The Sam Francis Gallery at

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Presents

Social Icing

Exhibition: Feb. 20-March 15, 2019

Opening Reception: Wednesday, Feb. 20 // 4-6 p.m.

Artists:

Edgar Arceneaux

Phil Anderson Blythe

Shelley Heffler

Malisa Humphrey

Emily Mast

Kenny Scharf

Art Project Curatorial Students:

Nina Baratelli

Kate Kenny

Sarah Reid

The student-curated Social Icing exhibition is a psychologically engaging experience, with loud and lusty arrangements. The displayed works communicate an array of societal issues in their individual aesthetic, while pulling the viewer in with an alluring façade, or “icing.” While each piece is superficially enticing, the underlying meaning is delicate, allowing for a deep connection between the creator and consumer—disguising vegetables as sweets. Each work in Social Icing speaks to the community while rewarding each person’s diligence through the decadence of the work’s glamor.

Phil Anderson Blythe paints and draws the human body as a form of commentary about the inevitability of death regardless of personal looks. In his painting, Lambs, he reflects Women’s Equality Day through two average-bodied women holding hands in solidarity against sexism.  Edgar Arceneaux works with sculpture, installation and drawing, making connections between historical events and modern-day truth. Crystal Paradox uses crystallized sugar as a beautiful contradiction, a geometrically frozen yet organic form growing like roots into the bindings, coating law books and FBI letters as a metaphor for protecting the rights of citizens. The project was inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words. Kenny Scharf uses bold colors and his unique style to connect with the masses, incorporating highbrow and lowbrow, hoping to make his works relatable to everyone. PIKABOOM is dazzling in its magnificent aesthetic. However, the sculpture itself is an atomic mushroom-cloud explosion, calling for attention to both creation and destruction, with a sparkle that makes it hard to look away.

Shelley Heffler uses vinyl posters, maps, old canvas and other materials to create layers of social commentary. “I paint topographies that lead the viewer on a path beyond maps, grids, and lines, into an unknowable geography where surface, strata, and landforms evoke a sense of an imaginary place.” Malisa Humphrey explores patterns and an array of materials in A Guest, A Host, A Ghost to create depth and coat the underlying themes of cultural identity and colonialism. Emily Mast examines the obscurity of language, kinesics and miscommunication in B!RDBRA!N as this piece allows for self-conscious reflections. With more than a spoonful of Social Icing, viewers will get more than the medicine going down. Maybe they’ll be cured somehow.