CAVIN-MORRIS GALLERY

CURATOR'S CHOICE

JANUARY 21 - MARCH 2, 2006

Keith Goodhart's new work expands his themes of personal freedom and the nature of avoiding entrapment in contemporary human foibles.  There is a rhyme between his work and those primal artworks of healing where spirits both good and evil are embedded into objects where they can be isolated and studied, and ultimately controlled.  He owns and works on a small sheep ranch in the West where ecological issues deal not only with the encroachment of men upon the earth but spiritual and ethical encroachment as well.  The harassment of Native Americans and nuclear proliferation are some of the mundane issues in the grasslands.  Art becomes a way of personally increasing one's voice in a place where sounds can go miles before making any kind of contact.

Indeed his work is inhabited by landscape and sky.  But it is not empty.  He fills it with human history and interchange.  There are always secrets for the eye to engage in, intriguing dialogues that are not one-sided.  His work serves not only as amulets for himself and his friends, but as functioning gatekeepers to oversee the health and life cycles of the animals on his ranch.  It is the meeting place of function and intention that is so fascinating about his roughly beautiful mysterious work.

Curator’s Choice, our annual group exhibition, will take place in Gallery I.  We are pleased to introduce the work of Ignacio Carles-Tolrá whose drawings were first discovered by Jean Dubuffet, and Shuvinai Ashoona, an Inuit woman whose drawings reflect an intimate view of stone formations found on the tundra.  We will also be showing new large format drawings by Chris Hipkiss, work by Sabhan Adam, several newly discovered paintings by Jon Serl, and newly released healing machines from the Emery Blagdon estate.