 Close and Lost, 9/2/16 - 9/30/16 "Close and Lost" brought together artists Lauren Wilcox (Pittsburgh) and Meg Wolensky (Philadelphia) whose work both explored themes of intimacy and loss.
Wilcox's "Consumptive Passions" series created a vision of the feminine through the build-up of layered images. By drawing on archived photos of "thinspiration", she explored forces of consumption as applied to the female body - digestion of food and of images of women's bodies. She also meditated on the consumptive nature of intimate relationships when they begin to take over a women's life. Wolensky had collected her imagery for this series from her personal life; she reflected on a period of high stress and transition. The works in this show described Wolensky's growing experiences of forming familial relationships with other queer women and reflected on a recent unraveling of a relationship. Working quickly with watercolor and snapshots, Wolensky weaved an intimate personal narrative that is unafraid to deny the audience resolution.  Women, According to the Internet, 8/5/16 - 8/26/16 The work in "Women, According to the Internet," explores feminism in the age of social media. Collectively, the artists created a story about how women are viewed in an era of exhibitionism, how we view ourselves, and how computer mediated tools have revitalized many traditional ideals of feminism. The ideas explored through the work included current social media trends (i.e selfies, Snapchat filters) and touched on rape culture, body-shaming, self-love, 'slut'-shaming, and nudity as empowerment. The exhibition, curated by Tara Fay, included work from artists Devin Ashmore, Tamia Johnson, Priyanka Paul, Andre Jones, Julissa Rodriquez, Twilight Sparkle, Lis Grace, and Danielle Yagodich.  Post-Body Workout, 3/4/16 - 3/27/16 Ectoplasm, taking the form of a masculine mud, is traversed in a backward reaching divination. Something is there, somewhere between the acres of rippling muscles and the thoughts of an animal. Post-Body Workout was a solo exhibition of new work by Pittsburgh-based artist Andrew W. Allison and consisted of sculptures, drawings, paintings, and collages that focused on early onset occultism.
Andrew W. Allison is a mixed media artist born in Wichita, Kansas, and raised in Pittsburgh. He began making things early on in order to engage with his experiences with night terrors. Allison creates intuitive, sculptural installations using hand-made, mixed media objects and paintings that explore identity, memory, and the preternatural. He graduated with his MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2013 and has shown nationally. He has shown work in the Pittsburgh Biennial, the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and curated a show at the Mine Factory of artists never before shown in Pittsburgh.  Stint, 2/17/16 - 2/26/16 With Stint, Michael Koliner filled the Bunker Projects gallery space with wooden framework accompanied by both machine- and hand-made sculptures. Koliner built in a responsive mode to insert radicalism into determined spaces in the city. Interested in the development along Penn Avenue, Koliner’s work weaved Bunker’s interior and exterior facade together through the installation of a structure composed of waste materials. Pulled from various architectural histories, Koliner questioned aesthetic issues such as ornamentation and constructivism. Stint is the amalgamation of Koliner’s work since December and will be composed to incite uncertainty in himself as well as his audience.
Talking Paper, 12/4-12/27
Adam Milner uses the traces and marks humans leave behind as a departure point for this series of drawings, the artist’s first show of such a vast array of works on paper. The drawings are intimate both in scale and material, using hair, blood, fingernails, and belly button lint to accompany simple marks in ink or graphite. In some works, he automates his body to create a sort of human drawing machine that allows him to produce works rooted in rule and procedure. In another series, he performs analogue image searches by gathering certain types of images from thousands of magazines. Together, this collection of works shows an attention to how the human body is mined, governed, and automated in contemporary life, but with a romance or sensitivity indicative of someone looking for a human connection. adammilner.com  'Objects to Remember You By: An Index of Sentiment,' is an ongoing project by San Francisco based Resident Artist artist, Kija Lucas.
Kija Lucas invited members of the Pittsburgh community to bring their sentimental object[s] to Bunker Projects to be photographed and added to the Index. We carry objects through our lives, attaching memories and meanings to them that surpass their initial usefulness. Something held by a loved one allows us to feel close to that person, even without their presence. While these objects can offer a sense of safety or closeness, they can also be heavy and difficult. When creating a place to live, we commonly introduce these objects to make our spaces our own and to remind us of what matters from our past. Artist Talk Jan 17, 2016 kijalucas.com |
