Friday, February 28, 2014

Carlson Hatton "Stupor" - a solo show at Santa Monica College Pete and Susan Barrett Art Gallery, Santa Monica, California


CARLSON HATTON "STUPOR" 
An exhibit of works on paper, Drawing and Painting.
Exhibit opens: February 18 to March 29, 2014
Reception: Saturday, February 22, 6 - 8 pm
 

Artist Statement
            My work explores the limits of the visual language created to reify that which is troublesome to depict and thus dependent on illustration.  The symbiotic relation or fusion of environment and figure, the passage of time, and the glow of light signifying celestial intervention. Drawing inspiration from music history, national geographic, fashion magazines, electronics catalogues and art history; my work traverses the visual vestiges of an imposed collective consciousness in search of meaning, unity or at least overlap.
            I'm interested in the slippery quality attached to the language of advertisement that seems to expire the moment it's produced.  My landscapes and figures dwell within that rich aftermath; reproducing and reconfiguring to create alternate environments with re-contextualized echoes of the vaguely familiar.  Weaving together watercolor washes, acrylic, graphite and oil, I strive to create layers that defy space while simultaneously creating pockets to fall into.
            I construct Images and narratives derived from a psychotic reality that has lost visual coherence.  My work explores the psychedelic mass of seemingly available and inexhaustible visuals and histories.  I'm fascinated in our shared visual lexicon and it's state of continuous construction that becomes denser and more impenetrable through constant development, re-visitation and re-appropriation.  
            I see excitement in such traces because they simultaneously offer universality, superficiality, and an underlying sense of truth.  I'm drawn to the loaded quality of such imagery and want to leave elements of it within my work, ghosts that cannot be predicted nor controlled because the plethora of histories, references and connotations could never be covered.  The crime scene that yields mismatched fragments or clues within the wreckage of a collapsed building.
Carlson Hatton was born in San Diego, California and attended the Cooper Union in NYC where he received his BFA in 1997.  He later completed a Masters program at the Ateliers in Amsterdam and a Laureate program at the Jan van Eyck academy in Maastricht, the Netherlands.  Hatton recently participated in an arts residency program at Da Wang Culture Highland in Shenzhen, China and has an upcoming exhibition at the Ruth Bachofner Gallery in Santa Monica.  He teaches drawing full time at Santa Monica College and lives and works in Los Angeles.

Santa Monica College
Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery - 2013-2014
Located in the Santa Monica Performing Arts Center 
at 1310 11th Street & Santa Monica Blvd., Room 101
Tel. (310) 434 3434 or visit: www.visualartsource.com​ 

Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Friday (12 – 5pm) & Saturday (11am – 4pm)

















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