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April Issue 2007
Joie Lassiter Gallery in Charlotte, NC, Features Works by George Long
Joie
Lassiter Gallery in Charlotte, NC, is presenting 8 x 8,
the premier exhibition for George Long. This exhibit will be on
view from Apr. 6 - 30, 2007.
Long received his BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in 1995 and currently lives and works in Atlanta. Over the past three years, Long has developed an ongoing Series of small mixed media paintings entitled 8 x 8. This simple intimate and modular format, allows the artist the freedom to work quickly while expressing singular, solitary moments which together share a highly personal yet unconventional approach to story telling
Long combines two dimensional painting and drawing with sculptural elements such as cast resin, carved wood, and found objects in works that are infused with personal histories. The materials utilized and the varying depth of the compositions defies the constraints of two dimensional painting, placing the work into the realm of objects.
8 x 8 was inspired by his grandmothers' quilts for their form, pattern and narrative quality. "My father has a quilt hanging in his house in which the fabric of my great-great grandmother was collected, cut into squares, and combined with the fabric of my great grandmother. My great grandmother sewed the squares together and then my grandmother finished and backed the piece," explains Long. The narrative quality of these quilts unveil visual clues about his grandmothers' lives through the scraps they collected, gathered and swapped, while influencing the artist about collecting and making.
For Long the process of collecting not only refers to the material the artist uses but also to the narratives or "psychological scraps" the artist explores. Examining his environment, dreams, daily life and relationships, the artist shares his experiences through a palette of metaphors that includes animals, fences, mason jars, and tools. "For me, the gathering process can mean a leftover piece of material from a day's work, some anxious bunnies as a metaphor of the prospect of being a new parent, simple reminders, of virtue and vise, and remnants that I have pack-ratted away. Everything is potential material," states Long.
Recently Long had a solo exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art and a featured inclusion in the Jacksonville Museum of Art's Activating Space: Sculpture as Environment exhibition, curated by George Kinghorn. Long recently returned from a prestigious residency at the International Kunstler Kolonie in Nuremburg, Germany.
For further information check our NC Commercial
Gallery listings, call the gallery at 704/373-1464 or visit (www.lassitergallery.com).
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