This show explores the boundaries, environments and landscapes our modern society has created. Whether the artist reaches back to the past or contemplates the present, they see it through modern and complex eyes. Modern Civilization features graphite drawings from Dieter Geisler, acrylic paintings from Suchitra Mattai and Andrew Sloan, and gouache paintings by Ronald Walker.

Dieter Geisler
My work focuses on the growth and decay of organic and structural systems and forms. Tragic and disjointed imagery collide, creating dense yet ambiguous environments. Complex, emotionally charged landscapes explore the concrete and ethereal through bodily systems and constructional diagrams. I choose to combine the familiar with the ghostly and delicate. These ideas manifest as graphite and ink drawings.

Suchitra Mattai
Through the trope of landscape, this collection of works on paper explores the dissolution of boundaries between the real and the unreal, the near and the far, and the personal and the global. Peering into mysterious places from the safety of familiar ones, the work investigates the way we experience transitions from place to place. I am interested in cultural and linguistic barriers and the manner in which communication breaks down at borders. Built on a ground of cryptic “text,” objects within the landscape are often translucent, rendering the text even more indecipherable.

Drawing from folklore and fairy tales, pop culture, and travel, I combine patterns, ornament, and palettes from diverse cultural sources such as Indian textiles and miniature paintings, Japanese prints, and domestic interior design. I wish to convey the sense of disorientation that is generated at these boundaries. Bright colors and multiple patterns ignite otherwise barren landscapes, indicating a sense of euphoria amidst isolation.

Andrew Sloan
This new series of work was developed from a collection of action illustrations I made, based on a book of black & white line drawings of images found on the walls of caves and mountainsides throughout Peru. They are in essence a reexamination of these primitive South American works, and in reality, paintings of drawings of drawings of paintings. I see a thread that runs 2-3000 years to make the ancient once again contemporary.

The simplistic line and touch of whimsy share a use of geometric, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures, recurring icons and symbols, and the ability to capture expression, tone or attitude with a minimalist approach.

Ronald Walker
Suburban Primitive: My work serves as a type of metaphorical roadmap of my life, which explores the inner aspects of my habitation in, and movement through the suburban experience.

Much of my autobiographical work, primarily done in gouache or graphite, has recurring themes such as change, containment and a sense of wonder. Rolling or flying houses, tornadoes or floating objects are concerned with change. Containment is symbolized through the use of walls and boxes, and the juxtaposition or combination of seemingly incongruous objects attempts to deal with the mystery of life.

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