Guerrero Gallery is pleased to present Kountər Pärt, an exhibition featuring new paintings by Kevin E. Taylor.  These works explore and question the functionality of natural and synthetic materials through visual compositions of formulated schematics.

Depictions of mirrors and improvised structures, which fuse the organic with the inanimate, serve as visual aides whereby Taylor provides separate and simultaneous fields of vision.  His fabricated structures and scenarios allow for an all-encompassing view where both the aggregate and its moving parts can be synchronously examined. Through the mystery
of the objects within, the works beg to be more deeply understood. Taylor’s visual aides present an outlet through which we are encouraged to experience this curious exploration through the many facets and perspectives tied to those functions.

Kevin E. Taylor was born in Charleston, SC and received his BFA from The Savannah College of Art and Design.  His work has been exhibited and published throughout the US, as well as internationally in Berlin, London, Italy and Malmo, Sweden. Though primarily an oil painter, he also works with time based art forms such as sound and video. Taylor lives in San Francisco, CA.

Pathétique – Taravat Talepesand

Pathétique: Affection the emotions of pity, grief or sorrow; touching.

The show introduces three parts: Drawings, sculptures, and installation. Each drawing will be accompanied with one broken sculpture below, and in the center of the project room 12 sculptures will be arranged in a row on a pedestal.

I was first introduced to the French title Pathétique by listening and playing Beethoven piano sonata in C minor. The melody struck me with two opposing male and female voices struggling and arguing. I’m introducing a new direction in these drawings by focusing on the interaction between the protagonist and antagonist. The male and female roles are established by animate and inanimate imagery of Eastern and Western traditions. I decided to reinterpret Persian miniatures of male mullahs, clerics, poets that have also been visually described as sorrowful, bearded men, a signature style of great sophistication based on
familiarity with classical antiquity. The limited colors of black, white, and gold are to heighten the difference between the male and female roles in the exhibition.

The new work has been inspired by Iranian clerics suggesting a “cultural campaign” against Iranian women and their Westoxication. My new interest in sculpture and the piece “Mullahs Ghost” follows the words of Lynda Benglis, “What if I was my own subject and my own object, looking back at the men and the viewer in general?” A burka is intended to veil the female body from the male gaze. The market for body modification in Iran and the Middle East is rapidly increasing, thus the collaboration between the female sculptures and the male drawings collide, representing subversive tension between resistance and control, devotion and submission. Both clerics and sculptures are “Pathétique” by being vulnerable with the other, thus presenting the effect that desire can have on an object.

Pathétique: Affection the emotions of pity, grief or sorrow; touching.

The show introduces three parts: Drawings, sculptures, and installation. Each drawing will be accompanied with one broken sculpture below, and in the center of the project room 12 sculptures will be arranged in a row on a pedestal.

I was first introduced to the French title Pathétique by listening and playing Beethoven piano sonata in C minor. The melody struck me with two opposing male and female voices struggling and arguing. I’m introducing a new direction in these drawings by focusing on the interaction between the protagonist and antagonist. The male and female roles are established by animate and inanimate imagery of Eastern and Western traditions. I decided to reinterpret Persian miniatures of male mullahs, clerics, poets that have also been visually described as sorrowful, bearded men, a signature style of great sophistication based on familiarity with classical antiquity. The limited colors of black, white, and gold are to heighten the difference between the male and female roles in the exhibition.

The new work has been inspired by Iranian clerics suggesting a “cultural campaign” against Iranian women and their Westoxication. My new interest in sculpture and the piece “Mullahs Ghost” follows the words of Lynda Benglis, “What if I was my own subject and my own object, looking back at the men and the viewer in general?” A burka is intended to veil the female body from the male gaze. The market for body modification in Iran and the Middle East is rapidly increasing, thus the collaboration between the female sculptures and the male drawings collide, representing subversive tension between resistance and control, devotion and submission. Both clerics and sculptures are “Pathétique” by being vulnerable with the other, thus presenting the effect that desire can have on an object.

The choice to use Chinese silk paper, which cannot be found in the United States, compares Chinese calligraphy drawing with that of Persian manuscripts and the tension between three distinctive cultures. Between the United States depending on China and sanctions against Iran, the choice to incorporate two distinctive historical styles are an allegory of how relationships between countries manifest errors.

Taravat, was born in Eugene, OR and currently resides and works out of San Francisco, CA. She has been showing consistantly in the States and Internationally at galleries such as, Yerba Buena, Marx and Zavattero, Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles, Plane Space in NY, Galerie Une in Zurich, Switzerland. She has won awards like, Richard C. Diebenkorn Fellowship, New American Paintings: MFA Annual Competition, and recently the Emergency Assistance Grant, Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation. Taravat, received her MFA in painting at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2006.

Hilary Pecis

Guerrero Gallery is pleased to present Consensus, an exhibition of new works by Hilary Pecis. Made up of collages composed from 100 unaltered image files sourced mainly from Google Images, this body of works examines Pecis’ interest in the variety and association between images and these singular words or phrases, as dictated by the internet.

