outlier – Page 7 – Leon Gallery

In-between Life & Death – Jess Webb

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Exhibition: February 6th-March 6th, 2016

Opening Reception: February 6th, 20167pm – 10pm

Artist Statement:

My work is a practice
with intentions to invite myself into that place
where time is lost &
I become present
My work is about appreciating the simple
& delicate things in life

You settle into a moment
You forget where you are
Or over aware
You stare off into space
Like a meditation
Like an epiphany
Like magic

Traveling In between here & there
Then & now
Like you’re everywhere & nowhere
Like your everything & nothing
A little at the same time you live & you die

There’s a longing & grief
A place between life and death
A place between wakefulness & dream
a humble place of now

My art lives here

About the Artist:

Jess Webb is a multi-media artist living and working in the high, clear mountains of Colorado. You can find her staring into the sun, running her fingers through timothy grass and drinking tea with milk and honey. Her major projects include artist collaborations and installations for the Communikey Festival (2007-2015), live concerts, special events and interior design. She has had several exhibitions in the Denver area showcasing her shadow boxes, encaustic paintings, water colors and line drawings. She studied Fine Art and Spacial media at Metropolitan State College in Denver Colorado.

The Art of War – JOLT / The Guerilla Garden

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The Art of War

New Paintings by JOLT

Exhibition:December 12th, 2015-Jan 24th, 2016

Opening Reception: December 12th, 2015 7-11pm

Artist Statement:

The only way to win the war with ones self and to process that struggle through art is with strategy. The ability to strategize expressing your deepest emotions and gain a new understanding from that process yet walk away the victor of your own personal battle can only begin with not only knowledge of self, but knowledge of your craft. I battle against myself and the system that I was born into. I battle with wild style letters and their symbolic warfare against any standardization enforced by the rules of the alphabet and its oppressive nature by arming those letters with arrows, shields, and by manipulating the angles. I defend myself with symbolic masks that sometimes mirror the adversary opposing me, represent my emotions and look to human ancestry for the necessary symbology to face spiritual dilemmas. I’m often the casualty of the wars in which I choose to engage. Strategy is always at the forefront of that engagement, the ability to express deep emotional turmoil and advance ones technical ability while conquering all fears and challenges is what brings the war into art and the strategy of The Art of War into my work.

About the Artist:

Jolt

Denver Native , SunnySide and Globeville.

Born 1981

Full time artist working throughout the United States creating large scale work and commissions for collectors and corporations. Curator and creative consultant. Graffiti writer , and fine artist.

Diego Rodriguez-Warner + Matthew J Mahoney

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Left Ajar: Plastic Old and Our Bright and Shiny Future Together

Diego Rodriguez-Warner and Matthew J. Mahoney

Exhibition: November 7th-December 6th, 2015

Opening Reception: November 7th, 2015 7pm – 10pm

Artist Statement:

Left Ajar: Plastic Old and Our Bright Shiny Future Together is an installation of artifacts, effigies, and paintings. It is a reflection, a visual cacophony bound to harmonious rhythm. This show contains figuration, texture, space, memory, narrative, history, fiction. Severed heads, severed images, horses, nudes, babies, goats, visual histories, and gods. It contains evil. It’s about power. The work is candy coated with vibrant, sweet and sour color.

Left Ajar: Plastic Old and Our Bright Shiny Future Together is a two person show, bringing together Diego Rodriguez -Warner and Matthew J Mahoney, effectively colliding and blending together their two practices to produce a terrific spectacle for this exhibition, their collective affront on visual representation.

About the Artists:

Diego Rodriguez-Warner was born in Managua, Nicaragua in 1986. In 2008, he studied under the Cuban Minister for Fine Arts, Lesbia Vent Dumois, in Havana, and received a BA in Fine Art and COIN Theory from Hampshire College in 2009. In 2013, he received his MFA from the Printmaking Department of the Rhode Island School of Design. Upon graduation he was awarded the Tobey Devan Lewis Fellowship, presented to a single graduating MFA demonstrating “Exceptional Promise,” which he used to fund an 18 month exploratory sojourn in Berlin. Diego now lives and works in Denver.

Matthew J. Mahoney is an artist from Palm Springs, CA, who is currently living in San Diego, CA, and transitioning to living in New York. Matthew earned his MFA in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design in 2014, and his BA in Art Education from Point Loma Nazarene University in 2010. He was an Artist in Residence at the San Diego Art Institute summer 2015. He had a solo show at SDAI during his residency, and was included in two group shows at SDAI in 2015. Matthew has been included in a variety of group shows in California, Rhode Island, New York, and Boston, and was the recipient of both the Leslie Von Kolb Memorial Award, and an award for third place in the 2012 Annual Juried Exhibition at the Athenaeum Museum in La Jolla, California. His sculptural techniques evolved from years of practicing origami and fly-tying. His subject matter is derived from recognizable shapes, figuration, iconography, pop imagery, and material value.

