Free Brain Candy!!!! Visual Confections of Fleeting Reality Melted Down from Ponderous Notions (New Works by Summer McClinton)

655 3rd Ave (between 41st and 42nd Street) New York, NY

Tuesday March 6, 2012 – Sunday March 11, 2012 open daily 3pm- 7pm Opening reception: Friday March 9, 2012 7 pm – 10 pm

What happens when you detach yourself not only from the routines of everyday life but from the philosophical structures that bind reality together?

Free Brain Candy!!!! is a compilation of paintings, prints, photos and writing created over the past two years: a period characterized by time spent riding the subway trains around the city while reading spiritual self-help literature and photographing deteriorating subway advertisements.

“I began to conceptualize my reality as a temporal vibrational experience: one that I was literally creating with my mind as I rode along. Slowly it began to dawn on me that the tears and scratches in the subway ads revealed a hidden narrative which I was simultaneously receiving from ‘the Universe’ and projecting forward as my ‘created future.’ These were evidence of a parallel reality and possibly, portals into another dimension! As a safety measure, and in order to locate myself physically within this process I began to take notes on my physical surroundings and my encounters with people on the street. I turned these into short segments of writing which I sent regularly to friends outside of the city – partly as evidence to myself that I still had access to the physical plane.” – Summer McClinton 2012

About the Artist: Summer McClinton moved to New York in 1999 with a background in printmaking and graffiti to begin a career in oil painting and illustration. In 2001 she developed an interest in comic books and created her first book: Thread with Emily Benz, which was awarded the Xeric grant to fund its publication and nation-wide distribution. She continued drawing comics and eventually collaborated with the late great Harvey Pekar on two full length graphic novels. She currently resides in Harlem and creates work with the support of a chashama studio residency. She divides her time between creating oil paintings, drawing comic books, and developing a series of sensation oriented essays about being alive in New York City. The common thread within all of her work is an abiding interest in life as a philosophically humorous subject.

Artist website: www.summermcclinton.com