2006 June

Paradise Lost, curated by Dan Tague
9 June – 14 July 2006
Frederieke Taylor gallery 

Paradise Lost, curated by Dan Tague
9 June – 14 July 2006
Opening Friday, 9 Jun 2006, 6-8pm

Frederieke Taylor Gallery presents Paradise Lost, curated by artist Dan Tague, one of many artists forced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina. Temporarily relocated to New York, Tague has put together a show in an attempt to process this disaster. Combining artists from the Gulf Coast with artists from New York, this exhibition seeks to establish a dialogue about the loss and recreation of a paradise. Artists include: Yasser Aggour, Christine Catsifas and Kyle Reidel, Michelle Elmore, Sarah Emerson, Amy Finkbeiner, Rebecca Fuchs, Daphne Loney, Mike Peter Smith, Dan Tague, and Letha Wilson.
The quest for knowledge and beauty seems to end in alienation and destruction; it is the ultimate pathos in the face of something seemingly greater. Amy Finkbeiner draws Jesus with Marlene Dietrich’s eyes called “Sexy Jesus”, assuming an inherent vanity in the cult of religion. Sarah Emerson gives a depiction of an ’Eden’ which lends a notion of a world on the brink of demise, leaving remains of a glimmer of paradise. Daphne Loney appeals to personal loss and the fleeting memories that remind us of our past. Christine Catsifas and Kyle Reidel’s collaboration offers a seemingly comic version of desperate attempts to leave a paradise by dreaming of other places that do not exist, only to be awakened in one’s own, unavoidable circumstance.

Yasser Aggour deals with the feeble attempts of politicians to ’cover up’ as they are exposed to knowledge. Rebecca Fuchs gives us a view of a post-epidemic society in a state of surreal demise. In his sculptures, Mike Peter Smith offers alternatives to the private space confined to an asteroid, remaining apart from the disasters we inflict upon ourselves. Michelle Elmore’s photographs document a celebration of acceptance during an extreme period of struggle for African Americans in the Gulf Coast. Letha Wilson and Dan Tague’s works incorporate landscape into the struggle of urban sprawl.
Wilson invades the viewer’s space with structures protruding from natural environments, while Tague cuts away the defined areas that dictate states in order to reveal the area defined by the surrounding water. The artists in this exhibition incorporate isolation, segregation, neglect, preposterous alternatives, and/or nostalgia in their work to convey the theme of Paradise Lost.
Gallery hours are:Tuesday-Saturday, 11am to 6pm
Summer hours beginning July 1:
Tuesday-Friday, 11am-6pm
For further information and visuals,
please contact the gallery.