Author: outlier

All Photograpy by Amanda Tipton

Artist Statement

I am the last of the fast vanishing nomadic Mongol ethnicity.

I am a Mongolian American cross-disciplinary artist merging visual art and film, born on the vast steppes of Mongolia. I grew up in societies of parallel cultural and political/societal dysfunction having been raised in Hungary and immigrating to the United States with my family at the age of 8.

My identity as a first generation Mongolian American migrant allows a life of duality where opposing values and norms of Eastern and Western spiritual and social traditions constantly clash and fuse – creating a marginal periphery of absent power origin. My ever-revolving dual identity as a first generation Mongolian American nomadic voyeur profoundly shapes my artistic process. I am interested in expressing the embattled emotional middle space of the marginal human devoid of identity. I seek to explore the conflicting psycho-spiritual, cultural and disjointed effects of globalization on marginalized identities with attention to woman’s issues; one who perpetually lives both in war and peace within two worlds, in both of which more or less a stranger.

My work is about history and tradition, identity censorship, mythology, folklore, dreams, spirituality, death, and nature set in contemplative scenarios that transform into symbolic allegories for socio-political issues. Within these (psychological mind) spaces, where the fragments of memory, dreams, and the residues of formative experience intermingle with contemporary mythology – I present a space for the renegotiation of identity and the realignment of desire. By revealing the strange and curious inner-workings of the human condition, I aim to examine the fluctuating operations of human identity, desire, horror, wonder and fantasy.

My artistic process derives from a balance of intuitive and concept driven method of experimental creation. In my drawings, I seek to create visual tension through automatic and intended mark making. I like to fuse binary concepts and techniques of representation, from contrasting languages of wet and dry textures, precision and chaos, into stimulatory layers as to create conceptual proximity between forces of opposition and displacement.

I experience my artistic production as an act of creative play between subject and object, and aim for a convulsive spontaneity in the journey of their creation. Similarly, I express my ideas and concepts through cross-disciplinary mediums of painting, writing, installation, multimedia and filmmaking.

My art acts as a transparent extension to my life and my perpetual search to identify and empower through the power of empathy and inspiration.

Artist Bio

Eriko Tsogo is a Mongolian American visual artist and filmmaker born on the steppes of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Eriko grew up in Budapest, Hungary and immigrated to the United States with her family at the age of 8. She is an alumni of Denver School of the Arts, having attained her B.F.A (2012) from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Tufts University. She currently lives and works between the paradigm spheres of Colorado, California and mindscape Mongolia.

Eriko is represented by Leon Gallery in Denver. She has had numerous art shows throughout the United States. In her alter life; she divides her time between her art practice and working as an inter-cultural arts administration professional at the Mongolian Culture and Heritage Center of Colorado. She is also a published author, and the founder/designer of “HiliteDreamer” contemporary unisex apparel collection. She is currently in process of completing her first international documentary animation film project, due to release in 2019.

Eriko’s art explores the conflicting psycho-spiritual, cultural and gender specific embattled emotional middle space of the marginalized identity; one who perpetually lives both in war and peace within two worlds, in both of which more or less a stranger. Her work is influenced by her dual identity as a first generation Mongolian American where opposing values and norms of Eastern and Western spiritual and social traditions constantly clash and fuse – creating a marginal periphery of absent power origin.

She utilizes mediums of drawing, painting, writing, performance, and multimedia as confessional means to shed light on her experiences of insight recollected from living on the margins. She likes to fuse binary concepts and techniques of representation; from contrasting languages of wet and dry textures, precision and chaos into stimulatory juxtaposing layers as to create conceptual proximity between forces of opposition and displacement.

Forrest J. Morrison
*Subject to Non-Renewal
May 6th – June 3rd, 2017
Artist Statement:
/Subject To Non-Renewal/ is an exploration of contemporary western identity in still life. Borrowing from the western aesthetic and themes, Morrison addresses the commodification of Nature using found and staged natural elements to draw broader metaphors for contemporary cultural norms. In the same way that Morrison’s technical ability allows him to convey depth, detail and light, his wit and confronting nature as an artist allows him to poignantly poke at the consumers and socially obsessed selfie-takers in all of us.
Artist Bio:
Forrest J. Morrison is a self-taught interdisciplinary artist and native Coloradan specializing in project-based, public, and studio arts. Morrison is an outspoken advocate for the arts, serving as Vice President of Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe and advisor to Colorado Attorneys For The Arts. Morrison’s artistic practice spans styles including Minimalism, Western, and Realism. His work has been included in numerous group and juried exhibitions, and has been featured in Denver Post, Modern In Denver Magazine, Black & White Magazine, and PX3 Paris, France. His recent public works include mural commissions for Denver Arts & Venues, Denver Housing Authority, and the Curtis Hotel.
Photo Credit: Amanda Tipton

