ARTIST TALK and CLOSING RECEPTION, Wednesday, March 10th, 6-9PM.
AREA 919 presents Gillian Pears and Ryan Widger, minimal photographic and video works, at the offices of CITYSPACE, 2200 Walnut, Philadelphia. Opening Reception is Thursday, February 18th, 6-9PM. The exhibition runs through March 10th. Public hours: Wed-Sat 1-5PM.
Pairing the work of Gillian Pears and Ryan Widger, in defiance of their disparate imaging, presents the viewer with a central question; a question of containment, of self-awareness, of position and exposure. It is a question of occupancy. Peering into the spaces proposed in Pear’s photographs or pulsating to the repetition of the simplest of bodily gestures in Widger’s videos, we are called upon to consider our own bearings. Consciousnesses of tenancy within our own skins, within the interiors we spatially inhabit, and in the safety of our own perspective are the entry way into their work. We apprehensively climb through the frame into Gillian’s rooms, only after first giving up of the security of our original location. We cannot distance ourselves from Ryan’s bodies; we are compelled to delve into them through sensation, as our own anatomies flinch to the rhythm of his figure’s ingeminations. OCCUPANT pulls our eyes inward to reach toward the rear guard of our consciousness, layering senses of ourselves over the shapes and colors of pigments and pixels.
-Michael Garden, AREA 919
Gillian Pears
My studio practice focuses on the breach of boundaries between the familiar and imagined, revealing conditional human emotions by using the indeterminate as unresolved evidence. White walls, paper, plastic, and flesh suggest a seductive pathology. Relying upon emotional response, these things sublimate words and evoke states of being in an atmosphere of vulnerability.
MacDowell Colony Residency Summer 2009
Alternate for Fulbright Fellowship, Sweden 2008-2009
Cranbrook Academy of Art, MFA 2006
VMFA Graduate Fellowship, Virginia Museum of Art, 2005
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Post Baccalaureate Certificate, 2002
Evergreen State College, BA, 1999
Solo exhibition, Bambi, Philadelphia, March 5th-28th, 2010
Ryan Widger
When mundane routine is interrupted, the numbness of living halts, fostering an awareness of time. There is no inherent poetry or beauty in this interference. Where once there was no connection an un-nameable visceral one is established.
Fulbright Fellowship, Sweden 2006-2007
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Residency 2006
Cranbrook Academy of Art, MFA, 2005
University of Pennsylvania, BA, 2003
Visiting Faculty, Interdisciplinary Studies, Konstfack University, Stockholm, Sweden
