EXPAND AND CONFLATE

It is with great pleasure that we present "EXPAND AND CONFLATE," in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage month. With a particular focus on the cultures of the eastern Asian continent, the artists selected for “EXPAND AND CONFLATE” explore visual culture, tradition, and globalization through color and form to arrive at conclusions about their own changing environments. Against a backdrop of classical Asian art history—from scrolls of calligraphy, to Buddhist and Taoist narrative paintings, to the numerous iterations of China’s misty sacred mountains—these artists borrow from traditional aesthetics to create new work in a way that in itself is a metaphor for the global information exchange at play in our world today.

Toby Barnes and Linling Lu set the tone for the show with their hyper-formalized imagery. Every inch of canvas is covered in an explosion of paint and shapes that at times come together to create a recognizable form while other times resisting interpretation. These visual qualities create a space between artist, art object, and viewer in which all are invited to consider the same question: What exactly is this image I am looking at? In terms of Barnes and Lu’s formal qualities alone, both artists’ works possess attributes that are highly reminiscent of Japanese Manga and anime culture, such as patterned background, bright colors, and characters with distinctly shaped eyes. Since neither artist hails from Japan this reality prompts us as viewers to retroactively muse on our engagement with imagery that is neither germane to the artists’ cultures nor our own. Read more...

"EXPAND AND CONFLATE" will be on display through June 17th, 2011. This 5th annual Asian Pacific American Heritage month exhibition is jointly produced by the GE Art Program and Picture That, LLC. If you have any questions about any of the work in the exhibition, please contact Picture That LLC at 203-977-8203 or fineart@picture-that.com. To view Asian works similar to the pieces selected for this show, visit our online listing of Asian Artists.