The idea that media has sculpted an idyllic image for every experience or imagined experience is aparent. A search for “Meadow” results in multiple images that look almost identical, where the horizon lies just below midpoint with the top half blue and the bottom half green. A search for “Heaven” conjures up a wider spectrum of imagery, with the majority having a muted palette, clouds, and a bright spot. These associated images layered together result in an inability to see any or all of each image, but the ghosting imagery and general sentiment still shines through.

For some word searches, Pecis’ selects source images that were of the same color and size, but seemed to not match the word. For “Cardboard”, she utilizes imagery of pizza and pallet. By manipulating these images to form a combination of the two, her attempt to create an association between them is evident. Her works spotlight the media’s ability to influence and sometimes distort our perceptions, through a flood of readily available information.

Hilary Pecis is a native Californian, having received both her MFA and BFA at California College of the Arts. She has exhibited her work at Catherine Clark in San Francisco, Roberts and Tilton in Los Angeles, Morgan Lehman in New York, Western Exhibitions in Chicago, and Galleria Glance in Turin.

Guerrero Gallery is pleased to present Kountər Pärt, an exhibition featuring new paintings by Kevin E. Taylor. These works explore and question the functionality of natural and synthetic materials through visual compositions of formulated schematics.

Depictions of mirrors and improvised structures, which fuse the organic with the inanimate, serve as visual aides whereby Taylor provides separate and simultaneous fields of vision. His fabricated structures and scenarios allow for an all-encompassing view where both the aggregate and its moving parts can be synchronously examined. Through the mystery of the objects within, the works beg to be more deeply understood. Taylor’s visual aides present an outlet through which we are encouraged to experience this curious exploration through the many facets and perspectives tied to those functions.

Kevin E. Taylor was born in Charleston, SC and received his BFA from The Savannah College of Art and Design. His work has been exhibited and published throughout the US, as well as internationally in Berlin, London, Italy and Malmo, Sweden. Though primarily an oil painter, he also works with time based art forms such as sound and video. Taylor lives in San Francisco, CA.

Hilary Pecis

Guerrero Gallery is pleased to present Consensus, an exhibition of new works by Hilary Pecis. Made up of collages composed from 100 unaltered image files sourced mainly from Google Images, this body of works examines Pecis’ interest in the variety and association between images and these singular words or phrases, as dictated by the internet.

The idea that media has sculpted an idyllic image for every experience or imagined experience is aparent. A search for “Meadow” results in multiple images that look almost identical, where the horizon lies just below midpoint with the top half blue and the bottom half green. A search for “Heaven” conjures up a wider spectrum of imagery, with the majority having a muted palette, clouds, and a bright spot. These associated images layered together result in an inability to see any or all of each image, but the ghosting imagery and general sentiment still shines through.

For some word searches, Pecis’ selects source images that were of the same color and size, but seemed to not match the word. For “Cardboard”, she utilizes imagery of pizza and pallet. By manipulating these images to form a combination of the two, her attempt to create an association between them is evident. Her works spotlight the media’s ability to influence and sometimes distort our perceptions, through a flood of readily available information.

Hilary Pecis is a native Californian, having received both her MFA and BFA at California College of the Arts. She has exhibited her work at Catherine Clark in San Francisco, Roberts and Tilton in Los Angeles, Morgan Lehman in New York, Western Exhibitions in Chicago, and Galleria Glance in Turin.

Erin M. Riley

Guerrero Gallery is pleased to present Forgotten in a File, an exhibition of new works by Erin M. Riley. Riley’s tapestries, woven from a Macomber floor loom with hand-dyed wool yarn, are inspired by imagery produced by the internet generation. Through her works, she explores how social networking, tied to photo sharing, has resulted in an addictive need for new imagery, recognition through “likes”, and the desire for conversation through comments. Riley believes that a dependence on traffic flow, constantly posting and looking for more, and the highs and lows of this image attention, produces tendencies that are similar to impulse control disorders.

Drawn to images of self-discovery, experimentation, regression, and development, her works depict a generation of excess and confusion. In some pieces, she depicts sexual objects, obsessive objects (tweezers), and drug & alcohol implements, all of which correlate to the ways some young women are dealing with the pressures of an image saturated culture. In the context of sexuality and the ways women present themselves, the idea that self-pleasure and self-hate have the ability to provoke the same guilt is brought to our attention. Affected by the new images readily available on the internet daily, ideas of sex & sexuality are being altered, and relationships & courting are becoming a visual dialogue utilizing images to express feelings and sustain interest.

Riley’s work is always personal, relating to the things happening in her own life or her family’s. It is a misconception that she is laughing at the women in her pieces, as she weaves her tapestries to commemorate the moments when life knocks us down and we get back up. She subverts images representative of flaws, insecurities and weakness, which were never meant for mass consumption, into symbols of beauty, independence and strength. She is interested in the small moments and objects in life that are pivotal in altering a one’s life, either instantly or slowly over time, and how these moments and objects become coping mechanisms as time goes on.