SKINs

March 11th – April 8th, 2017

A MoP Featured Exhibition

SKINs, is an photographic exploration of the complexities of American Culture in the 21st Century. The idealization of the body is examined physically and metaphorically through play, lighting and process. Inspired by organic colors and textures that environmental weathering create during the aging process, gender, career, culture, ethnicity, age and class all disappear revealing the one constant, autonomy.

Tya Alisa Anthony is afine artistexploring identity through photography + mixed media. Anthony received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 2015, honored as Valedictorian, from Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design. Her collected, altered and own photographs are confronted as aesthetically resilient & thematically interrelated material. Anthony is currently investigating the effects of time, loss & the human condition. With the aid of analogue photography combined with current digital technology, Tya Alisa Anthony approaches a wide scale of social, political and environmental subjects. Presently, Anthony lives and works in the city of Denver, producing photography editorials & fine art installations for both commissions and exhibition.

Anthony’s use of costuming communicates a vision of an imagined self. Her self-portraits reflect and evolution of cultural beliefs enhanced by mythology, cinema, culture and Art History.  Anthony is often inspired by childhood memories and her extensive imagination.

In collaboration with phenomenal artist, Thomas “Detour” Evans, and Dr Paul Hamilton of Denver CO,  Anthonycontributed photographic and documentary work to They Still Live, an exploration of the African Diaspora in the Western World. Each African American participant received a genetic DNA test to gather and reveal their detailed heritage information. The outcome of genetic testing was followed by a PBS documentary and an exhibit held at Redline Art Center of Denver.

As a developing documentary producer herself, Anthony has collaborated with natural lifestyle contributors, Colorado Urban Naturals, creating The Art of Being Natural. Participants living organically through nutrition and personal hair style were photographed and interviewed expressing their chosen lifestyle of refraining from the use of dangerous, yet common, chemicals, products and processed foods.

“I create visual personifications of identity narratives through photography, drawing and mixed media.  I explore the gaps of knowledge of my own heritage with vivid imagery addressing a once declared chameleon identity.  I compile diverse narratives to explore the idea of multiplicity and the OTHER.  I have found through experimentation and exploration, the foundation of individuality remains the same. I further investigate variations and manipulation of Identity by studying belief structures, an individual’s formative years, familial influence and origin. Inevitably, our environment and these imposed structures inform our identity. I am most interested in metaphoric masks worn as protection and representation of Identity”

In 2011, Anthony, released a coffee table book entitled “Her Art & Soul” accompanied by solo Photography exhibit, “Dark to Light: Being Human,” A Black and White Multi Media portrait collection, hosted by The Living Well of Baltimore MD.

Photo Credit (installation shots) Amanda Tipton

Pricing:

13 X 19 (open edition) $200

18 X 24 (open edition) $325

24 X 36 (edition of 30) $500

36 X 48 (edition of 15) $750

48 x 72 (edition of 5) $1200

Canvases $600

Michael Dowling

You Already Know How This Will End

January 28th – March 4th, 2017

Artist Statement

I draw and paint on paper and canvas.  I approach my work in a visual sense from a classical side.  I am interested in the strength of the visual aspects of art from previous times and how and why that look can have impact in our time.  I approach my work with elements of the classical and the techniques learned while studying in Italy.  That historical approach gives my work a look of the historical blended with subject matter of the hypermodern.  

I work primarily in charcoal and oil paint while employing any medium that might challenge me to step away from my safe and practiced modes.  I often work with spray paint and gold leaf both because they are somewhat unpredictable in my approach and because they introduce a range of color that makes me just a little nervous.  I have a disciplined approach to drawing, giving myself assignments to complete a number of works within a time frame.  That approach does double duty in using and expanding my technical skill while also pushing my creative approaches.  In producing a small volume of drawings one after another, I am compelled to challenge my compositional structures, disrupt my imagery, and explore my subject from unexpected angles.  My paintings similar to my drawings have the elements of classical approach, starting with drawing and layering paint to arrive at the image.  In the process of painting, each layer has an opportunity to step away from the picture or the natural image.  I often start with imagery referencing art history and begin to adjust the content to give it voice in our current time.

