KEITH MAYERSON AND ALLISON SCHULNIK

I fear empty space, I love empty space. The space is full and the space is empty.

MAY 11- JUNE 15, 2019

ODD ARK LA is pleased to present I fear empty space, I love empty space. The space is full and the space is empty, an exhibition of a painting of a cat by Keith Mayerson and a painting of a cat by Allison Schulnik - in the space that is ODD ARK LA.

I fear empty space, I love empty space. The space is full and the space is empty. The room is not empty, it is full of light, and in the space hangs a painting of a cat by Keith Mayerson and a painting of a cat by Allison Schulnik. You might be there too. It’s simple and it is not. It’s intense, and it is not. 

The exhibition space is a container, it is an ark. The container is a space that opens possibilities that might result in a line of inquiry. Some questions that might unfold into this scenario are: Where does our visual field start and stop when viewing art? Are there "blind spots" when looking at art? If so, what does our brain “fill in” - visually and conceptually. What are we projecting into the experience and into the space? 

Cats usually tease answers to questions like these... 

Keith Mayerson has professionally exhibited his art in galleries and museums since 1993. His exhibitions are often installations of images that create larger narratives. Each work is imbued with allegorical content that relates to the world, yet allows through its formal nuances for the transcendent and sublime. The works stand on their own for form and content, but like a prose poem of images on walls, experienced in context the images as a series, the viewer creates the ultimate meaning for the installations. Mayerson was a Semiotics and Studio Art Major at Brown University where he received his BA in 1988. In 1993, he earned his MFA from the University of California Irvine, and is now Professor of Art at the University of Southern California and Chair of Painting and Drawing. Mayerson's work is featured in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Columbus Museum of Art, The Davis Museum of Art of Wellesley College, MA, and the American University Museum, Washington, D.C. His graphic novel Horror Hospital Unplugged, a collaboration with the writer Dennis Cooper, is well known among graphic artists. A graphic novel biography of James Dean is forthcoming, to be published by Fantagraphics. Mayerson’s work was prominently featured in the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art with a solo show My American Dream, the Whitney Biennial, and the Whitney Museum’s inaugural show, America is Hard to See.

Allison Schulnik uses painting, ceramics, and hand-made, traditional animation to choreograph her subjects in compositions that embody a spirit of the macabre, a Shakespearean comedy/tragedy of love, death, and farce. Her works were compared to "the comic-grotesque visionary James Ensor" by The New York Times. Solo exhibitions include the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT; Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA; Oklahoma City Museum of Art, OK; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles; ZieherSmith, New York, NY; and Galeria Javier Lopez & Fer Frances, Madrid. Schulnik has been making animated films since she was 17. Her films have been included in internationally renowned festivals and museums including the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, LACMA, Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Animafest Zagreb. She received “Best Experimental Animation” at the Ottawa International Animation Festival and Special Jury Prize at SXSW FIlm. Her work is in the permanent collections of over a dozen institutions including LACMA and Museum des Beaux Arts, Montreal. She lives and works in Sky Valley, CA.


For inquiries, please contact: odd.ark.la@gmail.com