Swordfish, styrofoam, and sprouting growthBy Vanessa Carr
"Bloods & Crypts" (detail) by Kiersten Essenpreis
At the Johansson Projects gallery in Oakland, the natural and man-made, the real and the imagined collide in a group show that gallery owner Kimberly Johansson says is about consumption and sprouting growth.
"Moon Set" by Tadashi Moriyama
Gangs of children fight with swordfish in a snowy wood. The moon pours like effluent into an urban lake. Folded paper and Styrofoam pieces flock overhead. Bag-eyed girls spill fish from their mouths.
"Girls Make the World" by Alexis Amann
Opened March 20, "Propagations" features works by Tadashi Moriyama, Paul Hayes, Kiersten Essenpreis, Rebecca Whipple, and Alexis Amann.
Tokyo-born Moriyama inks overcrowded, intricately lined urban landscapes that he calls the "ancient future." Wires spill from windows, feeding a tangled knot in the middle of a warped city. Urban enclaves resemble dividing cells. Buildings sprout organs that seem like they are consuming one another.
Moriyama's work is as much a post-apocalyptic vision – where our material and digital structures are the only organisms to survive – as it is a reflection on the hyper-connectedness and loneliness that coexist in the era of global communications.
San Francisco local Paul Hayes' suspended folded paper and Styrofoam constructions float like flocks of birds or schools of fish. Johansson says that the similarity between Hayes and Moriyama's work was the inspiration for the group show.
"Victory" by Rebecca Whipple
Kiersten Essenpreis' pop-art, at times Henry Darger-esque, paintings re-envision and warp the fantasies of childhood.
Rebecca Whipple's delicate watercolor and gouache paintings explore the military consumption of one culture by another, documenting battle scenes and events like the looting of Iraq's National Museum.
Alexis Amann uses fairytale imagery from the sea to explore consumption and propagation. Houses fall into the water. Sea life consume one another. Fish mate with humans.
"Cultivated Momentum" by Paul Hayes
The Johansson Projects is one of many galleries that participate in the Oakland Art Murmur, which happens the first Friday of every month. The next Art Murmur will be April 4, 2008.
"Propagations," Johansson Projects, 2300 Telegraph Ave., Oakland, 510-444-9140, Thursdays – Saturdays, 12 – 6 p.m., March 20 – May 2, 2008.
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