I allow myself to explore greatly with my work and let it inform me of meaning and content as much as possible.  There are several themes that emerge throughout.  At the core of my work is a great curiosity about stories that seem to repeat throughout lore and religion, with slightly different characters but otherwise strangely consistent.  The stories behind each piece often have a sense of icon that fits somehow with my slightly euro-western motifs.  Much of my recent work responds to a need to wreck the image with marks that are artistic only, eraser marks and blacked out areas that I like to refer to as redaction.  In creating my characters and icons then blocking them from view, I believe I’m trying to ask each viewer to plug themselves into the missing information or complete the story of the piece for themselves.  I think that I hope their stories might be even more bizarre than my own.

In ‘You Already Know How This Will End’ , opening on January 28 at Leon Gallery in Denver, I have begun to work in a greater range of materials and styles.  I am making separate artworks that interact with each other and working with sculptural materials as well as found items. The show itself is my look into relationships be they personal, interpersonal, or broader in scope.  Within that search I keep largely focused on my combination of the general ideas that inform my work and continue to allow the work to inform me as it comes together.

Artist Bio

Michael Dowling was born in Denver in 1972 and grew up in Colorado.  He began drawing at a very young age but didn’t begin to study formally until the age of 24.  After several years of study in studio practices, Michael sold the business he owned and moved to Florence Italy to focus on making art and expanding his skill.  He completed his studies at Il Instituto de Art, Scuola Lorenzo de Medici in 2002 with focuses in studio practice and contemporary theory. While in Florence, Michael studied under the duo Rosenclaire (Rose Shakinovski & Claire Gavronsky) who continue to be his mentors and advisors.

In 2003, Michael moved back to his native Denver and married his childhood sweetheart.  They now have three children and drink wine constantly.

Michael shows nationally and is represented in Colorado, California, Miami, New York, and Montreal.  His work is in numerous private and public collections throughout the US and Europe.

Best of Show Drawing, Uptown Art Fair 2015 Minneapolis, MN

Best of the Best, Uptown Art Fair, 2015 Minneapolis, MN

Best of Westword, Contemporary Realism, 2015 Denver, CO

Top 20 Artists to watch, LA Art Show, Huffington Post 2015

Photo Credit : Amanda Tipton

THE DEEP END

Jonathan Saiz

November 19th, 2016 – January 8th, 2017

Artist Statement:

Something doesn’t feel right –

TSUNAMI DREAMS, EARTHQUAKE VIBES,

COMETS AND UFO’S, INSTINCT AND PARANOIA

a million tiny clues…

OMG youtube tells me that the world is ending

and I love believing it.

IF I DON’T KNOW THEN SOMEBODY MUST!?!?

I feel small, powerless, and out-of-the-loop.

DEFINITELY in over my head –

Death doesn’t feel so abstract or distant anymore now that I’ve

crawled on my knees into the depths of a doomsday bunker. Yes, literally on my knees into a bunker. FIGHT TO LIVE??? – I decline. 

I’m 33 now – SO WAS JESUS!!!

#feelingthedays / #fillingthedays

Don’t believe lil ol’ me, BELIEVE GOOGLE:

search: 

Planet X Nibiru

Our Beloved Ancient Anunnaki Fathers who art in the heavens

.gov is hiding the incoming planets with chemtrails

“I’m a DNA designed gold slave”

meanwhile… <<insert meaningful content here>>

#imPRBLYright

#weshallsee

#ugh

Artist Bio:

Taking bold strides as he approaches his mid-thirties, Jonathan Saiz continues to push the boundaries of his practice, rigorously exploring the potential of the materials he employs in his work. His paintings have been featured in Juxtapoz Magazine’s “New Contemporary” book from 2014, Elle Decor in 2015, and most recently in Veranda. His collaborative product project, “The Fountain Tarot” in which he produced 79 original paintings for each card within the deck, has been featured in Vogue twice, in both 2015 and 2016. 

His latest exhibition reaffirms the impressive volume of his artistic output, coming on the heels of a 2012 showing at Gildar Gallery in Denver, a 2013 exhibition at Alpha Gallery in London, and an appearance at the 2015 LA Art Fair, via Leon Gallery.

Photo Credit: Amanda Tipton (unless otherwise noted)

The Teeth in Your Skull

New Works by Jared David Paul Anderson

Opening Reception: October 8th, 2016 7-11pm

Exhibition: October 8th-November 12th, 2016

Join us as we welcome back Jared David Paul Anderson to Leon for his 3rd solo exhibition. Denver’s own Anderson returns with a new body of work that continues the evolution of his signature shamanistic gestural style, combining the volatility of primal forces with a clever and irreverent sense of humor. 

