Tell Them Stories: Origins
Oct 8 - Nov 12015
Opening Reception Oct 8 6-9pm
This is the second show Marshall Jones and I have curated together. We were able to implement some cool new things into this show and expand our roster of artists internationally. It was a lot of hard work but meeting new artists and collaborating with them has been a blast.
I have also created a website dedicated to this series that I love curating: tellthemstories.org
Images by Mark Miller and I
Tell Them Stories: Origins
Once upon a time in a land far, far away… And so it begins. Human beings are driven to tell stories to capture events and immortalize them, to share what we know and come to a better understanding of those events or to take us out of them and escape. Joseph Campbell places responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the artist when he claimed in The Power of Myth, “The function of the artist is the mythologization of the environment and the world.”
Tun Myaing and Marshall Jones have assembled eighteen artists, including illustrators, comic book artists and fine artists in the exhibit Tell Them Stories: Origins open at the Mark Miller Gallery from October 8th through November 1st. The works range from sequential drawings to video, painting and sculpture. They share in common a response to popular culture. From science fiction to real time politics they are a commentary on our times that blurs the lines of demarcation present in art world hierarchical standards. Recognizable imagery from Star Wars and Star Trek mix ranks with Kermit the Frog and Batman. Mythical heroic icons share the stage with otherworldly creatures. Anthropomorphized machines and armed horsemen pave the way to man’s destruction.
Myaing and Jones give us a peak behind the curtain by asking each artist to explore the origins of their art. They have posed three questions: Why did you create this work of art? Why did you choose this profession? and, If you could own any work of art what would it be? The answers, unique and thoughtful as the artists themselves, will be revealed at the opening which takes place on October 8th from 6 to 8 p.m. Neil Gaiman said it best in Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders, “Some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.” Time will tell the final outcome, but for now this story is just beginning.
Participating Artists
Ian Bertram, John Brosio, Adam Coldwell, Tony Dimauro, Peter Drake, Wade Furlong, Christina Graf, Michael Grimaldi, Caitlin Hackett, John JacobsMeyer, John Paul Leon, Shana Levenson, Christopher Pugliese, Nate Simpson, Allison Sommers, Gus Storms, Melanie Vote, Zoe Williams, Roberto Zaghi
Website: Tellthemstories.org