Local artist Ben Garthus, like many conscientious people making a living in a capitalist society, has struggled with morals and how he puts food on the table. He has worked as a food-packaging designer for major American corporations, which he says was great because it allowed him to be creative as an artist, but it also contributed to vast amounts of waste through over-packaging. Now Garthus uses art to explore his professional dilemma, and further studies the connection between our things and ourselves. His pieces include one titled Paper Trail, which displays hundreds of Garthus's personal receipts hanging like streamers off the wall (you can see that he likes Target and Chipotle, and saw The Simpsons Movie), and a wall covered with junk mail. Garthus forces you to look at consumer products in a new way with Plastic Casts on Plastic Sheeting, which consists of white plastic molds, the kind that various everyday things come packaged in. The molds are sometimes hard to recognize at first glance; the bottom of a 20-ounce pop bottle, for instance, looks sort of like a flower, while other molds are unrecognizable. Along with Garthus's consumer art, "Background Noise" will feature the oil-on-panel paintings of Greg Priglmeier.- Ben Palosaari
Anyone who lives in the heart of a city knows that it’s easy to get caught up in a sensory overload.
Whether it’s all the traffic, flashing billboards or crazy street scenes at bar close, the city pulses with all sorts of images that leave interesting impressions on us.
Artists Ben Garthus and Greg Priglmeier explore the often messy urban environment in their upcoming show, “Background Noise,” at the Rosalux Gallery.
According to a promotional statement about the show: “Ben and Greg’s current work captures and documents the cultural, political, and environmental conditions of an urban environment and offers both questions and answers for the viewer in an compelling contemporary viewpoint.”
One of Garthus’ pieces, for instance, called “Emission Control,” is an experiment with unique materials. He attached to his car’s exhaust pipe a canvas, which was stained while he commuted to work.
Priglmeier, meanwhile, looks at our relationships with the natural world with abstract oil paintings.
capitalist society, has struggled with morals and how he puts food on the table. He has worked as a food-packaging designer for major American corporations, which he says was great because it allowed him to be creative as an artist, but it also contributed to vast amounts of waste through over-packaging. Now Garthus uses art to explore his professional dilemma, and further studies the connection between our things and ourselves. His pieces include one titled Paper Trail, which displays hundreds of Garthus's personal receipts hanging like streamers off the wall (you can see that he likes Target and Chipotle, and saw The Simpsons Movie), and a wall covered with junk mail. Garthus forces you to look at consumer products in a new way with Plastic Casts on Plastic Sheeting, which consists of white plastic molds, the kind that various everyday things come packaged in. The molds are sometimes hard to recognize at first glance; the bottom of a 20-ounce pop bottle, for instance, looks sort of like a flower, while other molds are unrecognizable. Along with Garthus's consumer art, "Background Noise" will feature the oil-on-panel paintings of Greg Priglmeier. - Ben Palosaari