Artist Statement:

Write on your hand
Your task at hand
Roll your dice
Make a decision
Doodle gold smiley face
Spilled ink
Teeth in your skull
Smudge of life
Dribbling ball
Who’s the Boss?

Bio:

Jared David Paul Anderson grew up in Colorado with three evil sisters, a master quilter and a great hunter. He has studied art in Australia, Czech Republic, China and Cuba. His work has been shown in Los Angeles, and across Colorado, including the McNichols Building, Buell Theater, two previous Solo Exhibitions at Leon Gallery, and Cherry Creek Arts Festival. Jared thrives on seeking out exotic art practices and curious ideas as inspiration for his art. He is half way to climbing all the Fourteeners in Colorado. The Great American Wilderness informs a great majority of Jared’s work.

Exhibition: July 30th – August 27th, 2016

Artist Statement: 

My recent series of “Baroque Selfies” questions the ways in which an individual gains social status. Wealth, physical appearance, and charming personality too often trump wisdom, compassion, and humility. Failure to gain the attention and approval we crave feeds our insecurities and drives us to try even harder. With the elaboration of social media, we are bombarded with even more opportunities to curate our public lives.  These works serve both as generalized portraits of human vulnerability and as self portraits that question my own susceptibility to self-centered perspectives.

About the Artist: 

Matthew Harris is a Denver-based artist who received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.

He has recently been exhibited in a group show at RedLine, “Jokes of Nature”, commissioned for the USA Pro Challenge Bike Art Project at the Denver International Airport in Denver, CO, and has had a solo-exhibition at the UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art in Colorado Springs for his most recent series of work, Baroque Selfies.

photo credit Amanda Tipton

David M Freeman

“Observing (A)trophy Life – Celebrating Our Luxury of Social, Personal and Political Addiction”

Exhibition: June 18th – July 23rd, 2016

Opening Reception: June 18th, 2016, 7pm – 11pm

David Freeman is an artist from McAllen, Texas who explores immigration, border issues and the war on drugs. He has been featured in The New York Times as a prevalent artist pushing social-political work beyond “border nations”.

Observing (A)trophy Life – Celebrating Our Luxury of Social, Personal and Political Addictionis an exploration of the system of complexities found in border-nations and beyond. David Freeman creates a satirically ceremonial celebration of our populations’ luxurious addictions, many of which are contradictory. Through his Trophy series, he juxtaposes the existence of drug cartels and our participation in it’s survival due to our own personal addictions. His origins have thus profoundly influenced his art as he creates a context and platform for discussion on prevalent national issues. Leon will be exhibiting Freeman’s series of drug cartel inspired mixed-media trophies, life sized piñatas in the image of border patrol guards and refugees, and colorful border travel photographs.

David Freeman’s origins have profoundly influenced his art, as he observes that there exists a living presence of a blending of cultures and ethnicity in south Texas. His work depicts a truth within our society, which we are either not aware of, or, choose to ignore. That is one of greed, and luxury, within our personal, social and political lives. He does this ironically by creating grandiose trophies, painting them completely in gold and adorning them with such cultural and drug cartel related icons as skulls, weapons and patron saints. The appearance of luxury hides the ugly and dangerous system within which allows for the possessions of luxury to thrive. In Freeman’s art, this luxury is the possession of drugs, which allows the drug cartel to continue producing and working, habitually with violent consequences. 

Artist Statement:

Trophies are celebrations of victory; they are mementos to some achievement or success. My trophies, an accumulated assemblage of token trophy styles are embellished with symbols and objects collected from flea markets and yard sales in Mexico and Texas. These trophies embrace the mirroring of a reliquary concept but multi task as an acknowledgment of something that has been won in battle too. They celebrate the dark side of victory and speak of a horrific time and event that exists in my backyard. One of violence that is acted out purely to impress others in the basest acts of terrorism, the Narco- terror campaign in Mexico.

This work thus represents a system of contradictions of the identities of good and bad battling one another. These truths are mirrored in juxtapositions of contradiction. The first being the utilization of a plastic commercial process such as a trophy as a medium of fine art, full of devised icons of instant recognition and communication, presented in a lowbrow process. The second being that there exists a living presence and blending of cultures and ethnicity in south Texas, yet we seem so indifferent to what is happening in Mexico. I aim to overcome the wave of mediocrity I find in American activism today and inspire a self awareness and allegiance toward a civil revitalizing force, if by no other means but through the message of a Trophy artwork.

