What I'm Working On - Shooting Art I Shot

Sean Duffy - "Paintings"

SUSANNE VIELMETTER LOS ANGELES PROJECTS PRESS RELEASE  SEAN DUFFY "Paintings" July 12 – August 23, 2014 Reception: Saturday, July 12, 6 - 8 pm   Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new paintings by Sean Duffy. Throughout his 20-year career, Duffy has been deeply engaged in a postmodern practice of recycling, reworking, and re-contextualizing found material. In his most recent exhibitions this practice has morphed into a recycling of his own work and ideas. This approach culminated in the artist’s last solo exhibition at the gallery during which he dissolved his studio (which had always been located in his garage) and sold all remaining objects from the studio as a “garage sale.” In “Paintings” we witness a distinct change in Duffy’s artistic strategy. He has transitioned away from a modality of “looking back” and re-contextualizing existing materials and ideas, and taken an active, forward-looking position. In 2013, the first public glimpses of this new way of working were revealed in the two works that Duffy included in our summer exhibition. The first, a piece in which viewers were encouraged to throw darts; the second, a series of prints that goaded viewers to “steal” the work off of the wall and exit the gallery immediately.  Now it is Duffy himself who is taking action. He is shooting ammunition into, onto, and against the canvas so that the support of the painting becomes a surface of resistance. The result is a series of predominately monochromatic paintings, shot up with a range of guns: BB guns, pellet guns, and a shotgun. In the studio, Duffy established rules and structures to govern the process of making the paintings. For some of the work the artist created custom metal armatures that directed and constrained the trajectory of the ammunition to specific vectors. For others he shot blobs of wet paint onto the canvas, creating grids of spidery paint splatters and drips.  Many of the paintings are layered monochromatic canvases, made with oils and lacquer that have then been carefully shot.  In all of the paintings, the impact of the ammunition on the canvas reflects the force of the action that is controlled by the artist’s strategy of aiming the bullets. The works reflect forceful action much more than violence, even when the canvas is thoroughly perforated by bullets. Duffy’s canvases evoke the legacy of Lucio Fontana in their violation of the sacrosanct surface of the painting, but they also reference Niki de Saint Phalle’s Nouveau Réaliste “Shooting Paintings,” made from 1960 – 1963. (Saint Phalle was a point of reference for Duffy during his education at UCSD, where Saint Phalle’s “Sun God” watches over the campus.) This body of work reflects Duffy’s desire to actively impact and engage with his materials and the oscillation between creation and destruction inherent in the creative act. Sean Duffy received his BA in Studio Art and Political Science from the University of California San Diego and his MFA from University of California Irvine.  Solo exhibitions include: The Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA; The P érez Art Museum, Miami, FL; the Luckman Gallery, California State University Los Angeles, CA; and Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ.   His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California, Riverside, CA; The Orange County Museum of Art, Orange County, CA; University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach; the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC; Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, LA; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA; Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; CENAR Centro Nacional del Arte, San Salvador, El Salvador.  His work is included in the collections of the Orange County Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Pérez Art Museum, Miami FL, The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, UT; and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA.  This is his ninth solo exhibition with Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is located at 6006 Washington Blvd in Culver City, 1 block west of La Cienega at Sentney Avenue. Gallery Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am - 6 pm and by appointment. 6006 Washington Boulevard, Culver City, California 90232.  (310) 837-2117   vielmetter.com

Old Gold - LAX wall

Seeing this week's Mad Men homage to Jackie Brown and the tile wall at LAX reminded me that at one point I spent too much time stitching together Jackie Brown's title sequence.

Inspiration - The Search for Animal Chin

I spotted this while walking down Lyon's Blvd in Newhall.

I wonder if Jenni, Steve and Fred Nelson ever found him.

Happy Holidays!

Album of the Week - A Christmas Treat

My gift to you this Christmas is "The Six Million Dollar Man, Christmas Adventures - The Elves Revolt"

which features machine gun toting elves, melting polar ice caps, under paid workers, action figure product placement and of course a union busting Steve Austin (who sounds a lot like George Bush).  The other tracks, The Toymaker, The Kris Kringle Caper and Christmas Lights.

enjoy and happy holidays!

Etch-a-sketch Brutalism

Thanksgiving at my parents house always brings out some of the best (and oddest) forms of creativity.  Just before leaving, I'd ordered Spomenik, Jan Kempenaers photo essay of brutalist monuments of the former Yugoslavia.  I found myself day dreaming about the monuments when I picked up an old Etch-a-sketch.

