Shaun Richards:Closed Captioned opens October 2nd with reception on October 14

October 2-31, 2010
Reception: October 14, 6-8pm; artist talk 7pm

“The experience of viewing Shaun Richard’s work is like finding a time capsule from an unspecified era. The sundry media and material book pages, repetitious stenciled forms, carefully delineated figures that combine to form larger forms positioned alongside one another without explanatory narration, beg a greater story, a structure against which their meanings might be deciphered. The strength in his work lies in his unwillingness to fully answer the questions they raise. It is the product of an artist constantly searching.”
-Lauren Turner, curator and artistic writer

“Closed Captioned” will consist of approximately 10 60” x 44” and larger paintings crafted from acrylic, graphite, paper and oil on canvas, which examine themes of role-modeling, gender identity, social dynamics, and how media affects our opinions, actions, and identity. Several of the pieces in “Closed Captioned,” from a recent show entitled “Women and Children First,” feature images of a veiled woman in an iconic, powerful pose. These paintings explore spirituality, religion, identity, sexuality and self-actualization, while the rest are reflections on the economy: the auto industry, environmental concerns, and resource exhaustion, and our complacency towards these concerns.

Early in Shaun Richards’ career, he was concerned solely with traditional, figurative painting. Now his focus has shifted to juxtaposing media, mark making, incorporating elements of traditional painting and text to create artwork that presents a message on multiple levels. Richards includes the art-historical perspective, ethical considerations, and the political, but prefers to raise questions rather than taking an overt stance. According to juror Shauna Lee Lange, “In his case art is not a matter of personality but of respect earned from displaying a thorough grounding in deeply narrative works, classical art history, and contemporary risk-taking. Richards strikes one as an independent thinker, philosopher, and influencer well beyond his present young age.” Juror Joey Mánlapaz states that, “Shaun Richards’ energetic brushwork on a large-scale canvas is what captivated me. Despite the vigorous and passionate imagery, though, his work is fraught with social content that is conveyed via a formalistic approach to painting techniques, which in the end is what makes his work stand out among the rest.”

About the Artist:
Shaun Richards attended Hagerstown Junior College in Maryland before transferring to UNC Wilmington to earn a B.A. in Art in 1999. In 2003, he enrolled in SUNY Empire State College as a non-matriculated graduate student, where, through the MSLA program, he obtained a studio in Manhattan with weekly studio visits and critiques from established artists, critics and curators. Richards returned to North Carolina in 2006 to pursue art full time, and in January 2007, he was awarded the Regional Emerging Artist Residency at Artspace. In September 2007, Richards was featured in Southwest Art’s annual emerging artist issue, 21 under 31. In November 2007, Richards was included in his first museum show, “The Human Scale,” at the Cameron Museum in Wilmington, N.C. In April 2008, he was awarded Best in Show for his piece, “Bootleg Romanticism,” by Dr. Larry Wheeler, Director of the North Carolina Museum of Art, Juror for the North Carolina Artists Exhibition. From October through December 2009, Richards completed a 3-month residency at The Bemis Center in Omaha, Nebraska. The artist currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, is represented by Flanders Art Gallery, and holds studio space at Artspace.

Juror Information:
Shaun Richards was awarded the Target Gallery’s prestigious solo exhibition spot for 2010. The Target Gallery annually selects one contemporary artist for a solo show. A panel of three jurors selects the winning proposal and the gallery produces a catalog for the winning artist. This year, the juror panel consists of: Cynthia Connolly, visual arts curator for Arlington County’s new Artisphere; Joey P. Mánlapaz, a D.C.-based painter and faculty member at the Corcoran College of Art and Design; and Shauna Lee Lange, founder of Shauna Lee Lange Arts Advisory and Design Studio.

September 23 @ 7pm: Gallery talk by Sarah Tanguy for Systems Failure Closing Reception

The gallery will be hosting a closing reception on Thursday, September 23rd from 6-8pm. Beginning at 7pm our juror from Systems Failure will be here to discuss the work on exhibit. Meet a few of the artists in this exhibition and take in the works one last time. The show closes on September 26.