Erin M. Riley received an MFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, where she currently lives. She has shown her work at the Fleisher Art Memorial and Bambi Gallery and in Philadelphia, Sky High Gallery in Milwaukee, Deer Run Artifacts in Cambria, and Helene Davis Gallery in Virginia. Erin has been an artist in residence at The MacDowell Colony and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art.

Guerrero Gallery is pleased to present The Brinksman, an exhibition by Cleon Peterson. Through his paintings, we encounter a world riddled with anxiety, corruption and savage ferocity, where deviance and violence equal the usual state of affairs. Peterson describes his bedlam as “a gray world where law breakers and law enforcers are one in the same; a world where ethics have been abandoned in favor of personal entitlement.”

Peterson depicts life as war between displaced individuals in a dystopian world. Acts of brutality, abuse and perversion serve as rituals of power, revealing narcissistic indulgences in violence, sex, religion and drugs. In exploring the tension between the individual consciousness and unconscious psyche, Peterson’s paintings bring to light the resulting possibilities when varying moral schemes are personified. When faced with the dilemma of fight or flight, it’s fight. We observe an ongoing struggle in the thick of a contemporary world, where the instinctual desire to survive through primitive actions takes reign.

Currently living and working in Los Angeles, Cleon Peterson was born in Seattle and received a BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit. He has shown at New Image art in Los Angeles, Alice Gallery in Brussels, Joshua Liner Gallery and Deitch Projects in New York.

When You Get Power – Bill McRight

Guerrero Gallery is pleased to present When You Get Power, an exhibition by Bill McRight. Through a fascination with individuals and groups who depart from the mainstream to exist on the fringes of society, such as soccer hooligans, street gangs, prisoners and skin heads, McRight’s invented artifacts symbolically represent the inherent resourceful nature of those choosing to exist apart of the norm.

While using an angle grinder, a drill and a hammer, McRight handcrafts crude stabbing and bludgeoning weapons from old tools and other found materials collected from the streets and flea markets. The process of discovering the materials and determining how to manipulate them is a significant part of his creative process. With old tools having an inherent yet unknown history, McRight utilizes the story visible through the wear on their handles and metal parts to determine how the tool should be reinvented. Through his work, discarded materials are given a new life that is both utilitarian and aesthetically intriguing.

In addition to the shivs, the exhibition features spiked baseball bats and stash books. This body of works considers the fetish of violence and weapons, and examines the reasoning and intensity behind people’s interest in collecting weapons, either as tools or as artifacts of time and culture.

Bill McRight received his MFA from Pratt institute and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

Guerrero Gallery is pleased to present The Brinksman, an exhibition by Cleon Peterson. Through his paintings, we encounter a world riddled with anxiety, corruption and savage ferocity, where deviance and violence equal the usual state of affairs. Peterson describes his bedlam as “a gray world where law breakers and law enforcers are one in the same; a world where ethics have been abandoned in favor of personal entitlement.”

Peterson depicts life as war between displaced individuals in a dystopian world. Acts of brutality, abuse and perversion serve as rituals of power, revealing narcissistic indulgences in violence, sex, religion and drugs. In exploring the tension between the individual consciousness and unconscious psyche, Peterson’s paintings bring to light the resulting possibilities when varying moral schemes are personified. When faced with the dilemma of fight or flight, it’s fight. We observe an ongoing struggle in the thick of a contemporary world, where the instinctual desire to survive through primitive actions takes reign.

Currently living and working in Los Angeles, Cleon Peterson was born in Seattle and received a BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit. He has shown at New Image art in Los Angeles, Alice Gallery in Brussels, Joshua Liner Gallery and Deitch Projects in New York.

When You Get Power – Bill McRight

Guerrero Gallery is pleased to present When You Get Power, an exhibition by Bill McRight. Through a fascination with individuals and groups who depart from the mainstream to exist on the fringes of society, such as soccer hooligans, street gangs, prisoners and skin heads, McRight’s invented artifacts symbolically represent the inherent resourceful nature of those choosing to exist apart of the norm.

While using an angle grinder, a drill and a hammer, McRight handcrafts crude stabbing and bludgeoning weapons from old tools and other found materials collected from the streets and flea markets. The process of discovering the materials and determining how to manipulate them is a significant part of his creative process. With old tools having an inherent yet unknown history, McRight utilizes the story visible through the wear on their handles and metal parts to determine how the tool should be reinvented. Through his work, discarded materials are given a new life that is both utilitarian and aesthetically intriguing.

In addition to the shivs, the exhibition features spiked baseball bats and stash books. This body of works considers the fetish of violence and weapons, and examines the reasoning and intensity behind people’s interest in collecting weapons, either as tools or as artifacts of time and culture.

Bill McRight received his MFA from Pratt institute and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.