AUGUST 1-31, 2013
SEASON and Prole Drift are pleased to announce the exhibition SOFT RAINS, featuring work by Nicola Ginzel, Louise Lawler, Mike Simi and Ian Toms. Each artist will present work dealing with our tenuous future and its various outcomes, from optimistic resolution to distrustful self preservation. The show title is a reflection on Sara Teasdale’s 1920 poem There Will Come Soft Rains which describes nature as it reclaims a battlefield, and in a subtle way alludes to massive human extinction.
Nicola Ginzel (New York) will exhibit a collection of small sculptures which rely upon our production systems and turn the unimportant into a New World Talisman. With just a slight adjustment on some, or hours of obsessive attention on others, she creates objects that anchor us to our past while providing a bellwether to our future. Nicola Ginzel lives and works in New York City. She has exhibited nationally and internationally with selected curators such as Lisa Phillips, Bill Arning and Lydia Yee. Awards include a grant from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and a residency at Skaftfell Cultural Center in Seydisfjördur, Iceland. She has been artist assistant to Roni Horn and Donald Lipski as well as teaching artist at the Jewish Museum and the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt.
Louise Lawler (New York) is an International artist, coming to prominence in the 1980s as a member of the Pictures Generation. Her work deals with issues of context. For SOFT RAINS, her set of twelve silkscreened champaign flutes will be on exhibit. Delicate and minimal, they offer hope or resignation, depending on one’s viewpoint. Six glasses are screened with the English phrase “After The War” and the other six with the French “Apres La Guerre.” Originally a sanguine toast to the end of WWII and its uncertain outcome, here the phrases become a reminder that although one war has ended, the future may hold others. Louise Lawler’s work is in numerous important collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney, The Guggenheim, LACMA, The Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Britain, Center Georges Pompidou, Moderna Museet and Kunstalle Hamburg among others.
Mike Simi (Chicago) makes highly conceptual artworks that are creatively simple and subtly subversive. Often his work reveals a known truth wrapped in humor. For this show we have selected to show “Pill Organizer,” an oversized minimal painting. As if from the set of THX 1138 and resembling a shield or corporate logo, this exaggeration of an organizer becomes both anonymous and ominous while reminding us of our personal frailties. Mike Simi has show often in the Pacific Northwest. He recently finished a residency at Pilchuck Glass School and has been rewarded a residency at S12 Studio, in Bergen Norway. In October 2013, his work will be exhibited at Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, Missouri.
Ian Toms (Seattle) creates paintings that consider a personal iconography in terms of universal expression. His work is an effort to discover honesty and humility. For this show, a new, aggressive work will be shown that provokes our optimism and questions its utility. HIs work has been exhibited at Cornish College of the Arts, Vignettes and SEASON. This year Mr. Toms’ paintings were the focus of a solo booth installation at VOLTA NY fair, in conjunction with the Armory Fair, and recently, his work was part of the group show “Make Your Own Luck” a joint project by The They Co. and The New Museum, curated by Ballast Projects.
Nicola Ginzel, Mango Element No.18 2002, mango seed, oil pastel,
2 x 4 x .75 inches.
Mike Simi, Pill Organizer, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 58 x 59 inches.
Ian Toms, FERALTEEN (ways to bang), 2012, enamel and tape on scorched canvas, 44 x 33 inches.