Torpedo Factory Art Center partners with the NCRC to kick off national "Keys From the Crisis" campaign

The Torpedo Factory Art Center, The Art League, and Multiple Exposures Gallery are partnering with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) to kick off their national campaign “Keys From the Crisis.” Through a variety of art related activities, the art center will help the NCRC tell the story of the foreclosure crisis to the public in a very visual way. The barrage of statistics, audible and written information about the foreclosure crisis have made it difficult for the average American to digest what is truly happening to families and neighborhoods. This exhibit humanizes an abstraction, presenting a visual explanation for what has become a national crisis. This powerful approach expresses the reality that so many Americans are facing today.

Please donate your spare keys

The NCRC will be collecting keys and the stories of affected families throughout their campaign, and we will assist them throughout the month of September in collecting as many keys as possible. These keys are physical symbols that represent every family that has lost a home to foreclosure due to unfair lending practices.


Calendar of Events:

August 21- September 26: Systems Failure exhibition in the Target Gallery

September 1- September 30:
• David H. Wells’ photo-essay, “Foreclosed Dreams,” that explores the empty homes littering the American landscape in the wake of the housing crisis on exhibit in the Site 3 Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, and a large scale projection at The Art League Gallery/National Harbor Location
• “House of String”: Large Scale installation located on the main floor of the Torpedo Factory, created by Torpedo Factory Artists serving on the Target Gallery Committee

September 9, 6-9pm : Second Thursday Art Night
• Target Gallery’s Systems Failure “Meet the Artists" Reception – 6-8pm
• National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), Special Presentation at 7pm by John Taylor, President and CEO of the NCRC
• David H. Wells, artist talk, in the Multiple Exposures Gallery at 8pm

September 11, 12-4: Art Activated
• 1:30pm -Target Gallery hosts SPARK: art from writing, writing from art – a spoken word event, along with a hands-on writing activity for the public. Focus is on the Systems Failure exhibit and the Keys from the Crisis campaign

September 23, 7pm: Target Gallery hosts a Curator Discussion with juror Sarah Tanguy for Systems Failure Exhibition. Sarah Tanguy is an independent curator, arts writer, and critic, as well as a curator for the Art in Embassies Program, based in Washington, DC.

New Exhibit Opens August 21st!

Systems Failure
Exhibition Dates: August 21- September 26
Reception: September 9, 6-8pm

Special Programming: Sept. 23, 7pm
Juror Discussion with Sarah Tanguy



Target Gallery will be presenting an all media juried exhibition, Systems Failure. The exhibition will run from August 21 through September 26 with two special events. The first ‘meet the artists’ reception will be during our Second Thursday Art Night, September 9 from 6-8pm and the closing reception will be with our juror Sarah Tanguy for a Juror’s Discussion of the exhibition on September 23 beginning at 7pm.

This exhibition examines the current crises facing our country and the world and the plight of the people who must suffer from the failures. Our juror for this exhibition is Sarah Tanguy, an independent curator, arts writer and critic, as well as, a curator for the Art in Embassies Program based in Washington DC. The submitted works explored subjects that ranged from financial and housing crises, botched environmental policies and government responses to Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill, failed healthcare systems, and the fall of the church to questionable military policy. Rather than narrow the focus, Tanguy chose 39 works for the exhibition that poetically express the human cost of these breakdowns.

The artists in the exhibition are from around the country with 5 local DC Metro area artists included in the exhibition. The work on exhibit encompasses a variety of media and themes. The juror remarks in her statement that with the artists she chose, a few emphasized the personal and existential or would use surrogates to convey their message. Some of the artists borrowed from art history to make haunting 21st Century updates while a few endowed new life through recycling. By turns witty and serious, the artists in Systems Failure share a deep concern for the current state of the world, while maintaining their individual emotional and conceptual perspectives.

Great review of last Thursday's Dance and Kayak event

http://dancersindialogue.blogspot.com/2010/07/on-view-last-night.html#more

Excerpt: Karen Reedy has a sophisticated way of building relationships through choreography and developing these images over time and space. Nothing feels forced or imposed or gimmicky, yet the images are stunning and the dancers are exquisitely trained. She excels at savoring the human qualities of a dancer while revealing their artistry, and this is both rare and beautiful.

She is an artist who honors craft and communication. I think the image of a finely-tuned instrument best captures this sense of grace: not too loose, not too tight.

It was an ideal evening: a sliver of time that was dry in between the rains offering a moment for us to enjoy an impeccable collaboration. I have never seen a kayaker/artist, choreographer, dancers and musician come together to create such a harmonious and exquisite interlude.