Participating artists include: Heidi Cody, Rah Crawford, William Crump, Katherine Daniels, Holly Greenberg, Shay Kun, Swati Khurana, Monika Sziladi & Jamie Vasta

The Pop Art Show 2006 features work that originates from popular culture, but yet has an original take on the tradition of Pop Art. Popular culture changes with the times, thus artists respond according to the temperament of the time frame they live in. In this way Pop Art as an art movement is the most direct means to have an impression of a moment in history and in art.

Heidi Cody creates silk-screened word haiku’s from products and her work comments on the artificial longing to purchase to reach a temporary state of manufactured bliss. Rah Crawford’s paintings combine text, gestural painting and pop icons and Crawford’s work depicts a generation who is shaped by popular culture. William Crump’s paintings deal with the contrast between what we think we are, and what we actually are. Crump’s work thematically relates to popular culture due to the enormous pressure placed on individuals to conform to certain norms of body type, personality etc and how this affects how we wish to see ourselves outwardly vs. how we actually are. Katherine Daniels creates beaded sculptural installations drawn from many popular sources from Versailles to Appalachia (where she is originally from) to the Sistine Chapel. Holly Greenberg’s paintings present silhouettes of boxers juxtaposed with motel signs and double entendre. Greenberg’s work sorts through the visual data of the world and questions the assumptions we make and turns those assumptions on edge to show things in a new light. Shay Kun’s paintings implement imagery from Saturday morning cartoons, urban magazines and internet clip art. Kun creates moments of absurdity within charged atmospheres and employs a self-conscious approach to painting, that lends the work both expressionistic and kitsch qualities. Swati Khurana’s digital collage series titled “Malabar Beach House Bride” references Khurana’s own traditional Hindu wedding, ethnic -chic interior design and imperial architecture. The series shows that under the glossy surface of marriage a darker world of entrapment can be present. Monica Sziladi’s photographs of mannequins in NYC shop windows capture moments when the unfamiliar and the contingent are unexpectedly caught commingling with the mundane and the highly staged. Jamie Vasta’s glitter landscapes reference The Hudson River School but dressed up in costume jewelry. Glitter can call up images of tawdry glamour or childish crafts but it can shimmer into images that transcend its cheapness. Vasta represents the landscape in glitter to bring back a sense of wonder to the subject with a pop twist.