Curated by Almitra Stanley

Build Me Up, Tear Me Down (from l to r, Kim Cadmus Owens, Eric Johnston, Luis Alonzo-Barkigia)

Platform, the project space of Denise Bibro Fine Art, is pleased to present Build Me Up, Tear Me Down, featuring work by Luis Alonzo-Barkigia, Kim Cadmus Owens, Eric Johnston, Kay Knight, and David Linneweh, on view April 2 through May 9, 2009. The exhibition, curated by Almitra Stanley, explores architectural construction and deconstruction, touching upon themes including stability, shelter, and fortitude, as well as vulnerability, disintegration, and entropy.

Alonzo-Barkigia’s compositions in collage, paint, and thread on vinyl, invoke a comic book aesthetic. Metallic shards, bolts of color, and bits of buildings hurtle toward the viewer, while menacing explosions share the sky with shimmering stars, conveying a message that is at once daunting and naïve.

Kim Cadmus Owens’ work in carbon and acrylic on wood panel depicts disembodied signs hovering over exquisitely rendered minimalist glass buildings and pensive skies. The titles Grand, Pawn, and Leader, suggest strict hierarchical order, but are these constructions actually powerful entities, or just reflections of the human ego?

Kim Cadmus Owens’ work in carbon and acrylic on wood panel depicts disembodied signs hovering over exquisitely rendered minimalist glass buildings and pensive skies. The titles Grand, Pawn, and Leader, suggest strict hierarchical order, but are these constructions actually powerful entities, or just reflections of the human ego?

Architecture takes on an anthropomorphic quality in Eric Johnston’s works rendered in graphite, watercolor and ink wash on paper. An imposing edifice composed of a ramshackle mix of otherwise traditional building supplies, embellished with drapery, skulls and a triumphant corona, becomes a behemoth monster with a gaping maw.

The bisected and dissected skeletal remains of residential buildings float on backgrounds depicting rural homes and farmland in Kay Knight’s collage, graphite, and mixed media Dream House series, alluding to a lost sense of security-perhaps memories of an idyllic childhood stripped bare.

The structures in David Linneweh’s Reassembled and Refurbished Landscape series rendered in oil, acrylic, and graphite on panel, appear disintegrated, falling apart or even melting, pointing ultimately to impermanence and the inescapable eventuality of decline.

For more information, or high resolution images, please contact the gallery at the information provided below.