The nature of things The art of Don Gray, Erin Dengerink, and Jason Mayer With writing by Renee Marino
Don Gray
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Don Gray
Our visual understanding of things is fine but narrow—a thin band of comprehension surrounded by the boundless unknown. Like the ant who knows his leaf perfectly well, we can scarcely begin to imagine the larger reality that envelops us. Most of my paintings exist in that nether-world between the observational and the abstract. I strive to paint recognizable things in a way that points to a larger reality.
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Erin Dengerink
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Erin Dengerink Time wears down the edges. Combining and altering personal items is how I make much of my work. All the components in my art have been touched, loved, and worn - any clinical cleanness, or intimidating newness has been rubbed off. Damaged and cast off items appeal to me. I relate to them. I feel we have all been broken and repaired so many times that we are made up mostly of the things that have healed us. Scars, embroidery thread, and pencil lead hold us together. We have been sewn-up and sutured with care. Each stitch is a mark on a roadmap that led us here.
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Jason Mayer
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Jason Mayer
My monotypes are often a direct response to personal experience, a ritual held between thresholds, ambiguity, unsorting gray matter. I will use photos I have taken as a means of reference to reconstruct stilled framed eye witnessed accounts, as well as work from my imagination, no image, connecting the unconscious with something tangible. This is my interior scene, theatre, an acknowledgement and deconstruction of what was and an open door for reinterpretation. Nonbeliever art.
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Love and Art in the Anthropocene
Renee Marino
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Love and Art in the Anthropocene Renee Marino 2018 “We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.� -- Charles Bukowski, The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, 1998
We are called Homo sapiens because we know. Specifically, we know we're going to die. Awareness of impermanence underlies everything we do as individuals and collectively as a species. Even in denial we are still reacting to the knowledge that our time on this planet is brief and precarious. In our current age of the Anthropocene, with mass extinctions underway and the prospect of an increasingly uninhabitable planet in the not too distant future, we see that reaction amplified in the mirror of culture as climate change denial and rampant consumerism. We also see terror, nihilism, acceptance, and grief. Yet, in the midst of this, I believe there is also hope. It's tempting to abandon ourselves to despair and rage in light of what we know. It's tempting to wonder why we should even bother creating. What's the point? We're all going to die anyway, right? But weren't we always? It's also natural to want to lobby our fellow humans for a change in our social and ecological circumstances and, while action can be worthwhile and even appropriate, there is another more hopeful possibility that impending death provides us: the recognition of what matters most in the time we have left. Art, in addition to being "self-portrait" and a mirror for each "viewer" experiencing a work, is also a cultural expression of our collective experience. It is at once a eulogy and a love-letter to our shared human condition. It attempts to bring us to the present moment by confronting our mental and emotional attachments. It invites us to realize our true nature. It can open a portal into the still, abiding center - the 21
core of who we are - underneath the illusory distractions of the human meaning-making machine. It can reveal our connected and co-arising nature. It can jar us into awakening like a great, transformative shock. It can kindle compassion and it can deepen our love for ourselves and the entirety of life itself. All of which can also be said of confronting our own mortality. And what is the Anthropocene if not a giant, flashing arrow pointing the way? As artists we embody the creative principle and offer to all who choose to gaze upon our work not only an intimate glimpse into the heart of another being, but also the chance to see themselves, perhaps from a new perspective entirely. As the viewer, like infants enthralled by the gaze of our mothers, we search for ourselves in each work we encounter. Art, as the unconditional, free extension of one self to another, helps to create the space for true self-awareness to arise. It hints at the great potential living within us all. It nurtures without controlling. It gives of itself without expecting anything in return. It can help us come to terms with our limitations and our frailties and it can remind us of the strength there is in our vulnerability. In accepting the reality of our brevity we're given the opportunity to prioritize, settle our affairs, and make peace with the fleeting nature of our existence. We're moved to shed the internal baggage of our neurotic narratives and appreciate life, in all its impossible, ephemeral beauty. We've always been dying. That we may be dying on a species level (and taking many others with us) is a greater order of magnitude, granted, but essentially nothing new. What makes it bearable and even meaningful is love. And to my way of seeing things, art is an act of love. Yoko Ono, on her recently released album WARZONE, expresses this love directly in the song "I Love You Earth." In any other time this song might seem a light-hearted and naive remnant of the 1960's, but in the context of the Anthropocene it is a deeply poignant expression of grief, the kind of grief that only comes from great love, great loss, and great realization. Its simplicity is deceptive and reveals a child’s naked vulnerability to and love for its mother. It exactly reflects who we are on this Earth. It is simultaneously a declaration and an act of love. As another well known song goes, it’s also what the world needs now.
