Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Studio Visit: Meg Lipke

Studio Visit: Meg Lipke (all images courtesy the artist)

Studio view.
Meg has a very expressive painterly technique employing hot beeswax and India-ink with acrylic paints and fabric dyes.  Her surfaces are gorgeous, luminous and distinct.  
See more below.
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who's that cutie pie?!


Thanks Meg!

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Open Late Tonight, Wednesday Nights till 8pm!


Come join us Wednesday evenings during Ellen Letcher's show for dumplings and discussion.
and for:
Lego building on the floor!! We all love our floor at Pocket Utopia!
and for 
Bill Murray? (You never know who might show up!)

Yes, up!!

Come inside.

See something old (how we miss the Frenchmen!)

See Paul's tattoo.

look at my sweet ride (I wish)!

This is a good idea (a beer box).

Ellen.

Ellen.

Yum, Ellen.

And Ellen.

Ahh, where is the sun?!

Yeah, C.G. Boerner, in gold and highly polished. (We'll do fancy cappuccinos together uptown.)

See ya later, jellyfish.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Pocket Utopia Peeps


Ellen arrives, greeted by Paul D'Agostino.

Ellen, the intensely individualistic innovator (Paul in profile).

This crowd is so fashionable!

Closer inspection.

Nice.

The artist's parents.

the catalyst Jason Andrew making his selection from the exhibition list!


Liz (headband) with sidewalk peeps.

Andrew Hurst and Mrs. Andrew Hurst (that's how she signed the guestbook)

Amy Lincoln, Angie Goerner, Brenda, Adam and Kianga in the background.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Ellen Letcher: Photo Still

Opening on Saturday at Pocket Utopia, Ellen Letcher: "Photo Still:"

Combined Human, 2006  24 x 18 inches  Collaged magazine pages &acrylic paint on board w/spiral wire 

Abstract, 2002  24 x 18 inches Collaged magazine pages and acrylic paint on cardboard 

Versace, 2012  24 x 12 inches  Collaged magazine pages and acrylic paint on wood panel 

Detroit, 2011  21 x 17 inches  Collaged magazine pages and acrylic paint with acetate on paper 

Big Sculpture, 2011  21 x 17 inches  Collaged magazine pages and acrylic paint on paper 

Funeral Pyre, 2012  15 x 4 feet Collaged magazine, newspaper, color laser prints, china marker and acrylic paint on PVC coated canvas drop-cloth 

Biker Diptych, 2009  10 ½  x 8 ½ inches  Collaged color laser print and acrylic paint 

Muslims, 2012  20 x 16 inches  Collaged magazine pages and acrylic paint with on wood panel with shelf 

Hotdog, 2012  25 x 19 ½  inches  Collaged magazine pages, color laser print and acrylic paint on paper


Bjรถrk, 2009  15 ½  x 11 ½  inches  Collaged magazine page and acrylic paint on cardboard
 
Tiger, 2012  25 x 19 ½  inches  Collaged magazine pages and acrylic paint on paper

Skater, 2012  25 x 19 ½  inches  Collaged magazine pages, color laser print and acrylic paint on paper  

Tea and Toilet Paper, 2012  25 x 19 ½  inches  Collaged magazine pages, color laser print 
& acrylic paint on paper  

Bill, 2012  25 x 19 ½  inches  Collaged magazine pages, newspaper, color laser print and acrylic 
paint on paper  

 Heavenly Creature, 2012  25 x 19 ½  inches  Collaged magazine pages, China marker and 
acrylic paint on paper

Leo, Romeo & Juliet, 2002–2012, 25 x 19 ½  inches Collaged magazine pages and acrylic paint on paper     

Wrestler, 2012, 25 x 19 ½  inches Collaged magazine pages, tape and acrylic paint on paper  

Milla, 2002–2012, 25 x 19 ½  inches Collaged magazine pages, China marker and acrylic paint on paper      

Combined Human, #3, 2012 20 x 16  inches Collaged magazine pages, color laser print 
and acrylic paint on paper

Boob, 2012, 28 ½  x 24 inches Collaged magazine pages and acrylic paint on paper 

Leaf, 2009, 26 x 17 inches Collaged magazine and book pages, relief printing and tape on Japanese paper     

Wresting images from glossy magazines and pasting them down with paint, Letcher creates a highly idiosyncratic collection of pictorial data.  She replays this device of painting and pasting, maintaining a graphic energy while carefully editing, and anything might and does happen along the way (for instance, an impression of a leaf falls outside one of Letcher’s gridded, brushed blue-glue and pink strokes).  Evidence of a cup of tea is plastered by active orange paint strokes while on another one of Letcher’s pages, Muslims pray within a lattice of painted pink, orange, and blue.

Letcher doesn’t take pictures — she jags their contours with color, abutting one against another, alongside yet another within a tableau of hidden transcriptions excavated with a red, blue, pink, or orange brush.  She has many influences, including her years spent in production design and more recently co-directing the now shuttered Famous Accountants gallery, thereby illustrating how visual culture gets layered and loaned sometimes from the same sources without the fidelity of precise transcription.