Stay Gold

QRST (image courtesy of the gallery)

The Active Space will be pre­sent­ing “Stay Gold” dur­ing Bush­wick Open Stu­dios. The group exhi­bi­tion fea­tures Bush­wick artists Don Pablo Pedro, Nathan Pick­ett, QRST, Quel Beast and Vahge.

Stay Gold is a show­case of five exem­plary artists who are based in Bush­wick. The expres­sion “stay gold” derives from a Robert Frost poem but became widely known in pop cul­ture because its two short words deliver a sim­ple but pow­er­ful direc­tive: be true to your­self and your own char­ac­ter. The works in this show embody these local artists’ com­mit­ment to this prin­ci­ple. Each artist has devel­oped their own visual lan­guage to com­mu­ni­cate their ideas, and when the works are con­sid­ered together, a motif emerges that reflects the com­plex­i­ties of human expe­ri­ence. The work com­prises oil paint­ings, acrylic por­traits, nar­ra­tive mixed-​media works and collage.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing artists:

Don Pablo Pedro

There once was a beau­ti­ful nymph, an amaz­ing crea­ture with five heads and three vagi­nas. She was seduced by a mag­nif­i­cent satyr, a satyr who was revered as the great­est painter in the small port town in which both beings hid. The nymph bore two sons from this union, although both were extremely unusual. The first son was born with a lav­ish beard that reached down to the tips of his toes, and had a mys­te­ri­ous eye which resided on his sin­gle tes­ti­cle. The sec­ond son was born with a pussy for a face, and had an arm in place of his penis. In an epic bat­tle not long after birth, the long bearded boy killed and raped his muti­lated brother. This bearded son lives on today, as Don Pablo Pedro.

Nathan Pick­ett

Nathan Pickett’s non­lin­ear nar­ra­tives explore human expe­ri­ence and its inher­ent ten­sion and con­tra­dic­tions. In won­der­ing where our cul­ture is headed tomor­row, Pick­ett looks from present to ancient past in his exam­i­na­tion of the individual’s strug­gle to under­stand its self and its place in soci­ety. Pickett’s work includes sym­bol­ism that ref­er­ences uni­ver­sal truths embed­ded within arche­types that tran­scend the bound­aries of lan­guage, time and form. Through fine-​art paint­ing tech­niques, intri­cate paper-​cutting, sten­cils, pat­terns and line, and spray paint­ing, Pick­ett depicts our myths, fan­tasies and fears. His com­po­si­tions offer a per­spec­tive from which the viewer can con­sider the mul­ti­di­men­sional aspects of his work as a reflec­tion of the com­plex­ity and dichotomies of their own life experience.

QRST

The mys­te­ri­ous Brooklyn-​based QRST, for­merly the mys­te­ri­ous San Francisco-​based QRST, some­times makes paint­ings for inside and some­times makes paint­ings for out­side. QRST often paints ani­mals, but describes paint­ing a human as “sim­ply one more strange crea­ture with ques­tion­able moti­va­tions inhabiting…strange and bent places.” The artist says his paint­ings often focus on “the inter­sec­tion of mem­ory, wool-​gathering and dreaming.”

Quel Beast

Quel Beast cre­ates fig­u­ra­tive paint­ings which bal­ance emo­tion and ges­ture in a self-​created style that blends fine-​art and graf­fiti sen­si­bil­i­ties. His work toys with the dual moti­vat­ing forces that dis­tract us from ulti­mate death, while simul­ta­ne­ously cel­e­brat­ing these vulnerabilities.

Vahge

Vahge grew up in too-​quiet sub­urbs where neigh­bors with watch­ful eyes kept too-​perfect lawns. An iso­lated child with few friends, she with­drew to her imag­i­na­tion and began mak­ing col­lages that con­trast whim­si­cal and roman­tic with unset­tling aspects of real­ity. She incor­po­rates ele­ments of dreams, lit­er­a­ture, music, the­ater and clas­sic por­trai­ture, and draws heav­ily from Ger­man expres­sion­ism and Vic­to­rian cul­ture. Vahge often crafts her highly detailed works on a small scale, using lay­ers of paper to con­struct char­ac­ters and scenes with pre­cise pro­por­tion and depth. She often makes females her cen­tral char­ac­ters, expos­ing all their faults and unique beauty. In all her work, Vahge cel­e­brates odd­ity with elegance.

Open­ing party Sat­ur­day, June 4^th, 7 – 10 PM

Open to the pub­lic dur­ing Bush­wick Open Stu­dios (June 3 – 5) and through July 5, 2011, by appoint­ment. Curbs & Stoops, 566 John­son Ave., Brook­lyn, NY