Photography by: Amanda Tipton

Come Dig the Essence – Matt Scobey

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Matt Scobey.

Opening Reception: August 28th, 2015 , 7-11pm

Exhibition: August 28th – September 26th, 2015

Artist Statement:

A New collection of sculptures, objects, and prototypes exploring Form, Process, Readymade, and Assemblage by Matt Scobey.

‘Come Dig the Essence’ is a continuation of studio experiments in form and material. Each object has been monocast utilizing various form processes resulting in a site specific installation that is somehow foreign yet familiar.

“I believe that we all have an experience, perspective, compulsion, way of thinking, seeing or feeling that is unique and beautiful. When we are able to share these experiences with each other our community collectively grows happier, smarter, stronger, and healthier. Ideas of soul, spirit, growth, love and what is essential were all very present during the design and fabrication of these objects and the exhibition in general”

About the Artist:

Matt Scobey is the founder of Formal Alchemy, a process driven Design and Fabrication studio. He has recently finished a series of residencies in collaboration with Biennial of the Americas, SOMA Mexico, Art-Plant and Dateline gallery. Matt Scobey draws on a range of influences and interests, Pop-Surrealism, Memphis School, Neo Eclectic Design, Proun, Readymade, and Assemblage. His interest in space, form, context and economy often manifest in murals, installation, design, performance, and sculpture. The work reflects less of a personal observation as it offers a bizarre mirrored reflection of our own society. He is currently working primarily with concrete. Developing a process referred to as “readymade form” which utilizes found object as form for mono cast sculptural works, installations, and performances that explore ideas of form and collective memory. His experience has been gained through residencies, internships, exhibitions, jobs, and self-initiated projects. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions at Rhinoceropolis, Denver Art Museum, MCA Denver, Pirate Gallery, Denver Arts and Venues, Denver International Airport, Redline, RMCAD, SuperOrdinary Gallery, and Pawn Works Gallery.

Photography by Amanda Tipton

Continental Divide: East of L.A. / West of Tehran

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Continental Divide: East of L.A / West of Tehran

On Exhibition: July 17th – August 22nd , 2015

The Artists:

Arya Ghavamian, Laleh Mehran, Justin Mashouf, + Amitis Motevalli

Curatorial Statement:

NOW, as we witnesses the historic events unfolding with a nuclear deal being forged between Iran and six world powers, lead by the United States, the artwork presented within this exhibition is more relevant than ever. Leon is proud to present four exceptional Iranian-American artists whose unique perspectives give a powerful voice to their own personal experiences, as well as larger, more universal truths. Through their use of critical content ranging from global economic forces to political propaganda, from pre-war nostalgia to contemporary hip-hop culture, they express the diversity of their ancestral heritage in a manner which challenges stereotypes and dispels myths.

How important is American identity within the work of immigrant artists? How important is the inclusion of ancestral traditions within their art? Is it possible for first-generation American artists, born of immigrant parents, to express their American identity while retaining and honoring their cultural heritage?

Continental Divide: East of L.A / West of Tehran features select American artists of Iranian descent, who are encouraged to present work that explores issues they have faced in being of Persian descent, the struggles they have encountered in exploring their artistic voice, and their connection, if any, to their ancestral homeland- while also growing up within an American culture that is too often misinformed and antagonistic toward their ancestral homeland.

Featuring artwork by electronic time-based media artist and associate professor of Emergent Digital Practices at DU, Laleh Mehran; Justin Mashouf, 3 time Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker; Arya Ghavamian, photographer and video artist featured recently in Vanity Fair, and Performance and mixed media artist Amitis Motevalli.

Photography by: Amanda Tipton

Nobody Deserves You The Way That I Do – Jackie Barry

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Jackie Barry

Opening Reception: June 13th, 2015

Exhibition: June 13th – July 11th, 2015

Artist Statement:

This grandiose statement echoes a sentiment I witness in my media-driven generation: a generation that thrives off of larger-than-life, often misguided declarations of adoration.

It is my experience that this is a product of the denial of self-love. The result is a perpetual projection of lofty promises and false affectations toward other people exhibiting the ways in which we wish to love ourselves.

This is about the struggle of selfish vs. selfless love.

