JOSEPH SHOHAN AND ROGER BIRN
AUGUST 20, 2016 through SEPTEMBER 18, 2016
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 20, 2016 from 5-8 P.M.
Joseph Shohan is a self-taught painter working with digital media. His digital paintings explore connection, disconnection and isolation through color and shape. Dichotomies such as attention/inattention, attraction/repulsion, and prayer/ loss of faith structure his work. His paintings often contain a wish for something that isn’t there, employing a slightly voyeuristic pathos to plumb the depths of connection and disconnection.??
Roger Birn will show selections from a greater body of work entitled ???Animal Krackers???. ??This is a series which he has pursued for about five years, the images accumulated through both local and world travel. ?? The word ???hunt” –frequently employed to describe photography– is particularly apt in this case, for it applies both to the subject matter (animals) and to the act of searching them out.
Birn’s favored locations could mostly be described as trashy or overlooked: pavement, deteriorating walls, construction sites, gravel and dirt patches, or rubbish piles. The animals are hidden. When found, Birn does not alter them, beyond cleaning off any element which may disturb the form, or, on rare occasions, adding a small element to complete the tableau.??
In addition to junk, one of Birn’s lasting influences is Outsider/Naive and Native/Tribal art. Animals appear frequently in these genres, often with symbolic, spiritual or mysterious import. To this menagerie, Birn adds the element of the wasteful and throw-away behavior that characterizes globalized contemporary society, revealing another layer of meaning in these found faunal forms.