The ArtCat calendar is closed as of December 31, 2012. Please visit Filterizer for art recommendations.


ARTCAT



Portia Munson, Green

P.P.O.W Gallery
535 West 22nd Street, 3rd Floor, 212-647-1044
Chelsea
January 5 - February 3, 2007
Reception: Friday, January 5, 6 - 8 PM
Web Site


Enter the gallery and experience Green: Lawn, a large-scale floor installation made up of thousands of green plastic objects Munson has collected, resulting in a full-throttle inorganic color experience. Piles of green-on-green plastic detritus flood the gallery floor, in patches of varying shades, to create a plastic lawn. As in her earlier installations - Pink Project and The Garden - “Lawn” delves into who we are as a culture, as defined by the objects we mass-produce, consume and throw away. Munson transforms these objects into a powerful assemblage critiquing our material values and “throwaway” mentality.

In the same room, large-scale flower images line the gallery walls. Using flowers from her garden, Munson creates mandalas that contain the same intensity of detail and saturation of color as her installation. Munson collects the flowers at their peak and lays them out on a scanner in concentric patterns. These flower arrays are captured in high-resolution scans and printed on watercolor paper with pigmented ink. Each print is a sharply detailed kaleidoscope that mixes the utopian beauty of the Garden of Eden with the dizzying visuals of a psychedelic trip—the flowers seem to burst out in a pyrotechnical climax.

In the back gallery a grouping of Munson’s recent small still-life paintings will also be on display. In these paintings Munson depicts singular objects, in contrast to the thousands that make up Lawn. The paintings are about isolating a common object – such as an empty angel-food cake pan, or a plastic leaf with a toy stick – allowing its individual meanings to resonate.

www.flickr.com
Have photos of this show? Tag them with artcal-3714 to see them here.