Little Cakes is back to storytelling. Last fall, with Inside the Fantastical Cave the gallery turned earthy and moist and went into and below soil to find a comforting womb.
Has the air filled with more wild malady since then? I can't tell. I stick my head out of my friendly, warm pouch and I hear the kicking and screaming and the criticism. I can't stand much of it. It lacks looking inward for answers and blames too much on the outside or on things we have little control over. Little Cakes Little Propaganda Minister, Claude Berg said in last year's exhibition essay, "Little Cakes believes identity (= form + content) can still be created through magick and mystery. All men and women need to do is get off their asses, accept and live fully within the modern world, no matter how bleak it feels, and shape it using both body and mind. Unearth new myth."
This time I wanted to make up my own myth of what might come to be or what I imagine to be the voyage to resolution. I dream about coming out of the cave and into a bright, sunny world. I want it to be blindingly full of Yes.
Yes in the Age of Wood is a journey from mortality to heavenly landscapes. It is a future fable told in three parts.
One - The end is also inception. Death as origin.
Mutants existing in minimal surroundings and the smell of destruction that has occurred. Remnants of soldiers from a war ended. Magnus Johnstone's paintings are like looking through Geordi LaForge's visor (any Next Generation fans out there?) onto a decimated world where man was made extinct and only by Darwinian luck, few oddities still roam. He paints using multi-colored stripes that remind me of waking up to a glowing television set that I left on before falling asleep on the couch. The frequency being somewhere between the flickering static and the hum of colored bars on the screen.
Two - Nature cleanses.
Architecture of an age long gone now untainted or structures being built by a crystalline mist floating through the lifeless planet blowing mysterious dust that activates with electrical flashes to birth new homes yet to be occupied? Christopher Martin's airbrushed paintings on denim are cosmic architectural diagrams inspired by architect Peter Cook, Buckminister domes, and Plug-In City. It is the fantasy of Tomorrow Land that I had always hoped for.
Three - The rebirth of life through love.
Life here is consciousness as existence. David Aron's Blue Series of tempera on paper is a glimpse of celestial territories; clouds, happy spirits, sprouting buds, rolling waves, stars stars and more sparkling stars. It feels pure and illuminated like a child at play. The air here cycles from crisp silence to whispers, to soft laughter, to wind whistling and back again. Overflowing with love, I don't ever want to leave and I don't need to.
In addition to his paintings, David's black and white / heaven and earth wood blocks are toys of delight for the contemplation of the newly born.
This journey will start in the dark, echoing hallway. It is an extended threshold and means of transportation through the glowing cosmos to the beginning of this tale...
Artists:
Christopher Martin lives in Toronto, Canada and is busy building a house and a shack before the snowy winter. In addition to his cosmic paintings he also has a three-eyed person, animal, monster, skull, etc... airbrushed t-shirt series that is super freaky.
He says he is thinking of making crispy, sweet Meringue mushrooms for the opening.
Magnus Johnstone lives in Bucksport, Maine and has one of the best names I've ever heard of. He has a radio show called The Matrix where he mixes spoken word with drum n bass, reggae, and hip hop. His latest hard edged, fast color, painting style he calls "Junglist" is named after the musical style.
He produces a comic book now on issue number XIII, Manga, only in black and white. It is a horrific Sci-Fi sexual dream.
David Aron lives in New York City and spends his days painting, skating, smiling and sparkling a whole lot, and often dreams about Iceland. Even though he has shown his work abroad and in ultra hip surroundings, he claims that this is his first "real" show. David was the catalyst for the idea of this show. He suggested I read a Daniel Pinchbeck article called Kali, Can You Hear Me? in the July issue of Arthur. It all became clear in a vision after that.
