PROPOSED LAND USE AUBREY BIRDWELL. Opening Thursday, FEBRUARY 9, 2017. 6-9pm

| February 4, 2017

PROPOSED LAND USE is a multidimensional art show created by Seattle artist Aubrey Birdwell, commenting on development and displacement using the garbage of the sign industry. Inviting collaboration with photographer Ukrainian-born, Seattle-based Darya Husak and New Mystics, PROPOSED LAND USE consists of two and three dimensional objects made from disused proposed land use panels, plastics, and found and created images.

The artist reception on February 9 from 6pm to 9pm begins with a New Mystics procession accompanied by accordion player Vladislav Petruk, followed by drinks and dancing to the sweet sounds of DJ Leopold Bloom in Vermillion’s back room.

These sculptures, created from repurposed land use signs, reveal a prevailing sentiment in many cities today – one of alienation, displacement and permanent change in communities and the built environment. Former histories are mourned as public spaces disappear- making out at Bridge to Nowhere, the multiple romantically  scabbed faces of the Maharaja, karaoke at Bus Stop, local ice wizards performing at Kincora, smoking cigarettes upstairs at Bauhaus, homes and cafes  are replaced by private, exclusive structures. How can a city develop an active body politic and a sustainable cultural legacy? Where do communities exist, and where can we express our communal and individual voices? In the developing city, where do personal and collective histories intersect; how do they intertwine and become a part of our shared history? Who records this intersection?

The recording of history has been the provenance of colonialism; now it’s increasingly important to rediscover, tell and affirm individual and communal narratives that describe our homes and familial and familiar stories about place, gender, eroticism, consumption and inhabit our bodies and the architecture that confines us.

Aubrey Birdwell is a Seattle based artist working in diverse mediums. Influenced by materials of,  and waste generated by, the sign industry. Working with discarded and abandoned materials, he comments on place, permanence, and urban human’s quest for meaning in a sea of symbols and stuff. Since moving to Seattle in 2007 he has worked extensively with the New Mystics as a member, collaborator and fabricator.

Darya Husak is a Ukrainian-born, Seattle-based photographer who creates intimate portraits questioning place, nationalism, and identity thru intimacy and immediate experience. Preferring the term “transatlantic child”, she uses photography as a tool to express conflict and introspection. She creates independent images who build their own narratives.

New Mystics produce and comment on urban art, most often existing outside the gallery but sometimes within it. Consisting of tattooists, messengers, madmen, sign painters, savants, screenprinters, fabricators, feminists, realists ideologs and degenerates of diverse disciplines, NMz approach to contemporary reality iz “FUCK ME??? FUCK YOU.”

“Pleasure we will find, dear friend, in the blurred dream of recollection”

A. Pushkin.

Category: Art

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