October 4 – November 5, 2021
Artist Talk in the Gallery: October 19, 12:30 – 1:30
Recording of Anthony Vega’s Lecture
“Denotations (#sunglasses, metallique.productions)”
40×40″ Acrylic on fabric, 2021
STATEMENT
I found this note I wrote in my phone from right before the pandemic that I found interesting and funny; “Negotiations of a pretend and fancy life”. This is how I see my work. In a general sense, my work hinges on the idea of exploring the superficial and meaningful simultaneously. I navigate this, most often, from a perceived lack of belonging.
This show is a revisiting of thoughts between March 2020 and last week.
The idea of a “party” or an “after party” is fascinating to me and has a new definition in our current culture and climate. What is an “after party” anyway? As someone always thinking I am on the outside looking in, I don’t think I have ever been invited to an “after party”. Will I ever be cool enough to actually get invited to one? Will they let me in? Will I be asked to clean up?
And then I think of the pandemic and our politics and environment; What and when is the party after this one? Is there one? Will I be asked to clean up?
All these thoughts led to some paintings with images I found online, a painting on fabric from the first mask I tried to sew, another on a blanket, and some paintings about merging images (Venn diagrams) and some “neon” paintings from what I learned on YouTube. I convinced my family and friends to do some paint by numbers of my own work and I did some other projects with friends. (Thanks to all of them.)
This show is about life, its absurdity, and its hopes
I could go on
“You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
― Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable
Thanks for looking
Anthony
BIO
Anthony Vega is a visual artist, educator and curator in the Philadelphia area. Originally from the rural town of Green Creek, New Jersey he has spent the last 14 years pursuing his artistic career. His undergraduate work was completed at Saint Joseph’s University where he studied fine art and philosophy. His Master of Fine Arts degree was received from the University of Delaware.
He is currently Assistant Professor of Art at Reading Area Community college, and had previously taught as adjunct faculty at the University of Delaware and Penn State Brandywine, teaching studio courses, contemporary art theory and media studies. He exhibits his work in galleries, museums and other venues regionally and nationally. Anthony was also the director of the University of Delaware Philadelphia gallery, UD@Crane in the Crane Arts building.
Anthony’s current practice rests on his fascination of language, meaning and image. These interests are explored through the use of web-based images, color and layering, but specifically through the exploration of how interpretations and connections are made both personally and socially.
Reprieve/ Contact Lucidity (#neon paintings)
Turns out during the pandemic lots of us turned to “comfort foods”. I know I did.
I also did a lot of Twitter scrolling. This small series of paintings is borrowed from some text and a tweet I saw by Jerry Saltz. Jerry was writing about the Cezanne drawing show and referred to the work as providing a type of contact lucidity. A reworking of a quote from “A Scanner Darkly” by Phillip K. Dick; “He wondered how much of the insanity of the day–his insanity–had been real, or just induced as a contact lunacy, by the situation.”
Jerry was thinking, quite nicely, that Cezanne provides a type of awareness, and clarity of our world through his work. I really want to hold onto that sentiment; but can’t.
I’m just not sure a type of lucidity can exist in 2021. And if we could find it, it would be rather fleeting. I got to thinking about those things that “ground” us, or things that provide us pleasure or a kind of escape. Maybe not lucidity, but a break from the lunacy, or maybe its just more lunacy?
I turned to TikTok and then YouTube.
Turns out there are lots of people making paintings online. Folks making very different work than mine, for vastly different reasons than me. I thought I would look at one of the more popular methods emulated, “neon” painting. This is where you use a kind of technique to make lines in a painting look like they are made of neon light. So I made these.
These are “neon” paintings of comfort foods.
Near Project (paint by number)
I always wanted to see how my work would look if made by someone else. I have done a few projects in the past that explored this idea. But this particular moment seems most appropriate. Especially in this very strange pandemic time.
This project is an opportunity for me to connect and share with those that I missed during lockdown, or those that we found somehow more connected because of the pandemic.
I choose some of my favorite pieces that I made in the past and figured out a way to make each a “paint by number”. I mixed the paint, marked out the lines, packed it all up with directions and brushes …
I then asked some family and friends to make my work.
I am super lucky that there are people that I really should have sent one of these to, but couldn’t because of time. But this project I hope is something that I continue in the future.
Denotations
I think an almost unhealthy amount about what things mean. That meaning can be a lot of things; fiction, truth, self-serving, wrong, idealized, radical, fluid. In our current state(s) it seems that denotations by themselves can become unstuck, or their descriptions alone are in flux, or at the very least not easily identifiable or reduced.
I have never thought about fabric as much as I have in the past 19 months. The fashion and protection of masks, or the warmth provided by the blanket now available at the outdoor dining restaurant. I made two fabric pieces for this show. One from the fabric I used to try and sew my first mask and the second on a rather warm blanket that I bought at Ikea.
I combined these fabrics with shoes and sunglasses. Shoes take on a new meaning when you are outside all the time or when you don’t leave your house that much and sunglasses don’t need to do as much work to hide who you are in public since we are wearing masks all the time. Both objects really hold a lot of meaning and are fashion items but their denotations (the way we describe things) seem to have changed.