About the Artist:

David Freeman is an artist from McAllen, Texas who works in photographypainting and mixed media sculptures. He has exhibited at the International Museum of Art and Science in McAllen, TX, and has had two solo-exhibitions at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art in Brownsville, TX. He has also completed an artist residency in China where he worked heavily in ceramics. Due to his engagement within the art community both nationally and internationally, he has been featured in The New York Times as a prevalent artist pushing his political work beyond Texas and the border-nation. Visit his work at davidmfreemanart.com

Jaimie Gershen and Douglas Spencer

Exhibition: May 7th – June 4th, 2016

Opening Reception: May 7th, 2016. 7 – 10 pm

Artists Bio:

Jaimie Gershen is an artist living in Denver with a background in printmaking, though her current focus is on embroidery, pen drawing, and found objects. Jaimie works in ink, fabric, thread, gold leaf, and found photographs, matches, and book pages. She likes to play with matches and hide secret messages. Prior, she has had a solo exhibition at Indy Ink Gallery and work on view at Ironwood.

Douglas Spencer is an artist living in Denver working with a variety of mediums; using smoke on glass, gold, mirrors, paint, glow in the dark paint, glitter, and found photographs and objects.This will be his first gallery exhibitions, and prior, has had work on view at Ironwood as well.

Both Jaimie and Douglas have had several pop-up shows in alternative gallery spaces across Colorado, but this is the first gallery exhibition for both artists, as well as their first time collaborating.

To see more work, follow Jaimie or Doug on Instagram. 

Artist Statement:

You can hide down in the alley

With your hat pulled over your eye

You can wear a wig or moustache

Or any old disguise

Well, you can change your name and your address

Even change your style of clothes

But the Shadow knows

The Shadow knows

– The Coasters “The Shadow Knows” (1958)

Not all ghosts are meant to haunt and shadows never rest. We’ve built a home for the lightness and the darkness to get some R&R; an un-haunted house for the un-seen to rest in peace. 

Tim Schwartz

Exhibition: March 12th – April 24th, 2016

Opening Reception: March 12th, 2016 7pm – 10pm

Artist Statement:

Escapism explores the spaces between worlds. It asks us, as viewers, to place ourselves somewhere between the analogue and the digital, between the physical and the virtual, challenging us to consider the ways in which these seemingly disparate worlds interact and overlap. 

As active participants in a booming technological society, we are constantly glued to screens. But the visual images we see on them are fleeting, transient, and often difficult to retain. ePaper screens, developed to imitate paper, display information that is generated through reflection rather than projection from the screen itself, allowing for a longer meditation on the content appearing on the screen, notably the text of books. The works presented here use ePaper technology to capture fleeting digital images and lock them into a physical form, freezing them in time. These are digital images in their native state, with no mode of translation — no print out — and yet they have materiality. The technology has been stripped down to its very core, to the point of losing its utility. The ability to change the images has been removed, leaving just raw screens with components exposed and the images embedded within them. The imagery on the screens implies a liminality, an enigmatic edge between physical reality and virtual reality by approximating landscapes, seascapes, and skyscapes. Mountains, oceans, and clouds, are the primary scenes, but they have been created using the standard 3D programs used for movies, advertising, and animation, but in ways the programs were never intended to operate. Although the images are experienced by the viewer in two dimensions, the digital information used to virtually create them is actually three dimensional, employing coordinates on x,y, and z planes.

About the Artist:

Tim Schwartz (b. 1981 Boston, Massachusetts) is a Los Angeles-based artist, technologist, and activist who makes works of art focused on technology, information, privacy, and how our culture absorbs changes in these areas. He received a BA in Physics from Wesleyan University and an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego. Schwartz has spent the last five years investigating what is lost as archives become digital. In 2010, he developed technology to help reunite missing people affected by the earthquake in Haiti and now organizes a group focused on family reunification after disasters.

“[He] makes his playful data mashups into sculptures using retired gadgets… Like a field scientist of the information age, Schwartz filters an overwhelming amount of data through the intuitive logic of old-fashioned tools such as weather gauges, maps, and charts. Taken together, his works constitute a kind of contemporary natural history museum in which we are the subjects being examined.”

-Lamar Clarkson, Modern Painters Magazine