Drew Conrad hand-ages new materials in works presented at Get This! Gallery
September 21, 2013 by All Art News
Filed under Art Events & Exhibitions
ATLANTA, GA.- Get This! Gallery is presenting Backwater Blues by Drew Conrad. Backwater Blues is the inaugural exhibition in their new location, 1037 Monroe Dr. NE in Midtown. This is Conrad’s third solo show with Get This! Gallery.
Conrad’s architectural sculptures and hanging assemblages in Backwater Blues seem to be the somber ruins of a once vital place. Constructed out of raw material – distressed by hand with rust, debris, stain, and sediment – Conrad creates dwellings and remnants of domestic spaces that appear corroded by time. The fractured interiors and exteriors become sites for identity making, serving as metaphors for psychological reflection. Reoccurring themes of legends underpinned by myth and assumed cultural pairings suggest a questioning of collective memory in contemporary times.
Drew Conrad, Remnant, No 4 (Elvis Has Left The Building)
The sculptural works in Backwater Blues hark back to a southern gothic take on Gordon Matta-Clark. Intuitively and methodically built, the architecture reminds one of Rauschenberg’s combines. Hanging electrical chords demonstrate a refinement of earlier influences such as Christian Boltanski. Elvis’ tombstone, snapshots by Conrad, a taxidermy Ram, and old vinyl albums form a bricolage of personal history and collective memory.
Drew Conrad was born in 1979 in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Conrad received his BFA from the University of Georgia and received his MFA from Parsons School of Design in 2005. He was awarded the prestigious Mac Dowell Fellowship in 2012. His work was most recently exhibited in Ain’t Dead Yet at Fitzroy Gallery in New York, The House of the Seven Gables at the University Galleries of Illinois State University and in House: Home at New York University’s Kimmel Galleries. Conrad’s work has been featured in such publications as, Sculpture Magazine (forthcoming), Art in America, Creative Loafing, The Atlantan, Atlanta Journal Constitution and ArtSnobbing. Drew Conrad lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
