Y E A R O F T H E W O O F
an exhibition of installation work featuring
Chad Oliver | John Hitchcock
The exhibition opens with a Lunar New Year celebration on February 17, an event which will also host multidisciplinary performances.
Inspired by the long history of social and political commentary within the discipline of printmaking, Madison-based printmaker John Hitchcock installs THE PROTECTORS. These screenprint images of bison skulls are mounted on a background of Naugahyde pelts in forms that suggest landmasses. Each of these elements is loaded with meaning pertaining to the environment. Drawing upon his Comanche/Kiowa and Northern European heritage, Hitchcock’s woodland and plains inspired imagery stand as metaphors for the humans relationship with nature, the trauma of war, and the fragility of life.
Chad Oliver’s FORTY–SIX GHOSTS informs and maps the design process in a fearless way as an artist who walks the line does. FORTY–SIX GHOSTS is an autobiography that should not be perused, but followed as a manual for all artists and thinkers. This work is a tour into his reasoning, giving the audience cues to follow. We are witnesses to this theatre as the artist is isolated from us. The air in between is the art. Everything is carefully studied – every prop is an artifact. The intuitive process and the approach to making and doing is truly his signature as things are thrown about, edited, and returned as a showman would to create an illusion of spontaneity and chance; concealing that everything and all is considered and executed with deliberation.
Ranking as the eleventh animal in the Chinese zodiac, folks born in this lunar year possess honorable traits of human nature: amiability, intelligence, and responsibility. The dog is closely connected to the earth as a symbol of loyalty and honesty. In Chinese philosophy, the earth element is the changing point of matter; earth is the balance of yin and yang, feminine and masculine together. In balancing the tangible and the ephemeral, Year of the Woof seeks the harmony the dog brings.
On view 17 - 23 February 2018.
