Running from November 6, 2015 to December 19, 2015 in the Main Gallery
Decoys and Devices brings together the work of Terry Conrad and Danny Goodwin in an examination of their rich use and perplexing representation of commonplace materials. The artists bend, wrap, slice, stack, clamp and glue to create objects, prints and photographs that are at once low tech DIY, cool and clinical.
The New Art Center is excited to host these nationally recognized artists whose work has never been paired until now. Curator Liz Blum invites viewers to experience this compelling investigation into the mechanics of process and perception that recognize the hand built in printmaking and photography today.
ABOUT THE CURATOR
LIZ BLUM (Newburyport, MA)
Liz Blum’s recent curatorial narratives follow metaphysical journeys into alternate realities and worlds of instability. Her interest in this pairing was in part spurred by the artists’ disparate approaches and contrasting personalities. “They are so different,” she says, “Terry is a very organic, off the grid type, and Danny a theoretical tactician, whose work investigates the grid. There’s a powerful creative tension between them. A certain balance that, in Lewis Carroll fashion, pursues a visual trek ‘down the rabbit hole’.”
Liz Blum is an artist, curator, researcher and writer from London. Recent exhibitions include work in Gdynia, Poland, Detroit MI, Los Angeles CA, Long Island City NY and Upstate NY. Recent writing included in Photographic Powers, Aalto University/Aalto ARTS Books, Helsinki, Finland. Her work may be viewed through online registries such as Nurture Art, Pierogi Flat Files, in Brooklyn, NY, and at her website at lizcooperblum.com. She currently lives in Newburyport, MA.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
DANNY GOODWIN (Delmar, NY)
For Danny Goodwin, object is currency, part of a system of staging. His photography translates our believability of objects into an imitation or “detour” in what we think we see. The systematic allure of his large format photographs set up a deceptive dance: how do ordinary objects function when placed in a repurposed space? Danny Goodwin works primarily in photography. He was recently co-awarded a research grant awarded for his proposal, “Picturing the ‘Anthropocene’: Workshop and Artist Residency,” which will enable him to work alongside James Casebere in the coming years.
A native Texan, his photographic, video and installation work has been seen in numerous solo and group exhibitions at Jack the Pelican Presents, Art Resources Transfer, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Momenta Art, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, all in New York City; the California Museum of Photography in Riverside, California; Proposition Gallery in Belfast, Ireland; and other national and international venues. He is Associate Professor and Head of Photography and Related Media in the Department of Art and Art History at the University at Albany, State University of New York.
TERRY CONRAD (Round Lake, NY)
In contrast, Terry Conrad sets the stage with complex compositional works constructed from recycled and found materials. His work’s coolness arrives from the clarity and muted colors of his prints and totemic homemade presses. These “printing” sculptures exercise the way a print can slowly evolve over time and systematically bear witness to the process of making. Conrad interprets personal histories materially through imagined detritus landscapes, mark making and printed text—his text The Orange Truck will be performed on opening night.
Terry Conrad, from outside Buffalo, New York, was recently awarded a Grant Wood Fellowship in Printmaking from University of Iowa. In the past he has been awarded a SPAF/NYSCA Grant and Skidmore College Faculty Development Grant. He received his BFA from Alfred University and MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. His work is included in the collections of the Frans Masereel Centrum and Cranbrook Art Museum. His recent solo exhibitions include Rocks, Boxes, and Dirt, Good Weather Gallery, North Little Rock, AR; Short Stories Part II, Lake George Arts Project, NY; Paper, Plastic, Concrete, The Foundry, Cohoes, NY. He currently teaches at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY.
