“Young nomads, we love you! Be ever more modern, more mobile, more fluid…Be lighthearted, anonymous, precarious like drops of water or soap bubbles! For if you’re not fluid, you’ll become tacky real quick.” (Giles Châtelet)
Gajah Gallery is proud to present, Young Americans: Antimatter. A group exhibition comprising
of 6 American artists, Amanda Charchian, Bumblebee, Greg Allen–Müller, Judith Supine, Lisa Solberg and Zio Ziegler. They take to and from the streets, energetically seize the canvas and exemplify the spirit of the times through their personalities, art and fans. Coming of age between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, Generation Y is neither cynical nor reactionary. Instead, they have renounced insurrection for the sake of free enterprise. Masters of turning culture into economy, their do-it-yourself attitudes demonstrate their will to disregard restraints for the sake of letting their visions be seen. The creators and champions of social media, their identities are inherently connected to their webs of mutual relationships; critical acclaim is measured by the likes gathered from their followers, the aesthetically conscious, cyber-savvy population of the cool.
The artists in this show not only belong to this group — they are its leaders. Their work is admired and often mimicked by the thousands of people who follow their every day moves so closely that they feel as though they know them. Like all true artists, they are driven by an inescapable need to make art. They alter and beautify their environments, hoping to better the lives of those who encounter their works. The social consequence of this is intrinsically linked to the very nature of our times. Sharing every choice we make from our friends, to our food, to our vacations and outfits, we cannot help but share the art we make with as many people who will look at it.
Zio Ziegler and curator, Simmy Swinder will be present at the private view on 22 August 2013.
ARTIST INFORMATION
Amanda Charchian (b. 1988, Los Angeles, CA) investigates the state of alienation through realms of the physical, psychosocial and spiritual human condition. Employing 2D and 3D mediums to transmit mystical experience into matter, her art practice is a means of communicating the subconscious sphere into objects, creating possible portals to ascend beyond known reality.
Amanda received her BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2010. Select exhibitions include The Silverstone at ROX, New York, NY (2013), Animate Objects at the Sacred Door, Los Angeles, CA (2013), Death Can Dance, Zurich, Switzerland (2012), Mediums at the Abrahamian Art Centre, Yerevan, Armenia (2012, and My Boyfriend Was Stolen by Tom, E.P.I.C. Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2011).
Select media outlets that have featured her work include Juxtapoz, Black Magazine, The Bohemrian, Inside Beat, Sciences Occultes, Hunger TV and Hillbilly Magazine. Amanda was also the 2012 recipient of two International Photography Awards and co-directed the music video “To the Horses” for singer Lanie Lane with fellow artist Lola Rose Thomson.
Bumblebee (Downey, California) has always relished the streets. Hailing from Downey, a suburb southeast of Los Angeles, he took the culturally vapid and largely ignored city and used it as his personal canvas. Considerate and thoughtful, Bumblebee’s work deals with issues such as child homelessness and the impact of modernity on nature. Despite the seriousness of his subject matter, his works are not heavy. Instead, they are whimsical, playful and exude a sense of childish innocence, freedom and joy.
Select exhibitions group include My Turn, Carmichael Gallery, Culver City, CA (2012), Wild at Heart, Thinkspace, Culver City, CA (2012), Beyond Eden, Barnsdall Art Park, Los Angeles, CA (2011), Street A.K.A. Museum, Portsmouth Museum of Art, Portsmouth, New Hampshire (2011) and Outside/In, LeBasse Projects, Culver City, CA (2011).
Bumblebee has been covered by numerous media outlets including LA Weekly, The Dirt Floor, Unurth, Arrested Motion, Downey Beat and Complex Magazine. In 2012, a short film was made by Handi Films titled Bumblebeelovesyou.
Such explosions of color and contrast are thrust into the third dimension in the work of Greg Allen-Müller (b. 1973 in San Marcos, Texas). All manner of texture and tone burst from the white aluminum frames that, while rendered impractical in the conventional sense, assist in the composition and conceptual focus of Leaks in Logic, the artist’s most recent series of genre-bending sculptures. “To me, human beings are always trying to force their will on things,” he says of these works, which direct the viewer’s attention to the conflict between man’s attempt to control nature and nature’s inevitable rebellion, “but I think it’s flawed, and that’s where the leak sort of starts to happen.” Allen-Müller comments, “My most significant influence is my ability to daydream,” citing Brancusi, Duchamp and Pollock as some of the artists to impact his early creative conscience.
