Think of Me: Anonymous Artist, Anthony Campuzano, Felipe Jesus Consalvos, Paul Lee, Em Rooney, Dennis Witkin
February 8–March 16, 2019
Adams and Ollman is pleased to announce Think of Me, a group exhibition featuring artists whose work shares a visual and conceptual language with the vernacular traditions of keepsakes and mementos. On view in the exhibition will be two and three-dimensional works by self-taught and contemporary artists whose practices are united by techniques of fragmentation, accumulation, and decoration. Each artist presents a tableau of sorts, carefully constructed with varied, evocative materials and artifacts from their own or other histories that are transformed when assembled into resonant juxtapositions. Through collage and assemblage, the artists develop highly personal narratives that explore the themes of the physical and social bodies.
A 19th century sailor's valentine, brought home from a sailor’s voyage at sea, will be on view in the exhibition. Composed of a variety of seashells arranged in a radiating pattern, the keepsake, made by an Anonymous Artist and likely sold to a sailor at the height of the Victorian Age in Barbados, implores the beholder to “Think of Me.”
Also deploying language and pattern, Anthony Campuzano uses text from newspaper headlines, novels or song lyrics to make abstract compositions that function like rhythmic mantras or stutters. Often self-referential, his compositions frequently incorporate imagery of past works, as in An Autobiography (After Graham Greene, version), in which Campuzano pays homage to Greene’s memoirs "Ways of Escape" and "A Sort of Life" through color and text.
Felipe Jesus Consalvos, a Cuban-American artist and cigar-roller by trade, expanded upon the vernacular tradition of cigar band collage to create a sophisticated and personal body of work. In addition to cigar box liners and wrappers, Consalvos assembled newspaper clippings, magazine advertisements, and vintage photographs onto found paper, furniture, musical instruments, and other surfaces. His dismantling of familiar images and subsequent recompositions resulted in satirical scenes of hybrid forms—the head of a political figure combined with the body of a wrestler, George Washington wearing a long gown, a pelican on a motorcar—that, alongside their comic irreverence, address pressing issues of the 20th century, including questions of gender, race, American foreign policy, and popular culture.
Paul Lee’s series of wall-mounted assemblages use a variety of everyday objects—light bulbs, soda cans, used paint brushes and magnifying lenses—against the photocopied image of a man’s face and, most recently, a hand painted self portrait to investigate the relationship between photographic and painted space and longing and reality, as well as to explore coded cultural and sexual meanings. Lee’s assemblages present reflections on the body, intimacy and memory, while simultaneously grappling with abstracting desire and contemplating the language possessed by objects.
Amidst the ubiquity of images with which we live, Em Rooney draws attention to the tactile and sculptural aspects of the photograph. With meticulous embellishment and presentation, Rooney reasserts the power that a photograph holds as an object existing in three dimensions, one that endures but with qualities that shift with context.
Dennis Witkin’s relief sculptures collect various objects in mise en scènes oriented on the wall or floor. When installed directly on the ground, Witkin’s assemblages often appropriate the form and function of objects, some found and others constructed by the artist, that have an inherent, structural void. Each sculpture becomes a gathering site for varied and evocative objects that might be discarded or forgotten, such as the ghost of an image or a piece of desiccated fruit.
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
installation view: Think of Me
Felipe Jesus Consalvos
The Golden City, c. 1920–60
collage on photograph
19 3/4 x 24 inches
FJC 793
Felipe Jesus Consalvos
The Confirmed Bachelor Doesn’t Exist, c. 1920–60
collage on photograph
11 3/8 x 13 inches
FJC 856
Paul Lee
Tear Painter, 2018
soda cans, printed image on canvas, printed image on paper, lightbulbs, paintbrush, spray paint, acrylic paint, canvas, wire, tambourine skin, pastel, plastic paint container
9 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 3 inches
MA-LEEPA-00593
Dennis Witkin
Dustpan (Repairing Moon), 2019
epoxy clay, polymer clay, patina, paint tint, dried lemon, lemon zest, gluten free cookies
13 1/4 x 8 3/4 x 3 inches
Dennis Witkin
Dustpan (Repairing Star), 2019
epoxy clay, polymer clay, patina, paint tint, dried lemon, lemon zest, gluten free cookies
13 3/4 x 9 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches
Em Rooney
Flowers Howling Portfolio I, 2018
15 UV prints on aluminum, leather, cotton, Magic-
Sculpt, pewter, gold foil, copper, aluminum
19 x 13 x 3 inches
ER 072
Anonymous Artist
Sailor’s Valentine, c. 1850
shells, wood, glass, hardware
1 1/4 x 18 x 9 inches
Anthony Campuzano
Julie Christie (Version), 2015
ink and graphite on paper board with inset photograph
30 x 20 inches
ACamp 203