"The location of the organ" exhibition at Vox Populi Gallery 2019
THE LOCATION OF THE ORGAN
Running Through Dec 15th Gallery hrs Wed-Sunday 12-6 pm + Special Events
Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia
Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia
Centrally, the exhibit picks up where Strong’s last show at Vox Populi, “flight of fancy” left off, offering further evolutions of the artists self-invented technique of paint application which he refers to as “Recording”. In recording, evaporation preserves crystalline ghost-images in pure pigment via compressed film-like skins which are then transferred to paper, wood or canvas. Housed in bricolage reliquaries, emergent image and animatronic hemorrhage act as symbol-language inviting the viewer towards contemplation of the imaginary, the dream and the sacred. Along the way, The location of the organ finds us traveling in a a world of writhing furniture, numinous insects, invented musical instruments and the concert works of house pets. Insistently handmade/ low-tech, Strong’s work privileges the urgency of play as the revealing of a chance cartography. Mischief as Holy play. A comic record of daily terrestrial and extraterrestrial exchange.
photos by Jason Rusnock
SHADOW FROM A WORLD APART
Robert Chaney, Jim Strong, Paul Swenbeck and Linda Yun
collaborative installation
Friday, April 26 – Sunday, June 23, 2019
September 7, 2018 - October 20, 2018
For close to a decade, Jim Strong has developed an approach to painting using natural processes to make time and memory visible. Cultivating and casting residue from evaporated pigment, Strong transmutes in vivid color the forms of 3-dimensional topographies into 2-dimensional imprints. Slowly, family artifacts and found surfaces impart their likeness in a skin-layer, revealing a simulacra of the familiar. The evaporations are framed within idiosyncratic woven reliquaries and arranged in suspension, suggesting holographic apparition. A map of common ephemera rendered incoherent through repetition and overlay until a new map emerges through a coagulate of what is known and what is unknown.
In addition to painting, Strong’s work spans a variety of methods and media, including musical instrument invention, improvised performance, collaborations with dance and theater artists, and curation of exhibitions, festivals and event-programming.
In conjunction with Flight of Fancy, Strong will host interdisciplinary performances, workshops and lectures drawing on the intersection of the arts, spirituality, science and activism under his recently launched platform, Mutual Irradiation. In September and October, Mutual Irradiation events will be held within the gallery and in school and graveyard locations throughout Philadelphia. Performers include Gaelynn Lea, Kingsley Ibeneche, Zizia, Bhob Rainey, Marcia Custer, Machine Listener, Kimya Imani Jackson, and more
Sound/Installation at Rhizome DC 2017
