Corporeal Anxieties in the making.

Hunter Stamps is a colleague of mine who works primarily in ceramic sculpture.  His work is evocative of the body/flesh/organs represented with bulky highly articulated surfaces and masses.  As I type that, it sounds a little familiar to me.

Hunter Stamps * Xipe Totec

Every so often we do faculty shows in the Museum of Art located on the campus of the University of Kentucky. On one such occasion, Hunter's sculptural pile of fleshy meat was sitting on a pedestal next to my painted fleshy pile of meat which was floating on the wall - back and to the left.  Several happy museum goers said, "you guys should do a show together."  The next year, we were both in a show at the Lyric Theater in Lexington KY.   The theme of the show was recipients of the Al Smith Individual Kentucky Artist grant to which we both qualify.  What do you know but Hunter's sculpted pile of lumpy flesh was positioned just next to my "Fat Man with Redwing Blackbird."  A theme is developing.

"Fat man with Redwing Blackbird" is a painting from my Hinkle series and was a prelude to the more abstract fleshy masses to follow.  I think you would agree that it pretty strongly relates to the meat pod pictured below.









While at the opening of the Lyric Theater show, several happy gallery goers remarked that, "you guys should do a show together."  In a flash of insight (brought to us from a gaggle of other viewers and in a painfully slow time frame) Hunter and I said, "we should do a show together."  So when I was contacted by the Giles Gallery in the Spring of 2014 to propose/curate a show for Sept/Oct 2014, I looked out across the great plain of artists and ideas and chose....well, myself.  And Hunter.  The show was proposed, accepted and titled.  Corporeal Anxieties was to be and Hunter and I are having a show together.



My meat pods are acrylic paintings on an adhesive vinyl.  They adhere to the wall directly, and sometimes look as though they are painted directly on the wall.  The Giles Gallery at Eastern Kentucky University has self healing carpeted walls.  This presents a problem for large paintings on sticky vinyl as they will not stick to an irregular surface like carpet.  Hunter and I set about over the course of the last two-three weeks to position these paintings on Masonite that is then shaped to fit the painting.

    

The process is very nearly complete with just a few more steps.  The first trial of the show will be in the back of the Barnhart gallery at the University of Kentucky as part of a faculty "in-progress" show. More on the dates of that show to follow in an updated post.

The version of the show to be installed at Eastern Kentucky University will be on view Sept 22 with an opening reception to follow in an updated post.

For more information on Hunter Stamps work go to: www.hunterstampssculpture.com