TAKING LIFE SERIOUSLY

The show features the work of three close friends who worked together on various projects for the past few years under the fertile roof of Blue Genie Art.

Ian Shults, the former lead sculptor, is showing off his latest figurative works chock full of naughtiness and his stylish sense of humor. Dan Morrison, Blue Genie's current go to guy for anything involving metal, dusted off his paint brushes and produced a new body of pop inspired work for the first time in fifteen years. The show's rounded out by some new paintings of showgirls and the like by Bolm Studio's resident mischief maker, Michael Schliefke. 

Taking Life Seriously - an essay from the curator of the show

Artists are a remarkable breed.  Faced with a career decision they were born into without a choice, they are thrown to the wolves in a den full of critics, rival artists, and a uncaring consumer driven audience with ever decreasing attention spans.  Yet, they continue to produce new work, take new chances, and develop their ideas and skills and press forward through poverty and self doubt with nary a hint of light at the end of the tunnel.

Resiliency is the artists’ friend.  Ultimately, each artist’s work becomes the center of their universe, a scrapbook of sorts detailing the events, decisions, and emotions that compile their life.  Things left unsaid often find their way into the work, and the most powerful art is that which lends the viewer a universe unto itself that intends, nay, compels the viewer to explore and ponder.

The artists chosen for this show, Dan Morrison, Ian Shults and Michael Schliefke, have been on my radar for years.  Although they have taken different paths to achieve their aims, I believe the artwork in this show is a bull's-eye in the quest for a true expression of the humanity that resides deep down in all of us.

-Bernard Locke
”Taking Life Seriously’ curator
Washington, D.C.
2007

The work of Dan Morrison has always intrigued me.  It has been fifteen years since this magnificent artist has shown his work, and I have been one of the fortunate ones to have been allowed to follow his process through the entire painstakingly long gestation period.

His encaustic paintings, themselves a painstaking process of addition and subtraction of materials, rely on the re-possession of pop imagery.  With a wry eye towards domesticity and carnival games, Mr. Morrison has developed a unique voice and wisdom that quietly makes itself known to the viewers lucky enough to become witnesses to this work.

Ian Shults first caught the attention of the Art World during a chance encounter with Jean-Michael Basquiat in a SoHo Gallery in 1988.  The young enfant terrible berated ‘Samo’ for his lack of drawing skills.  The NY Times was quick to report on ‘the Golden Boy of the Art World’ (NY Times, Sept. 1988), and Mr. Shults’ career has been a wild ride ever since.

Balancing his quest of fine art and the technical skills of a master craftsman, Mr. Shults’ paints a world of available drugs, sultry women, bad benders and ultimately the exposure of the horrible truths of the world, all with a wicked sense of humor that eases the pain of shallow existence.

Michael Schliefke’s work has followed a path not unlike the one he has chosen for his own life.

His depictions of tawdry, ample bodied women harkens back to Berlin’s raucous cabarets of the 1930’s.  This is very related to the artist’s deep rooted psychosis of actually believing he is part of such a scene.  It is the haphazard nature the line between psychosis and reality is crossed that makes these works stand up to the test of time as Great Works of Art.

ART DEPARTMENT

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GALLERY

see the complete gallery here

The works in the show:
(titles, prices and complete works from all the artists coming soon)