Best Art Show

It's June and I'm walking into the depths of Chelsea, this can mean only one thing: I'm headed to another art school graduate art show! (click here for last year's art show, the one that belonged to Lexia)



This year's graduate,


Mr. Jared Clark.


And his work...


Jared was a graduate of the VCU Painting program, so he had to explain to a lot of people why 300lbs worth of figurines fused together by...uh...resin(?) was a painting. Come on, people. If it this isn't a painting, then what is it? (Hint: it's not a sculpture because the culture exhibition was in a different room)


Bonus: Here's a post on Jared's blog about the birth of this piece.

Another painting of Jared's. Better photos of this very difficult to photograph well piece available here on his blog.



Jared's work provoked admiration and contemplation in all who observed it.


Let us consider some of Jared's fellow art exhibitors. I bet going to Art School is really fun, you know, coming up with ideas and concepts, implementing ideas and concepts, constantly defending and validating your ideas and concepts and (if you so choose) attacking and invalidating the arts and concepts you encounter from day to day. Some of what I saw at the show I liked, some I did not.

Under "Like" we can definitely file this whale:



Feathers. The best way to convey the concept of "baleen." The one thing I definitely learned in kindergarten was what baleen was. And who Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't, but that's another story.

I was feeling these paper rolls, too. Stalactites/Stalagmites. Also an important thing you learn about at about kindergarten age.

And I liked this parachute drop. In kindergarten I would not have agreed to a ride on the Knott's Berry Farm parachute drop. But let me try to move away from this sudden kindergarten fixation. I need to be talking about art.

Spend enough time at an art show and you start considering the aesthetics of everything, including the walls of the elevator.

Volcanoes were big this year. I counted at least 2 volcano paintings. This would be the btter of the two.


This painting is made of paint and holes drilled in the wall.


Dozens if not hundreds of hand-painted graphs.


This cat gave me a gross feeling inside. It's the one disagreeable thing I saw that day that I photographed. One thing that I did see that I wasn't buying was a sculpture involving strings, ceramics, and a record player. Sorry. No me gusto.

I think it was pretty much unanimously agreed amongst Jared's friends that Jared's work was the best in the show. Congratulations were in order. I think it's pretty cool that Jared's thing is art and that he's totally making it work for himself. He knows where his Captain Jack compass points and he's following it.