan James, Cottage Book Painting: Lake/Frog/Dragonfly, 2020
acrylic gouache on paper on panel, 11 x 13 in
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Karen Heagle, Untitled (Cinereous Vulture), 2018
acrylic, ink, collage, gold leaf, pastel on paper, 23 1/2 x 24 in
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Katrina Moorhead, tree full of love, 2019
Liquistone, acrylic paint, feathers, chicken wire, pine, MDF, 87 x 18 x 18 in
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Helen Altman, Nest 19, 2020
acrylic on slate chalkboard, 15 1/2 x 12 in
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Ask a child: G is for gorilla, not grass or Grandma or God.
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We learn moral lessons from animals in fancy dress. We name sports teams after predators; we put birds on currency. Their symbolic potency is ambiguous: we praise people by comparing them to animals, and we insult them the same way.
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Judd Schiffman, In Cold Blood, Tricked Blind or Further Horseplay, 2019
Ceramic, 24 x 32 x 1 in
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Matthew F Fisher, Night Shade, 2017
Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 in
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Alan Reid, Affection and Contempt, 2020
Acrylic on Canvas, 20 x 15 in
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Walton Ford, Killy, 2019
Edition of 65, Six plate aquatint etching with dry point, hard ground and spit bite, 29 1/2 x 22 1/2 in
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Melissa Miller, Little Death, Weasel, 2013
oil on canvas, 12 x 9 in
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Debra Barrera, Xolo / Actualization for Puppies, 2019
graphite on paper, 22 x 27 in
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Natasha Bowdoin, Luna Moth 1, 2017
Gouache, flashe and ink on paper, 69 x 45 in
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Beth Secor, Grackle, Flood, 2017
gouache, watercolor, and pencil on paper, 16 1/8 x 20 1/8 in
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Gods take animal form to help or seduce us, and so does the devil.
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As befits this tangled relationship, Animal Crossing moves in many directions, by many routes. Duane Slick's coyote is an inscrutable icon, a deadpan trickster in an off-kilter geometric field. Lanecia Rouse Tinsley sets a Black cowboy roping a steer in a rust-red expanse, reclaiming and interrogating a foundational American archetype.
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Duane Slick, Arias for a Coyote Opera: Learning to Fly, 2018
monotype, 22 x 30 in
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Lanecia Rouse Tinsley, 8 seconds, 2020
Acrylic, enamel, paint, charcoal, newspaper, string and paper on canvas, 20 x 20 in
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Jonathan Ehrenberg, Stele 2, 2020
Dye sublimation print on aluminum with artist's clay frame, ed 1 of 3, 24 x 22 in
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Kyle Staver, Dawn's Ride, 2020
Oil on Canvas, 70 x 50 in
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Jiha Moon blends traditional ink painting, cartoons and folk art into a boisterous menagerie that spans continents and centuries. The teeth and claws on Hannah Barrett's monster transcend their animal origins to augment a compound, changeable body.
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Jiha Moon, Bless your Heart, 2014
Ink and acrylic on Haniji paper, quilted border, 39 x 28 1/2 in
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Hannah Barrett, Folly, 2020
oil on canvas, 52 x 40 in
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Jules Buck Jones, Cacophony, 2020
Watercolor, ink, pastel on paper, 50 x 38 in
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Kristin Musgnug, Little Whale, 2000
acrylic on paper, 22 x 25 in
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Zoe Pettijohn Schade, Dark Harbinger 5, 2012
Gouache with Gold Leaf on Paper, 30 x 22 in
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Jemima Wyman, Flourish 7, 2020
hand cut photos on paper, 52 x 40 in
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Method and tone vary artist to artist and image to image: from monumental to kitschy, expressive to enigmatic, straightforward to fanciful.
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Francesca Fuchs, Bull, 2012
acrylic on canvas over board, 29 x 34 1/2 in
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Mark Thomas Gibson, White Flight, 2020
Ink on canvas, 66 x 89 in
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Jillian Conrad, Bunnish, 2020
paper clay, graphite, brick, 12 x 5 x 6 in
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Chie Fueki, Healer Cat and Fibonnaci Sprial, 2020
Acrylic, Ink and Colored Pencil on Mulberry Paper on Panel, 16 x 20 in
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As far afield as these artists travel, their animal subjects are still a few steps beyond. An animal's territory is at the hazy edge of human identity, equally empathetic and alien. We recognize animals because we are them.
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We also don't understand them, never will, and in failing to know them we brush against the limits of our self-knowledge.
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Animals are the exotic feathers and sharp claws that populate myths and story books; they're also the everyday blushes, flinches and impulses that betray our intentions, expose our fears and drive us forward. They're in our cells and glands and synapses, and the wilderness comes with them.
