Joseph O'Neal, joan of arc, 27.5" x 64" acrylic, chalk on found wood
They say it might snow again this weekend. I am so over this weather. Come in out of the cold, and don’t miss , Imaginary Arms, an exhibition of paintings, sculpture and photography opening Saturday at ARCH Collective NYC, 390-400 Troutman St. The show features bluetan art collective members Joseph O’Neal and recent addition Joe Strasser, along with Clark Russell, Grover Watts and Jeremy McDaniel. Rumor has it, the the avant-garde pirate Alex Chaplin, might show a secret installation.
Joseph O’Neal claims North Carolina as his lifelong home, but resides in Brooklyn. Critics say his work “creates a transcendental dialogue through a system driven by the archaic. Symbols, phonetics, and imagery come descendent from a past that, in the words of Motherwell, ‘…could only have been conceived of at present.” According to O’Neal,
“The work consists of two variables: the problem and the resolution. Both variables are present in the end result, like the shaking of hands at a peace treaty. The handshake dissolves my relevancy.”
Jeremy McDaniel is a sculptor and installation artist from Atlanta. A military school dropout, he feels his art is imperative to his discipline.
Joe Strasser worked often with bluetan, and recently fell in to the ranks. If an artist is influenced by his surroundings, The now Brooklyn based Strasser has a lot to go on; the suburbs of New Jersey, a van on a Hawaiian beach, a campground in Woodstock, to Miami, Fl. Of his work, he said,
“ It has taken me over 20 years to completely paint what I want. My work is mostly about using found material and placing it in a new context and giving it new life. This creates a certain kind of poetry with the found detritus. I also believe sex and death should always be present in a piece…”
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