New York City, NY, May 1st, 2011 – Curator Jill Brienza continues her longstanding relationship with two exciting artists in a new show at Splashlight Gallery. Scott Kilgour uses images of trash to explore ourselves, disposability and the environmental crisis. Marsha Owett paints and excavates layers of trashed newsprint to explore inner emotions and the decay of the world around her. Both find conflict, contradiction, insight and beauty in a new show entitled Garbage and Grunge.

GARBAGE

Scott Kilgour’s collection of work Trash Trilogy – The Trash Life, Sex & Trash, and Trash Fantasy – evaluates trash as an extension of us, exploring the values and relationships we assign to its existence. Using trash as the threshold to an aesthetic experience, Trash Trilogy is a painting and graphic journey that equates our sense of being with disposability, and the resulting environmental crisis. The Trash Life explores how we view garbage as an indicator of excess through the concept of beauty; Sex & Trash contrasts our most intimate relationships with trash; and Trash Fantasy uses American Sign Language to illustrate that as a culture we’re “deaf to the environmental problem,” sounding a call to action. Scott’s personal Trash Fantasy is that one day he’ll wake up and all the trash in the world will be gone.

GRUNGE

Marsha Owett first developed her technique, Neo-Grunge, in a small studio in Alphabet City in 1987. Neo-Grunge is inspired by the decay that surrounded her during her childhood in the Soviet Union, the grit of her new home in downtown Manhattan, and the excitement of the emerging art and music scene, which exploded in the early ‘90s. Marsha layers newspaper, magazines, and other mediums on a wooden base, painting each layer. When this process is complete, she excavates back through the layered paintings to reveal the finished work. Her Neo-Grunge style spans from emotive to decorative, but always remains consistent in vision and technique. Like a memory, her work reveals what came before. View work at www.owett.com.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Scott Kilgour is a working artist living in Bushwick, New York. A native of Glasgow, Scotland, he graduated from the Glasgow School of Art with a First Class Honors degree in drawing and painting. He moved to New York City in the early ‘80s, and has had several one-man exhibitions in NYC and across the U.S. Kilgour credits Henry Geldzahler and Edmund Carpenter, both of whom he met in NYC in the ‘80s, as the key figures who shaped his understanding of viewing art through the lens of the American experience.

Marsha Owett was born in Moscow in 1967. She lived in St Petersburg with her prominent physicist father and dissident mother, until their expulsion to the United States in 1977. Educated in the New York, the UK, and The School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, she has shown in galleries in Manhattan and Long Island’s East End. Marsha currently lives in TriBeCa with her husband and two young children.

Splashlight Gallery Project expands Splashlight’s commitment to five-star service by showcasing works from emerging contemporary artists throughout the studio facilities. As one of New York City’s most prominent photo studios and production companies Splashlight is a hub for creative professionals. Housed within the One Hudson Square building, Splashlight’s neighbors such as Getty Images, New York Magazine, Porter Novelli and Starwood Hotels get to enjoy the monthly exhibitions showcased in Splashlight’s Gallery Hallways en route to Splashlight’s in-house restaurant, eet. www.splashlight.com