The Never Zone

Adam Caldwell’s “Dark Stage” at Thinkspace Gallery.

Opening on Saturday, July 23rd, 2016 at Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City, California is artist Adam Caldwell’s solo show “Dark Stage.”  

This show is presented in collaboration with and will feature two special performances by the Bandelion Dance Troupe, whom posed for Caldwell for many of the paintings featured in this exhibition.

There will be performances at 7PM and 9PM during this Saturday’s reception PLUS Thinkspace will host a special talk with Caldwell and an extended performance from Bandelion on Sunday, July 24 at 2PM.

Adam Caldwell discusses “Dark Stage”: "In this show I was looking for a way to imply and illustrate multiple levels of artifice and meaning. In fiction there are many examples of plays within plays, stories within stories, I wanted to explore that in painting. I decided that creating a performance that included aspects of my paintings and then documenting that as a means for further painting was a good start. I reached out to many theater companies and was lucky to meet Eric Kuypers, director of Bandelion Dance Troupe. They are a multi-disciplinary company that use acting, dance, theater, and music in an ongoing experimental collision of genres. They explore themes of disability, gender, sexuality, race, and the nature of performance. I’d initially thought of developing a narrative structure for a performance, but we soon discovered that a free improvisation worked best. With a team of photographers, I documented several large scale improvised performances over the last two years and have been using the reference for a series of oil paintings. I think they look a bit like Caravaggio and David Lynch mashed up. The experience of working with a community and using a multi-disciplinary approach has been really rewarding and fruitful.   The show also includes many of my ongoing portrait series, created on a smaller scale. I’ve tried to explore the range of possible techniques and styles from photo realism to almost pure abstraction. They offer a way to experiment with things on a smaller scale, that I then bring into my larger works.“