Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art is pleased to announce , a group exhibition featuring new artworks by Asbestos,
Cherri Wood, The Dark, Kngee and TAKE A
DEEP BREATHKnow Hope. While their methods of
composition are as different as the cities they call home, the artists
align to confront innocence, iniquity, alienation, and personal and
urban neglect. Artwork on display will comprise of a wide source of
media, including hyper-realistic stencils, intricate three-dimensional
cardboard works, large-scale photographs, oil pastel drawings, mixed
media collages, and raspberry-infused watercolors on paper and canvas.
An opening reception for the artists will be held on Saturday, June
21, from 8PM – Midnight, and is sponsored by ALARM Magazine and Imeem.
The Dark, Kngee, and Know Hope will be in attendance.

Dublin-based street artist Asbestos finds the dark, dank, and
forgotten objects of the street and transforms them into vibrant
pieces that share the history and present-day life of the city and its
inhabitants. His flair for mixed media combines photography, collage,
gold leaf, spray paint and acrylics to create unforgettable imagery
bursting with intensity. Highly skilled in portraiture, Asbestos has
recently lent his focus not only to his subjects' faces but also their
hands, broadening the viewer's perspective to encapsulate the part of
the human body he believes conveys the essence of the individual.

Cherri Wood also studies the complex subtleties of the human form, her
artwork roving the depths of feminine distress and despair.
Describing her pieces as “a cluster of ink explosions,” she splashes
the paper and canvas with diet coke and smudges it with willow
charcoal and graphite. While the faces of her waifish young women are
often concealed, their limber bodies express all, at times prostrate
with hysteria, at others stiffly upright in what is only an assumed
air of calm. In spite of their predicament, however, Cherri’s women
refuse to surrender, their breathtaking beauty seeping through their
anguish. Her current work marks a new direction and vibrant color
palette, altering the mood of each works.

Such disconnect can be perceived in the layered urban and natural
landscapes of Kngee. “For this show, I tried to re-conceptualize the
streets as an outgrowth of the concrete jungle,” he explains as he
captures the glowing majesty of the contours of Boston and New York
against the inner-city grime and contamination. A new direction for
the artist, this elaborate stencil series explores the city as a
sterile environment, so abuzz with human activity that no one ever has
the time to truly stop and connect. With contrasting textures, a
colorful, gritty aesthetic, and a unique play on perspective, Kngee’s
moody shadows and clean-cut lines invite the viewer to simultaneously
contemplate two contrasting environments of turbulent streets and Zen
foliage.

Haunted since childhood by visions of the apocalypse, Vancouver-based
artist The Dark interprets what he has seen in spectacularly
large-scale street pieces, then stages unsolicited installation
snapshots of his spellbound public. Amused by the irony of the street
art movement - “the romanticized notion of the creative process, a
sort of ‘everybody loves an underdog idealism’ with the artists
enveloping themselves in a kind of untouchable mysticism” – the
provocative artist thrashes out a novel perspective on the ownership
of information and the conceptual representation of perceived
intangibility. The magical desolation of The Dark’s visions conveys a
stark, poignant narrative of a civilization in decline, overwhelmed by
an overarching theme of indifference.

For Know Hope, the impressive installation and body of work he has
created for this show depicts a series of moments for a lovable hooded
hunchback who wears his patched heart on his sleeve and wanders the
world committing simple but powerful acts of kindness. A literal
manifestation of a significant life chapter in which his character
examines his relationship with himself, his surroundings, and what has
led him to where he is today, the installation is composed of three
layers: mural, multi-dimensional framed pieces, and free-standing
elements. Through observations and reactions to a "busted" world,
Know Hope’s character enters varying states of anticipation,
awkwardness, disappointment, and despair, before finally discovering a
place of contentment. Says the artist of his politically charged
thematic material, “I try to deal with the minor human conditions and
situations that make these issues up, rather than directly address the
issues themselves… I hope it doesn’t sound arrogant of me to want
those things to be seen, but I do try my best to be as honest as I can
when saying that we're all in this together.”

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