About the Artist:

Jackie Barry grew up in the woods outside of Philadelphia. She received her BFA in Printmaking/Book Arts from The University of the Arts in 2011.

While in art school, Jackie was an active participant in the printmaking community in Philadelphia, working for The Print Center, apprenticing at Space 1026, and assisting in screen printing demos for SGC International. She also spent a summer teaching screen printing, public art, and zine-making courses to high school students in New Haven at Yale University’s pre-college program. In 2011 she received The Library Award from The University of the Arts for her offset lithography book entitled, “In His Time: A Quick, Visual Biography of Ernie Hemingway”, which was then was placed in the University’s permanent collection. In subsequent years, her work was collected by The Free Library of Philadelphia and The Brooklyn Art Library.
Her last few years in Philadelphia were spent on the Delaware River building and restoring wooden sailboats at The Independence Seaport Museum. She was apprentice to master boat-builder John Brady at the museum’s Workshop On The Water. It was during this time that Jackie began incorporating traditional nautical signaling flags (and flags in general) into her work.

Since her move to Denver in 2012, she has taken time to explore other art forms beyond printmaking. In 2013 she was commissioned by The Allen Ginsberg Estate to create an illustration of “Ginzy” for various retail wearables in their online store and new brick-and-mortar shop in New York. That same year, she founded Front Range Flag Co., a passion-project turned full-fledged custom flag company with a focus on adventure, inspired by her new Colorado landscape. She has also had the pleasure to work on various illustration projects for PechaKucha, Denver Bicycle Café, Our Mutual Friend Malt and Brew, and Girls Rock Denver.

Jackie has shown around Philadelphia, New York, Denver, and the Netherlands. This is Jackie’s first solo show in Denver.

Instagram: @jackiebarry

Photography by: Amanda Tipton

Camp – Rene Farkass

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Rene Farkass

Exhbition: May 9th – June 7th, 2015

Artist Statement:
I am a figurative-based visual artist who uses appropriated material as my main visual medium for rendering the human form. I also document courtroom proceedings, such as the Joe Nacchio insider trading trial, on my own initiative at the City and County of Denver building and the Federal Court Center.

Both my drawing and painting styles are linear in nature, usually with an emphasis on a contoured, illustrative approach to the subject matter. The composition is usually stylized and incorporated in a loosely patterned color theme or in an appropriated text-based background. My artwork, regardless of the medium, almost always starts out as a drawing or sketch, created in the moment. In my figurative drawing work, I like to work with charcoal and pastels. My sketches are typically ink drawings rendered in a sketchbook I carry on me at all times. For figurative pieces, I chose the background material based on the pose and how it can interact with the text that is already printed on the page. I typically recreate about two-thirds of my drawings into oil and acrylic paintings.

What fuels me as an artist is the daily practice of exploring and crafting beauty through a well-depicted figure and through the relationship the human form has with the shapes and negative spaces of text, sheet music, even cartography. My personal definition of art is that it is a relationship. Art is also a discovery process, and every one of my pieces is created as a discovery of the human figure, human emotions, or human surroundings. It is a process of humans seeing themselves through the connections between creator and creativity, artist and artwork, painter and audience, and artwork and audience. All of these processes are in relationship with their surrounding physical, spatial and temporal environments.

The ultimate relationship that prolongs art’s life is the one between audience and memory. I challenge myself everyday to maintain that relationship in my artwork and to find new ways others can connect to how I perceive and recreate surroundings that move me.

About the Artist:
With a distinctive style that sets him apart in both tone and personality, Rene Farkass has been a recognized artist in the alternative Denver art scene for over 15 years.

Originally from Washington, D.C., Rene exhibited his first show at the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of American Art. He then went on to study painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and began specializing in figurative works and cityscape scenes. Back in Washington, D.C., he was an active member of the experimental art and performance scene and created The Boogins, an arts magazine that featured a variety of new, emerging, and established graphic artists.

After also living in Baltimore, Chicago, and Los Angeles, Rene decided to make Denver his home in 1995. His artwork can be seen all over the local alternative gallery scene, and he has been featured in KWGN Channel 2, Westword and the ongoing Monday Night Art Talks. In October, 2010, he married his wife Safa Samiezade’-Yazd, arts and music editor for non-profit news source Aslan Media Initiatives.

Photography by Amanda Tipton

Swells – Brittany Gould

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Brittany Gould
Exhibition: April 4th – May 3rd, 2015

Artist Statement:

Nothing subjective is constant. Like a body of water, what I think I understand about myself and about my life is in constant flux. Feelings about myself in the world, rise, ebb and morph like swells in the sea. Sometimes it feels like there is an ocean inside of my stomach, and sometimes it feels like just a stomach.