It's a perfect tool for sketching brutalism.  Hard edges mixed with crumbly corners.  Seemingly permanent but quickly discarded.  Every time I sat down I found myself drawing a monument,

Show I'm In - REVERBERATION

Depending on the day, I've got about a half dozen pieces in a show at the Huntington Beach Art Center.  It's called

REVERBERATION!

and it features- Christian Tedeschi, Evan Holloway, Kristen Morgan, Mason Cooley, Ruben Ochoa, Sean Duffy & Thomas Muller.

It was curated by Andre Woodward (who is awesome) 

it will be up until December 15 and there will be a panel discussion on November 23.

Anyway, they used an image of one of my darts pieces for the exterior banner and it looks pretty good.  I did try to get them to use this one

but it was a bit punky (but isn't that the point of being in Huntington Beach?).  Then I'd hoped they would use this one.

because the show really is the Velvet Revolver of the art world.  

Actually that's not true.  Even though the show is a bit of a supergroup of Los Angeles sculpture, unlike Velvet Revolver, the end result is really great.  Here are some images but really it should be seen in person.

Oh and theres' been some good press in the Huntington Beach Independent and Installation Magazine.

Group Show 12

front

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- Trick Tips - Last Second Pumpkin

So, Halloween has snuck up on you (like it should) and you haven't carved a pumpkin.  Here's my recipe for a 10 minute Jack-o-latern.  All you need is a jig saw, drill and some bits.

Step 1 - The Starting Hole

If you're handy with a jigsaw you can just plunge the blade in but, not only does the starting hole make things cleaner, it gives you a point to align the lid.

Step 2 - Cut the top off! and scoop

This is easy.  Try to use the longest blade you have and run the jigsaw around the top at an angle.  

pop the top off and scoop it out (scooping is probably the most time consuming part of this job).

Step 3 - Drill some Holes and Cut the mouth

Drill a line of holes where you want the mouth (5 in this case).

Then use the jigsaw and cut up to a point from each hole. 

Pop the pieces out and you've got a mouth.

 4 - The Eyes

If you got one, grab a hole saw and put it on your drill (if not just freestyle with the jigsaw)

2 different sized saws make for a more animated pumpkin.

There you go HAPPY HALLOWEEN!*

*okay, so after this pumpkin I just hacked at a pumpkin with a butcher knife and made a faster and more disturbing jack-o-latern.   So, I guess the point of this post is to say there's no excuse for not having a jack-o-latern on Halloween.*

*second disclaimer - yes, I know I'm sure there are tons of other excuses.

What I'm working on - Rehnquist Deck

Another Supreme Court deck.  This time William Rehnquist gets the Pushead treatment.

The board I went with was the Zorlac Double Cut (ignore the shape above) as drawn by Pushead.  Rehnquist really needed to be put through the skull, monster zombie mill.  One of the things I always loved about this deck was the great scary shrunken head combined with the 70s looking Zorlac logo.  It really encompassed what skateboarding was about in the 80s.

Album of the Week - 27 Hours to La Paz

I picked up "27 Hours to La Paz" on ebay recently.  It's a seven inch ep that came with a Revelle model kit and a document of the first Mexican 1000.

There isn't much to it, the cover art is great but there's only one song with some funny lyrics.  I shot a video of it playing.  The sound isn't great but it really isn't worth reshooting.

After the song, there's basically the narration track of this video "27 Hours to La Paz."  The video is definitely worth watching.

What I'm working on - The O'Conner Deck

Here's another skateboard deck based on the 1986 Supreme Court.  I figure Sandra Day O'Conner would deserve one of the coolest decks.

So I went with the 1985 Vision, Mark Gonzales deck designed by Andy Takakjian.  I think there's still a bit too much pink in the hair but it's working.

Rowher Shut Down

The sequester really hasn't affected me much much until today.

I decided to head out to Rowher Flats to give the car a work out.  It had been running funky, not starting, etc.  It turns out the DUI Ignition needs 10.5 volts to spark.  So, even though the starter was turning the engine there wasn't enough juice to start it.

The Kirkland battery that was in it was just outside of warranty and the race had really beat the crap out of it so I replaced the battery with a Sears Platinum.  It was pricey but after a lot of poking around the internet it seemed to be the choice for a car that sits for chunks of time and then bounces around the desert.

The car ran great until it didn't.  The car stalled driving back from the locked Rowher gate.  I managed to limp it into the Lowes parking lot and was getting out my AAA card when I decided to check the wiring again.  Turns out the red wire on the distributor wasn't all the way on.

There's the culprit - the little red one.

I must've pulled it loose when I put the battery in.  So, I pushed it in and it started right up.

Hopefully fixed?  We'll see.