Vlad Smolkin & David Waite Martinson Drawings, Sculptures, Sound Works

Fountain Studios is pleased to present a new exhibition featuring current works by Baltimore-based artist Vlad Smolkin and Brooklyn-based composer and recording artist David Waite Martinson. Opening June 12th and running through July 3rd, 2010, this exhibition will be both artists’ first featured exhibition at Fountain. The artists’ work will be shown in Fountain’s main gallery with select pieces in the Studios’ unique back area.

Vlad Smolkin’s new drawings and sculptures feed upon themselves. The compulsive and personal quality of the drawings is balanced by the simple and cold demonstration of the sculptural works. Through the works presented, Smolkin places himself between the art tool and the art object. The sculptures consist of objects devoid of their intended function that have earned a sentimental value in the artist’s studio practice and daily life. Here, a used-up marker, a worn-out belt, and a sawed-off chair leg display the charm and wisdom of a retired athlete proud of his life’s work. This “life’s work”, so to speak, is on display within Smolkin’s drawings, hanging on the walls throughout the main gallery’s walls.

David Waite Martinson will be exhibiting two recent sound pieces, Bedroom Miniatures and Ancillary Salutations. A thirteen-minute cycle of recorded sound works, Bedroom Miniatures will be exhibited and played in a looping rotation in Fountain’s back area. Grafted out of voices, synthesizers, percussion instruments, strings, and keyboards, this cycle of miniatures is notable for both its internal cohesion as well as the breadth of stylistic territory essayed. Inspired, subtle, and filled with a sense of wonder, Bedroom Miniatures manages to synthesize pop vocal work, colorful and interwoven textures, intimate chamber passages, and rich electronic soundings. Created as a companion piece to both Bedroom Miniatures and Smolkin’s drawings, Ancillary Salutations will be exhibited in the main gallery also in a looping rotation. In this drone-based piece, resonant synthesizer sounds are gradually layered upon one another, eventually giving way to an unexpected arrival of acoustic instruments. Subtly mixed and paced, the entrances of individual layers tend to be de-emphasized and, instead, the listener is focused towards their collective sense of emergence.

Further information on the artists and their work please visit: www.vladsmolkin.com, www.vladband.wordpress.com www.davidwaitemartinson.com