It is a strange feeling to feel connected with the universe around me and still so alone and uncertain. Swells is about this feeling. Letting being be. Like floating in water, to feel so a part of it, because it moves me how it moves, but no matter how it carries me, I will never be water.

I am drawn to the swells of water. Drawn to the movements of waveforms. They follow universal rules but they don’t seem to. They seem to have a will of their own. Water makes it seem as if one can hold power over it because it is so easy to handle, but one cannot. It just goes.

My work is like this. I assert myself onto the material, but in a way I let it move me too.

I am drawn to certain kind of materials. The feel. The texture. Lead: Dangerous, heavy, but malleable. Gives in easily. Paper: Easy to mar, velvety; toothed. Light: Bendable, warm, cold, harsh, soft. They can be so many things, I enjoy finding out what they could be. In the end though, they can only be what they are, and I try not to worry about it so much.

About the Artist:

Recently I moved from Denver, Colorado to Berlin, Germany. I am lucky to make art for a living.

Photography by Amanda Tipton

Beautiful Pornography – Scott Barman

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Scott Barman

Exhibition: February 20th – March 29th, 2015

Artist Statement:

Scott D. Barman – HSYR – is an artist whose vision is to accentuate the natural form and beauty of women and men through the use of film photography and minimal interference portraiture. Finding inspiration through the everyday interactions of humans, blink-and-you-miss-it moments, and his own personal depression and anxiety, Scott explores who we are when we shed away who we try to be and what happens when more is spoken through our body language than through our words. What may be seen as a random or even chaotic moment during his photographic sessions result in a surprisingly calm, serene aesthetic. Scott encourages his models to move freely so that he may experience who they are as individuals, thus capturing their true essence.

About the Artist:

Scott D. Barman, also known as HSYR, is an artist originally from New York who has been living in Denver, Colorado for the past five years creating photographic portraits of all those who enter into his life by chance.

Photography has always been a part of Scott’s life, starting with the theft of a Polaroid 600 camera from a yard sale at a young age. Peering through the narrow viewfinder taught him that there is more to the world than what we see and that by changing your perspective the world becomes infinite. However, the world often has a narrow perspective, as demonstrated by his multiple expulsions from art school due to differences in artistic acceptance with the human body. Overcoming depression, anxiety, and crippling self-doubt has led Scott to a sense of clarity and a newfound drive to publicly share his art regardless of society’s creative discrimination and the apparent disapproval of the skin we all live in.

Though the aesthetic of Scott’s art has changed throughout the years, one detail has remained constant: his raw ability to honestly portray those who stand in front of the camera’s lens utilizing film photography. The collection has grown into the body of work now known as BEAUTIFUL PORNOGRAPHY

At Home / On Stage – Glenn Ross

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Glenn Ross

Exhibition: January 10th – February 15th, 2015

Opening Reception: January 10th, 2015, 7-11pm

Artist Statement:
I’ve seen the many sides of music.
I’ve felt the ebb and the flow.
I know the before, after, and even more…
The distance between home and stage.

When I first started this project I didn’t know where it would take me. The plan was to see the places where musicians write, but I couldn’t have imagined what awaited me in gardens and on rooftops, in secret cellars and attics. Here is where I spent time with some of the best songwriters in Colorado; sharing stories on life and the journey of taking their songs from an idea to an audience.

Traveling to their homes shined a light on the personal worlds of musicians, but it was only half of the story; so I went to their shows to hear the other side – to see the contrast and connection between life at home and life on stage.

This collection of images at Leon Art Gallery is the result of over two years making photos at 20 homes and 60+ concerts. Each photograph was printed by me and mounted on figured maple boards. Polaroid photographs made on expired film hang in between the home and stage pieces. In all, there are nearly 70 images plus a projected slideshow of outtakes from the project.

About the Artist:
I started writing songs and performing at 17. I spent the next few years documenting the music around me; experimenting with video, photography, and audio recording. These pursuits were instrumental to everything that followed, but when the music faded I wasn’t holding a camera anymore.

Nearly a decade passed before I made another picture. I was at a recording session in Stockholm when something came over me. The next day I bought a camera and photographed the rest of the session – from behind the scenes to the front of the hall. When the day was done I’d make photos of the city, looking beautiful in the snow.

Since that journey I’ve continued to view the world thru a lens. Years of dedication have led to greater opportunities and successes, including a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and Colorado Creative Industries to fund the printing of this exhibition.

Photography by Amanda Tipton