Zombies both visceral and subtle
curated by Archie McKay and Kottie Paloma
Space Gallery, August 4th-?
Opening Reception: August 4th 7pm
When I was young and before I'd even heard of zombies, I believed that at any time, the familiar people around me could be transformed into something sinister. This idea hung like a mobile against the cold war backdrop of the eighties. Coupled with an instinct for survival, this fear has since evolved into the cynicism, irony and eye for the utterly ridiculous with which I perceive the world at large and the masses that populate it. Rather than charting a comprehensive history of how zombies became a cultural icon, this show invites a free response to the concept that zombies are both endemic to and figures for society. The participating artists convey ideas about alterity, paranoia–in the face of both real and manufactured threats– isolation and marginalization, disease, aging and mortality, and the subordination of intellect and reason to the psyche's darker drives. Whether accomplished in thick globs of abstraction or drawn in regimented lines, cast as the casualties of drug or viral epidemics, or costumed in sesame street garb (people in your neighborhood!), it is my hope that the works in this show will drive you, the half-dead audience, to delight and twitch, to throw some popcorn and to recognize a little bit of yourselves in these pieces.
This is a mixed-media show featuring an army of many (like any good zombie infestation): Jeff Anderson, Nate Boyce, Chase Bowman, Nathan Burazer, Kamio Chambless, Alison Childs, Ajit Chauhan, Brook Dillon, Galen Donaldson, John Dwyer, Sacha Eckes, Maria Forde, Matt Furie, James "Ganyan" Garcia, Mike Green, Andrew Junge, Eric Landmark, Spencer Mack, Leah Martin, Sean McFarland, Jarett Mitchell, Amy Morrell, Donal Mosher, Joe Roberts, Sham, Sadie Shaw, Gordon Shepard, Leslie Shows, Neil Stewart, Randy Lee Sutherland, Ben Vallis, Paul Wackers, Porous Walker, Liz Walsh, Sophia Wang, David Williams, and Mary Elizabeth Yarbrough.
