30 Mar Performing Mythologies
April 10 – May 9, 2015
Opening Reception: Friday, April 10th, 7-9 pm. Free
Artist Talk: Thursday, April 16, 7 pm. Paula Gillen and Natalie Krick with exhibition organizers Conor King and Katie Harwood. $5 general public; Free to CPAC members and students.
Artists: Paula Gillen (Boulder, CO), Jamil Hellu (San Francisco, CA), Natalie Krick (Fort Collins, CO), Anna M. Rose (Florence, Italy).
[slideshow_deploy id=’14062′]
Performing Mythologies addresses the fluctuating nature of identity. The show features four artists who examine both external and internal identities, and the complex elements that create them.
Ideas of self, celebrity, imagination, gender, portraiture, and the flux of self-definition are dissected through their playful, irreverent, and insightful photographic work. The exhibition articulates latent and invented identities and the way that they are shaped by experiences in society.
The performance-based photographs of Natalie Krick ( Fort Collins, CO) and her mother highlight the artifice of beauty in ways that are both seductive and flawed. Through the use of garish color, harsh light and recurring motifs, Krick distorts and exposes the clichés of mainstream femininity.
Jamil Hellu (San Francisco, CA), in an ongoing project, invites people to create their own characters (and costumes) based on their interpretations of the idea of the superhero, and their own approaches to what defines heroic. The result is a blend of diverse social references in playful, performative- yet striking- portraits.
Anna M. Rose (Florence, Italy) works in photography, video, and installation to create manifestations of the internalized notions of femininity and sensuality. Often dealing with hair, Rose’s aesthetic is at once compelling, familiar, and uncomfortable.
Paula Gillen (Boulder, CO) merges portraits of 1940s Hollywood starlets with indigenous masks to evoke hidden states of mind and repressed emotions. By choosing shamanistic masks for her female stars of yesterday, Gillen gives them distinct new roles and new identities to play.
Performing Mythologies is a companion exhibition to Role Play, presented by CPAC at RedLine Denver March 14-April 25, 2015. It is one of four exhibitions presented by CPAC during the 2015 Month of Photography. Check www.mopdenver.com for details of all MoP events.