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I love you Earth, you are beautiful, I love the way you are I know I never said it to you, But I wanna say it now I love you, I love you, I love you, Earth I love you, I love you, I love you, now!
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Images: Don Gray Pg 3 The Sky Is Always Water - (Studio view) Acrylic on canvas, diptych, 76”x118” 2018 Pg 4 Desert Rain - Acrylic on paper mounted on board, 26.25" x 21.75" 2018 Pg 5 Seeking Level #3 - Oil and cold wax over acrylic on cradled board, 28.75” x 26.75” 2018 Pg 6 Seeking Level #20 - Oil over acrylic on cradled board, 33”x 30.5” 2018 Erin Dengerink Pg 8 Overcoming - Honey jar, amber bottles, copper, roots, branch, tomatillo papers, 9”x5”x5” 2018 Pg 9 Heart - Indigo on yupo, 14”x11” 2018 Pg 10 Breath - Indigo on yupo, 14”x11” 2018 Pg 11 Shadow - Indigo on yupo, 14”x11” 2018 Jason Mayer Pg 13 Lessons in perspective - Monotype with etching ink, 23 ¾”x 17 ¾” 2018 Pg 14 Exit left - Monotype with etching ink, 16”x20” 2018 Pg 15 “…” – Monotype with etching ink, 16”x20” 2018 Pg 16 Meat up – Monotype with etching ink, 16”x20” 2018
This publication was created in conjunction with the exhibition The nature of things at the Cave Gallery January 2018. The artworks in this exhibition express ideas about the natural world and the essence of things. Each artist explores landscape, objects, and figures in a poetic and thoughtful ways. They look for beauty and hope in a complicated world. We are grateful to the Cave, our families, friends, and community for supporting this project.
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Artist biographies: Don Gray’s art has tracked parallel courses, alternating between paintings that are firmly within the realist tradition and works that are less literal, leaning more toward the abstract. Gray grew up in rural Oregon and started drawing and painting when very young. Inspiration came from looking at what was at hand: the beautiful landscape outside his door; the people and things that made up everyday life. Over time his creative directions expanded, but the sources remain the same. Gray has painted large murals all over the country, illustrated books, taught workshops and exhibited in galleries and museums. — Dongraystudio.com Erin Dengerink is a multifaceted artist who works in painting, drawing and, sculpture. The process of carefully collecting and observing found objects is integral to her practice. Dengerink comes to know the landscape though the rocks brought home in her pockets. Small, overlooked, and discarded things inform her understanding of the world. In addition to being a maker Dengerink is a curator who has organized exhibitions for over a decade. Her artwork has been seen in galleries and museums on the West Coast. — Erindengerink.com Jason Mayer traveled a curious path to become an artist. He took his first art class in his thirties at a time when he was reinventing himself. Mayer received his Bachelor of Arts from Portland State in 2010, and continued his studies by assisting William Park, one of Portland’s most respected artists. During his mentorship, he developed his craft through exploration, and bravery to try new things--not being too precious about the outcome, and enjoying the process of creating. — Ghostprintstudio.com Renee Marino is a California transplant, contemplative poet, artist, and naturalist currently residing in Nashville, TN. — Renee.marino@gmail.com
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