5 February, 2008—Track 16 Gallery is pleased to announce FIVE concurrent exhibitions: JeffEry: BLINKY THE FRIENDLY HEN 30TH ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION; JAMES GOODWIN: NOSTALGIC SUBTERFUGE; LAURIE HASSOLD: SUPERNATURE; MARJAN HORMOZI: VICE SQUAD; DAVE SHULMAN: EXHIBIT DAVE; and SCOTTY VERA: EAT THIS. The exhibitions will be on view from March 8 through April 5, 2008 with opening receptions on Saturday, March 8 from 6 to 9 P.M. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 A.M. to 6 P.M.

James Goodwin’s work integrates found objects, thrift store junk, and props from collectible shops, drawing and text, as well as computer-manipulated content to convey a story. The boundaries between art and science become blurred in Laurie Hassold’s work, as she focuses on how these disciplines each negotiate the split between mind and body. In her drawings, Marjan Hormozi works with satirical themes within a historical precedent: filtering them through contemporary actors and staging them in theater-like settings suggesting Southern California locations. Exhibit Dave is a mix of text, artwork and artifacts generated from Dave Shulman’s columns in L.A. Weekly (Sitegeist and Column Dave), which ran from 1998 until 2007 and included stories on interesting subjects including involuntary cheerleading, Polynesian butt plugs, among others. As he explores issues of crustaceanism and Dom Deluise, emerging Los Angeles painter, Scottie Vera works in a wide variety of media and styles.

Goodwin statement:

The exhibition title, ‘Nostalgic Subterfuge,’ was derived from how some of my work operated while engaging the public: a reflection of the viewers’ conflicting reactions. Simultaneously the work and its use of older materials have a comforting sensibility when drawing the viewer in, while presenting information that upon further inspection, reveal and discuss uncomfortable issues that pervade contemporary American life, such as hate crimes, gender issues, religion, and sex and violence. 

Having been intrigued and influenced by the politically charged art of Ed Keinholz and the intimacy of Betye Saar, I have discovered that my artistic voice moved more towards using a dark sense of humor to tell the various stories I want to tell. While I integrate found objects, thrift store junk and props from collectible shops, I also combine drawing and text as well as computer manipulated content to complete the story. My art has been described as “an assemblage opera to an American myth.” I find it interesting to blur the lines of what is real and what is fabricated. Sometimes one finds relationships between objects that tell a story, or one stumbles across real characters from the margins of society that when represented, comment on important issues of the day and classic topics that are timeless and affect us all. While I have investigated topics that have been looked at by artists throughout history, I have always been intrigued by the mundane, the everyday, and finding the oddities in these individuals or subjects that speak to a larger more profound and usually uncomfortable, albeit humorous result.