Arts & Culture Magazine - January/February 2008 - (Page 24) Exhibitions : : Ruinations: Tom Nakahima and Leslie Fry January 4-February 8: Showing at Selby Gallery, Ringling College of Art and Design. By Tobey Albright. There is an endless array of objects, patterns of activity, symbolic structures and beliefs that stand a good chance of falling to ruin. With the influx of production comes the acceleration of clearance and the onset of neglect. Tom Nakashima and Leslie Fry, the two artists in the exhibition “Ruinations” at Selby Gallery, use this re-conceptualized material as a basis for their work. Tom Nakashima is a Japanese-American artist with a multi-disciplinary approach to his personal artistic production. In his exhibition, “Berryville Tree Piles and Structure,” he takes the images of piled tree limbs (cut and discarded), dilapidated and abandoned buildings and reorients them as sites for creative propagation. By tediously collaging tiny pieces of paper torn from magazines and newspapers, Nakashima recalls the neo-impressionist’s technique of breaking color and form into basic elements, all while reflecting the digitally fragmented realm of our current media relations. The grid, which Nakashima uses in his massive work offers him a Zen opportunity by encouraging him to focus on each square as a compositional component in its own right, while ultimately reflecting a unified whole. Leslie Fry is an artist whose work is inspired by our most basic human needs, which she lists as “shelter, food, clothing, work and intimacy,” and realized by the transformation of our most basic human desires. A traditional approach to craft and technique breaches the shift from the imaginary to the real. By taking the site as the inspiration for the construction of a situation, Fry encourages the simultaneous remembrance and awareness of a passing world bonded by the will of creation. An object’s transformation from the mundane to the revered is inferred by the mythologizing transition of passing from one to another. This shifting of concepts and meanings reminds us of the role of art in the preservation of culture and the importance of hierarchy in the eternal return of the same. When considering the acceptance of the ruin and the relic as a celebration of that which has come before, we temporarily dislodge the piece of time reminding us that our stay on earth grows shorter with each passing minute. When resisting the internal and external conflicts of society and the changes in the natural environment, symbolic structures can delay their diffusion. The work of Tom Nakashima and Leslie Fry effectively sustains our age-old ideals of art by activating our imagining of a life without. Preview receptions and artist presentations: Leslie Fry, January 3, 5:30pm; Tom Nakashima, February 7, 5:30pm. Opening reception is January 4, 5-7pm. Selby Gallery is located at 2700 North Tamiami Trail. Call 941.359.7563 or visit www.ringling. edu/SelbyGallery.88.0.html for more information. 24 : : arts and culture magazine Detail Shot, 99 ½ Won’t Do by Leslie Fry. Orchard House Dusk by Tom Nakashima. http://www.ringling.edu/SelbyGallery.88.0.html http://www.ringling.edu/SelbyGallery.88.0.html
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