August 6 to September 10, 2005

AARON VAN DYKE
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ERIC LEBOFSKY

Click here for images from Aaron's show

Click here for images of Eric's show

Aaron Van Dyke's solo show at Western Exhibitions will consist of a series of paintings on printed fabric, usually bed sheets or pillowcases. He paints stripes on the fabric and then cuts away the original printed images, leaving the stripes and unprinted fabric intact, the stripes essentially holding the painting together. These stripes are inspired by a variety of sources, from 1920s Russian fabric design, to contemporary fashion, graphic design and monochrome painting. Most of these excised images (many are landscapes or plant forms, but some are cartoon characters, figures or abstract patterns), despite being cut away, are still readable. Coming from utilitarian fabrics, these paintings have a foot in the domestic: most of this fabric is used, so it has its own history, which sometimes shows up as faded areas or stains, another layer of abstract "painting."

Van Dyke states "There is always a line between abstraction and representation, a complicated border every image must negotiate. This fascinates me because it is the way we negotiate this border that reflects (and indeed can change) the way we view the world. Representation is how we interface with the world, and this is why there is so much at stake in the way images are made and the manner in which they work their way along this twisted boundary. The ideas of appropriated imagery and the cutting out of the figurative further complicate these borders."

Aaron Van Dyke is a recent recipient of a 2005/2006 MCAD/McKnight Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists and a project grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board in 2005. He has exhibited throughout the U.S., included in shows at Savage Art Resources in Portland, OR, The Bower in San Antonio, and 1R and Suitable, both in Chicago. This is his second solo show with Western Exhibitions. Van Dyke received his MFA in Studio Art from the University of British Columbia and an MA in Art History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He lives and works in St. Paul, Minnesota.


White w/blue-green stripes shirt sleeve:
Untitled #6 (2005)
Acrylic on cut shirt sleeve
20” x 20”

See more of Aaron's paintings here

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Eric Lebofsky's funny, often disturbing book-sized drawings illustrate systems of classification, cosmologies, psychologies, obscure literature, and a gentle brand of nihilism. These vibrant colored-pencil images, often portraits in profile, are concerned with past, present, and imagined histories. Collectively, the references implied, and the riffs generated, point toward darker uncertainties that are leavened by large doses of twisted, wry humor.

For his installation in the PLUS Gallery, Lebofsky is making a book called "Things To Do In An Ice Age". It's a survival/anti-ennui primer for the end of the world. The installation will be casual: some of the drawings from the book will be framed, some pinned to the wall; and on the back wall will sit his kitchen table with the finished book, physical manifestations of drawings from the book, and some topical literature about the end of the world.

Preview Eric's show here

This body of work stems from the following story, told by Mr. Lebofsky himself:

"In the Winter of 2001-2002, I began to revisit subject matter that had always fascinated me by constantly drawing in my sketchbook at a café in the East Village. One evening, my activities were interrupted by a strong urge to visit the bathroom. I liked to use the facilities in the basement of the NYU Jewish Theological Seminary, which were clean, well lit, and often unoccupied. I kept drawing while in the bathroom, but when I got up to flush, I banged the sketchbook off the edge of the toilet paper dispenser, which sent it flying toward the toilet bowl. Instinctively, I lunged for the book, bashing my head against the edge of the metal dispenser. My ears were ringing and blood was dripping everywhere, but the sketchbook was in my hand. I felt like I had been funneled through to the other side-- as if I had actually fallen into the toilet, and been flushed into the Twilight Zone. I had reemerged into a land of ferocious atavism. I was Homo Neanderthalis, in the midst of an Ice Age, and I probably would have killed a mastodon with my bare hands had the opportunity presented itself. Even as the pain began to wash over me, I felt grounded, confident, and omnipotent. I went over to the mirror to check out the damage. A small, three-pronged incision, much like the Mercedes Benz logo, was situated directly over my third eye, and penetrated through my skin to the skull. I took a picture. It was a turning point."

Lebofsky will be performing all original synth rock songs with Matt Espy on drums in their new band AVAGAMI on Saturday, September 10. The doors open at 7pm and there is no admission charge. Micheal O'briant and his whiskey driven tales of rock-and-roll woe will open the show.

This is Eric Lebofsky's first solo show with Western Exhibitions. He has been included in shows at Gavin Brown's Enterprise, Deitch Projects and Adam Baumgold Gallery, all in New York, and in Chicago at Corbett vs. Dempsey, 1/Quarterly and the Betty Rymer Gallery. His illustrations have been included in The Ganzfeld, Dose, Pistil, and Bridge Magazine, among others. He has collaborated with Abercrombie & Fitch on in-store installations, and is represented by Sears-Peyton Gallery in New York. Lebofsky received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his BA from Columbia University in New York City.

ALL IMAGES © WESTERN EXHIBITIONS & EACH INDIVIDUAL ARTIST