Gallery Hours:
Wednesday thru Saturday:12 to 6pm
On July 29, Western Exhibitions
opens two new group shows, "Paintallica" in the main
gallery and an artist book show, "Experiences and Activities"
in the Drawing Room, with a free public reception from 6 to 9pm. These
shows will run through August 26th, and gallery hours are Wednesday-Saturdays,
12-6pm.

installation view, Easter 2004
Paintallica is a roving collaborative group of artists founded
and directed by Dan Attoe, Jamie Boling and Bill
Donovan. The sole mission of Paintallica is to mold random crap
into something cool. Paintallica shows, influenced heavily by pop
culture, incorporate drawing, painting, sculpture plus things, as
well as stuff. Their materials come from Wal-Mart, lumberyards and
garbage bins and their members from all over. For their show at Western
Exhibitions, the men and women of Paintallica will utilize the talents
of a video artist, a cartoonist, an editor of a nudist magazine, a
ceramicist/Iraq war vet, a video game designer and a Fulbright scholar/designer,
among other trained artists. Four of them ride Harleys. There is no
predetermined direction to a Paintallica installation, which always
start with a drawing session, followed by a trip to get supplies,
then an all-nighter of alchemy. The resulting collection of artifacts
easily fills a space and often incorporates the gallery walls, ceiling
and floor. Some elements are site specific and some exist independently.
From the Paintallica manifesto:
Don't be fooled though, we don't
give a shit about your art, your politics or your whiny, black-horn
rimmed, Prada-wearing ass.
We are Paintallica

installation view, Halloween 2005

Julia Hall & Chrissy Leggio
Slaves of Christo
Experiences and Activities shows artist books ranging from coloring
books to a pop-up book about Jack the Ripper to a diarist account
of working on Christo's "The Gates".
Julia Hall & Chrissy Leggio's
"Slaves of Christo" recounts their experiences as $6.25-an-hour
wage slaves toiling on the installation crew for Christo and Jean-Claude's
Central Park installation, "The Gates." Angee Lenard
contributes "The Lennards: An Upper Middle Class Social History"
a heavily researched (with detailed bibliography!) coloring book narrating
her family history amidst the backdrop of the cultural shifts of the
late 20th and early 21st century. Patricia McFadden's pop-up
book on Jack the Ripper combines whimsical drawings, interactive three-dimensional
elements, and original text written in iambic pentameter with the
gruesome exploits of the legendary murderer. Kristen Romaniszak's
autobiographical comic books also marry whimsy with disgust, as she
details her experience with a tapeworm; her dream about losing her
lower lip; various body odors; and a log of drawings depicting 30
days of bowel movements. In Becky Suss' coloring book, "Swell",
pages zoom in and out on a tight cluster of cartoonishly drawn houses.
Flipping the book fast causes the images to pulsate, like a wave or,
well, a swell.

Angee Lennard
The Lennards: An Upper Middle Class Social History

Angee Lennard
The Lennards: An Upper Middle Class Social History (detail)