RECEPTION: Saturday April 27, 2013 4pm-8pm.
Gallery Talk byMark S. Waskow, curator
at 4:30pm.
One Main/Union Station
Burlington, VT
 |
The Potato Eaters by Marc Awodey
|
5:30 – 6:30pm
Poetry of Marc Awodey featuring readings by:
Michael Nedell & Michael Jordan Evans.
7:00pm
Steve Goldberg…and more!
Food by Skinny Pancake and a Cash Bar provided by Finnigan’s Pub.
This event is free and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Mon- Fri 10am- 4pm.
One Main/Union Station
Burlington, VT
This exhibition was previously installed
at the Christine Price Gallery at Castleton State College, VT
from March
4 – April 5, 2013 and is being curated by Mark S. Waskow.
Painting IS The Object
Marc Awodey lived
existentially. He didn’t do drawing; he was drawing. Marc didn’t do
painting; he was painting. Marc didn’t dabble in anything, but he
excelled in a lot of different things. He was a true renaissance man.
In addition to being an award winning visual artist, Marc Awodey played
bass, was a published writer of both prose and poetry, was a publisher
and ran an independent imprint of Northern New England writers: The
Minimal Press, as well as being a deep and critical thinker. He ran the
Rhombus Gallery, an alternative space for all manner of arts that was
very popular during the 1990’s, located in downtown Burlington,
Vermont. He also was the primary art critic for what is arguably the
most art-centric newspaper in Vermont,
Seven Days. In 1997, he
won the John D. Donoghue Arts Criticism Award from the Vermont Press
Association. This is the top honor in this field of endeavor. He won
top honors for his visual art at juried, invitational and prestigious
annual competitive exhibitions in three different states. Most
recently, he co-founded
Vermont Art Zine, an online resource to
highlight, review and discuss visual art exhibitions in Vermont. A
perfect exemplar of Marc’s prodigious abilities is his last minute entry
into a haiku poetry contest which he didn’t know he would be attending
and certainly one in which he did not plan to participate, and ended up
being awarded the top prize, which was the title of Haiku Master
Champion at the National Poetry Slam in 2000.
Marc spent part of his
life formally as a teacher. He held adjunct posts at five different
colleges (not all at the same time). He really enjoyed this, and even
before he started teaching formally, it would have been clear to many,
that Marc was destined to do this. He was extremely bright and
articulate, willing to share, always interested in helping others to
gain insights into the fields that captivated him and was generally
quite patient about these things. His views and insights were often
world class; that is, he engaged in original thought on a regular basis,
and as a result, he had great clarity about many issues related to his
passions.
Marc had two periods
characterized by essentially abstract work. The first of these was
toward the end of his undergraduate studies at Johnson State College and
the time between these studies and his graduate work at the Cranbrook
Academy of Art. During this period, some of his largest and most
complex pieces were created. Many of them were used in a variety of
performances, with very few surviving into the present time. The second
period was between roughly 1997 and 2001. This was the intense poetry
period for Marc. He was converting now obsolete, through legislation
banning their use, cigarette vending machines into poetry machines, and
installing them in nearly every New England State and New York as well.
He was also just starting The Minimal Press and was consumed with
writing poetry. He was also reading from his writings in public,
sometimes at planned places and times and sometimes rather
spontaneously. This free-form-ness found its way into his painting as
well.
For most of his visual
art career, Marc was an expressionistic figurative painter, and it is
for this body of work that he is best known. During several years, he
would purchase random, unidentified photographs on e-bay and base his
paintings on these images. Ironically, the content of his work was, most
often, of no consequence to him. In fact, often when Marc was viewing
art for his art criticism column, he would be somewhat oblivious to the
content of the composition at hand. What mattered to him were the
formal considerations: How did the artist work with his/her media?-Did
they demonstrate a respect for it/them?-Was the composition balanced?-If
so, was this intentional or accidental; and was it a good thing or not
in that case?-Did the lines increase or kill the “action” in the
piece?-If color was involved, was it manifested with care and
consideration? In concert with his judgments of others’ works, he also
was quite often totally uninterested in the object or subject he was
painting. It was truly just another wonderful excuse to paint. As the
title of this show suggests, the objects he depicted were not the sum of
the painting, rather painting itself was the object.
This show is intended to
be a tribute to
Marc Awodey, who passed away way too soon on October
13, 2012, at the age of 51. His was a deep and keen intellect tethered
to that rarity; a kind and compassionate man.
Respectfully,
Mark S. Waskow, Director/Founder-The Waskowmium, Curator
The Art’s Alive exhibition program
brings communities together around art. The gallery at Union Station
shows Vermont Artists and art from other artist groups. We have
exhibited work by the members of the Northern Vermont Artist Association, Champlain Valley Regional High School Seniors, and Grassroots Art and Community Effort (GRACE).
As much as I would love for everyone to love and understand my abstract work, I realized a long time ago that not everyone does. I myself was not a fan of abstract work until 2006 so I cannot fault anyone for not “getting it.” All I can do is help people understand where the inspiration for my work comes from.
I have used Vermont maps for several of my pieces; they have given my work much more interest and have a “close to home” feel to them. I think people will find them interesting and may even find where they live in the background or on some of the petals. As I develop my idea and my composition, I then start to tear my paper into many different sizes and the appropriate shapes for the sunflower petals. I work my painted background first and when I feel the background will coexist well with the idea that I have, I then adhere the paper to the canvas.
Opening Reception: Friday, April 26, 6-8 p.m.
