Here’s a quick roundup of gallery offerings in the Arts District this month. Above: The Space Between You and Me @ Tastyspace
UNLV MFA alumnus Sam Davis returns to Trifecta for another solo show entitled Modern Love. The exhibition spans several media including sculpture, tin type photos, and silkscreen. The centerpiece though, is a series of paintings featuring a familiar red astrobot, an otherworldly 50′s era robot who has come to Earth to find love. Parking meters, mailboxes, and Hi-Fi television sets are the objects of its unrequited affection. Davis’ wit and penchant for mid-century nostalgia spill onto the canvas (and titles) in pieces like “Working Girl” and “Aint Sayin She’s a Gold Digger.”
One of my favorites is a sculptural piece, “Re-Entry Astrobot Pod #2,” which literally weighs about 50 pounds. Apparently, Davis took advantage of a loophole in the USPS shipping system, where “if it fits, it ships.” Other works, like the “Robot Dreams” series and the screenprinted series offer a more accessible entry into his work, and the halftone dot patterns of the latter remind us of pre-computer “graphics” classes.
The Space Between You and Me features LA-based artist Bill Dambrova and NYC-based artist Tat-Dat Nguyen. Friends for over 20 years, both artists’ recent work intersects at the exploration of our individual and collective bodies, and the boundaries of where one ends and the other begins.
Bill Dambrova’s paintings feature wondrous anatomical battles that splash out from their canvases in beautiful bold colors. They are fantastic visceral narratives of the magical processes of our bodies, reinterpreted through the eyes of an artist rather than those of a scientist.
Tat-Dat’s work extends from his personal meditation and shamanic practices. With the body as a starting point, he explores the structure of mythologies and spatial relationships, individually and also in the context of a greater whole.
Eric Burwell makes his debut at Brett Wesley with Big Words. The large-scale unstretched, unprepared canvases are decidedly literal in their aesthetic connotation. An aesthetic influence somewhere between Basquiat and the interiors of the film 12 Monkeys comes to mind. The recent UNLV grad has been making his rounds, showing works like “NOW” at the recent LA Art Show. “ME” is nicely juxtaposed by a gold gilded frame, and I’m interested to see how his work progresses past this series.
ArtsVegas: Covering Las Vegas Art and culture since 2009.
Written by David Hardy
Connect with ArtsVegas
Connect with us via social media.