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Howard Barlow
Safe and Sound
March 6 – 30, 2008
Opening Reception:
5-8pm
First Thursday, March 6, 2008
Artist will be in attendance the first and final Saturdays
of the month.
Howard Barlow’s new body of work, Safe and Sound,
is cold and unfriendly yet formal and safely non-objective with
evidence of an obviously dangerous past. Borrowing from a hospital
aesthetic, Barlow aims to bridge the gap between conceptions
of stability and volatility. Utilizing institutional powder-coat
colors, gun-barrel patina finishes, recycled bullet-lead solder,
reconstructed broken window panes, wool yarn, abused steel,
and actions such as knitting, hacking, shooting, shattering,
and leading glass, this body of work explores the symbiotic
relationships of danger and safety, vulnerability and protection.
This exhibition includes Seven Pains Mended, a series
of windowpanes broken out of Barlow’s own home. By means
of melting down spent bullet lead in combination with solder,
each pane has been reconstructed and placed in a bullet-riddled
steel frame. Other works, such as Big Guns Make Good Neighbors
and The Weather Outside is Frightful, consist of steel
panels that have been shot and/or hacked by hatchet or splitting
maul and linked together, lovingly, one to the next, with hand-knit
limbs. Notions of an armed population creating stability and
stereotypes of maternal versus paternal protective instincts
are explored in these works.
Howard Barlow lives east of the Cascades in the small rural
town of Thorp where he has converted an old firehouse into a
live/work space. He currently instructs art at both Columbia
Basin College and at Central Washington University.
www.hbarlow.com
Hours: Noon-5pm Friday-Sunday,
or by appointment.
Next Exhibition:
Animal Spell
Justin Gibbens & Amy Ross
(more info)
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Safe and Sound (detail), hatchet marked steel,
powder coat finish, 2008
Download Press Release
in Word format
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