Judy Sarup is a copywriting intern at our brand strategy and creative services firm Project X Media. She likes art. She likes to write. She gets to review.
The "18 Shots" exhibit at Project X: Art, by Art Brewer, is endearing from the first moment of a visual scan of the collection. His style is intimate; each photograph could be of your own friend or relative. Each shot is a conversation between the subject and the photographer, as if the two are in close relationship, as friends. Brewer is a master at shooting; his treatment of light (every picture features hot contrast between darks and lights) and texture are superb. He uses no filters, no artificial lighting and no editing software. As an exhibit placard says, "he proves the simple truth that each moment can be something transcendent." The exhibit starts with the "Point and Shoot" collection.
Demolish Serious Culture: The work’s name is on a T-shirt at the top of the picture. Blue curtains flank the sides, and there is a heater at the bottom. This could be an old ballet, or other dance studio, that could still be around for a long time, or not.
Technology: This picture of two men gazing in different directions jogs our memory, as we’ve all seen people standing near each other physically but not mentally.
Spanish Walk: A rectangular-tiled street tells us we’re abroad. Pedestrians feel cold, as they all wear jackets. This is one of Brewer’s few works that suggests a cool climate.
Conan: A man is the only subject here, and in close-up--but we can’t see the most expressive part of the face, his eyes—because they’re closed.
Pig: A taxidermied pig here, the subject is at once humorous and chilling. Bronze statues of a man and woman stand on the bottom of the board attached to the pig. Condiment jars with French names on their labels flank the sides of the pig. Food is a god, or at least a hero here.
Jamon: Here comes the ham. We can be ready to eat, as the baguettes are on a plate to the left, and the meat is on a plate to the right. The meat is of such a bright red; it touches us like a neon light.
The Amboy, CA collection looks like a very professional version of shots we take of friends while on vacation. Brewer and his crew were out on a "bright, dry, hot, sun-baked salt flat." Electra bicycles are featured. As the placard explains, these are dreamlike images.
Circus-Rider with Hat: A jubilant mood permeates this picture. A long-haired man in a coral shirt and black-and-pink checkered pants rides off on his bike into the distance. The arm not used to steer the bike waves up high in the air, holding a Frisbee; the man’s legs fly out in a straight line.
Jasmine with Hat: We knew this gal in the photo, in our distant memory. She has a warm smile and wears clothes in always-fashionable, basic color—a red derby hat, black jeans and brown oxfords, and eyeglass frames in brown.
Dream Ride-Red Bike: A man in a newsboy-style, brown cap rides on his Electra red bike, and the blurred motion is artistic.
Chair: A hot orange, plastic chair, in the Populuxe style, sits before us as the subject, on the white salt flat.
Black Amsterdam Bike: Here’s a shot of a man from his arms down to his feet, with a bicycle to his right. Both the man and the bike are "dressed’ in brown and red (clothes on man, and paint and red seat on the bike), as if they color-coordinated themselves! Of course, we can assume the man followed the bike’s suit.
Red Bike Sequence: Four photos of a woman sit in a horizontal row, on her red bicycle. A cursory glance from left to right suggests one united work of motion, in four frames—even though we only see portions of the woman and the bicycle in each.
It all makes sense; the mind can only view and absorb limited portions of information at a time.
The Portraits collection is the most intimate part of the exhibit; here, we look into the subjects’ souls, and they look into ours. What I really mean is, the subjects know each other very well in real life.
Jessica in White Sunglasses: A close-up, she smiles right at us, with her hair flying in the wind. We can assume the photographer is her significant other.
Jeff-Face: With a tender, unabashedly direct gaze at the camera, we can assume this is Jessica’s significant other.
Jasmine-Face: She looks a bit sideways, and looks like a gal we went to school with—a silver ring piercing her right nostril, wearing tortoiseshell-framed eyeglasses, and pink lipstick.
Brewer’s exhibit transitions well into an added exhibit here, the "Electra Bicycle Auction," with hand-painted bikes to benefit Keep-A-Breast.org.
Blackass (from Tony D’Aula Metalwork): This bike will remind most women of the ones they had as girls. Most of it’s white, except for a few touches in pink, and decidedly feminine. A white birdcage with a white heart, bumpy as if it’s made of papier mache, hangs inside of it--from the back of the bike. A pink touch is the bright pink coil elevating the white seat, and it seems like a parody of the typical girl’s bike. A white oval frame hangs from the front of the bike; it’s painted to look like a girl clown, and there’s pink on the face.
The next bike is by John Taglee of "Fossil Graphics." He painted this Electra bicycle with shiny acrylic to resemble a blue sky with white clouds; even the white seat looks like a cloud. In this context, the Electra nameplate looks like a bolt of electricity. We see cute "devils" in the sky too, in red and yellow—they seem like a cross between the Tasmanian Devil and Simpsons characters. A green fabric daisy stands up on the handlebars.
And, the Brandon Lomax bike is mostly a study in black and white. The bike is white, and the handles and seat are black. Figures of animals and people are outlined in black; some of the people have morphed into animals! A color contrast is the green rims inside the tires.
"Acamonchi Art" produced a "Woody" painted bike. Textural interpretation is magnificent. Tire rims look like snakeskin. And, of course, the bike has been painted to resemble wood, emphasizing orange, yellow and red. The beige leather seat and matching handlebars carry the western theme, especially in the zigzag pattern of the leather ties on the handlebars.