Greg received his BFA from Southwest Texas State University in 1997. Select solo exhibitions have been with Galerie Benden & Klimczak, Köln, Germany and Galería Arnés + Röpke, Madrid, Spain in 2004 and Washington Square Widows, NYU Galleries, New York in 2003. Group exhibitions include “Line, Space, Color, Gesture” – Galerie Stefan Ropke, in NYC (2012), “Never Never Ever Land” – curated by Natalie Kovacs at Anna Kustera, NYC (2012), “Rush” – Carmichael Gallery, Culver City, CA (2012) and Spring/Break Art Fair curated by Natalie Kovacs in 2012.
Select media outlets that have featured Greg’s work include MoMA P.S.1 Studio Visit, Complex Magazine, and LA Art Diary.
Judith Supine’s signature neon green is an emblem that has changed the face of New York City. To any observer who pays attention to the city’s streets, bridges, or rivers, Supine’s characters almost seem omnipresent. Throughout all this, he is able to maintain an anonymity that’s grounded by the fact that he goes by his mother’s name, and never shows his face, giving his work and personage a mysterious, otherworldly aura. His transgressive antics certainly contribute to his peculiarities, as does his uncanny ability to tease yet bypass danger. Early in his career, Judith used street art as a vehicle to “mask suicidal behavior,” climbing bridges while inebriated, popping pills and swimming in New York City’s rivers. Though he has moved towards a more focused and contemplative studio practice, Supine continues to thrill the imagination by his unique way of manipulating found images, distorting representations of popular imagery from consumer ads, and incorporating aspects of the urban environment.
When Lisa Solberg (b. 1983, Barrington, Illinois) works on a painting, she becomes intensely antisocial, a lone wolf who cuts off communication with the world. The energy needed to make one of her paintings is so great that she has little reserved for anything else and is utterly exhausted after completing a work. A rush of raw energy infuses the brushstrokes Lisa applies to canvas. Not only do her paintings transcend continuality, they engage the moment and express both motion and emotion with a tremendous passion and inspired pertinacity. Drawing from a pool of inspiration that counts Cy Twombly, Andrej Pejic and anyone who surrounds her at any given moment, whether in a positive or negative capacity, Lisa is not only forging a vibrant path between abstraction and figuration, she is endowing 21st century painting with a powerful new voice.
Solberg received her BFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2005. She has exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, London, Amsterdam, Sydney, Chicago, Denver, Aspen, Boulder, San Francisco and Louisville. Select solo exhibitions include Stalker, THIS Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2012), Lisa Solberg: New Paintings, Kinsey/DesForges Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2009) and I Spy Ying Yang, Swiv Tackle Circus, Oceanside, CA (2008). Select group exhibitions include Rush, Carmichael Gallery, Culver City, CA (2012), These Friends Three, THIS Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2012) and The Happy Tree, Monster Children Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2010).
Select media outlets that have featured her work include The Great Discontent, Lost At E Minor, Booooooom and THIS Visits: a video project from THIS Gallery partners Luis Farfan and Aaron Farley by Incase.
Zio Ziegler (b. 1988, Mill Valley, California) too draws his inspiration from tradition, particularly ancient history, classical masters and philosophical thinkers. For Zio, painting is a meditative process; it does not represent a product but rather is his process of self-reflection, examination and understanding. By painting, Zio hopes to discover ways of turning crisis into opportunity in the same way a dream might help us flush out our subconscious thoughts so that we may arrive at some revelation about whatever may be troubling us in our waking life. But this flushing out is not an end; there is no conclusion to his existential inquiry, only more questions. For Zio, there is no meaning aside from the relative meaning each viewer gives his works. The patterns are endless, the interpretations are infinite and the opportunities are limitless.
Ziegler studied Philosophy at Brown University and painting at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) from 2006-2010. In 2010, Ziegler founded Arte Sempre, a lifestyle and clothing brand offering hand-made and unique products.
Select exhibitions include a solo show, Lost Illusions,Project Gallery, Hollywood, CA (2012), and several group exhibitions including FlashBang VOL III ft. Groovebox, Project One Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2012), Primeval, Carmichael Gallery, Culver City, CA (2012) and Chromatic: An Undeniable Experience, Roll-Up Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2012).
Ziegler’s work has been featured in several online press outlets, including Argot & Ochre, Unurth, Complex, Booooooom, Arrested Motion, RVCA and Mill Valley Patch.
