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Residency Projects Part IPost an Event »

Kala Art Institute and Gallery

July 9 - August 16, 2009

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2990 San Pablo Avenue Berkeley, CA 94702
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Residency Projects Part I
Work by Kala Fellows Pawel Kruk, Samantha Lautman, Chris Turbuck & Lindsey White The Kala Gallery is proud to present the first of our two-part exhibition series, Residency Projects, featuring work by our 2008-2009 Fellowship artists. Pawel Kruk’s work frequently involves combinations of performance and video in which he takes on the guise of cultural icons. Recent works have focused on legendary athletes such as basketball superstar Michael Jordan and Olympic swimmer Dana Torres. In this exhibition, Kruk focuses his attention on Bruce Lee as he presents himself in the role of the martial arts messiah in a reenacted television interview originally seen in 1971. Samantha Lautman presents a series of large-scale narrative drawings that depict densely populated, semi-urban landscapes. Each scene is filled with androgynous individuals, wearing similar clothing, all simultaneously engaged in a variety of ambiguous activities. Lautman’s straightforward black and white drawings serve as an allegory for a utopian world in which national, ethnic and religious differences have been solved. Chris Turbuck presents a series of narrative drawings that comprise two thirds of a nearly completed graphic novel titled Fruitless. Turbuck’s tragic-comic autobiographical works explore his unsuccessful attempts to secure a position as a college art instructor. His powerful yet quirky style of drawing is perfectly suited to this selection of self-contained visual anecdotes that depict life’s daily struggles. Fruitless will be published later this year. Lindsey White’s recent video and photographic projects also revel in a deadpan, yet quirky humor that explores daily life. White’s works share her wonderment over the humor found in random moments of everyday life. Through the use of simple objects such as books, flashlights and the involvement of a few friends, White creates simple situations that capture the inexplicable magic of life that can easily be overlooked.