#dystopianutopia

Some documentation for Weedy Resistance 2: Networks @eyebeam. Special guests Rigoberto Lara, Vanessa Keith, Karolina Sobecka, Georgia Silvera Seamans. Photos by Dan Phiffer.

MAY 18th, 8pm to 10pm Local Artists, Aurelea River & Kevin Comarda exhibit their collaboration, of music & art, with Dystopian Utopia at Bar Redux Opening Night, May 18th...The exhibit will close on June 14th Art: Aurelea River is a doll and fabric artist originally from California. She lives in the 7th Ward, where the wild chickens are gradually taking over. She creates cloth and sculpted dolls and modern-day shrines, influenced by folktales, creepy Victoriana and apocalyptic dread. "Dystopian fiction is often presented as gritty and 'real' because it's grim and stripped of whimsy, but that's no more real than a troubled world that still contains beauty and wonder. For this show, I wanted to reference a fantastical dystopia, where magic existed among the ruins. The figures I created can be seen as inhabitants of this place, or as objects of worship to the people who live there. They're humanoid, but not necessarily human; alluring but with a darkness at their core." Kevin Comarda is a New Orleans collage artist/musician determined to embrace his own color-blindness in order to forge something unique that will transcend genre. These layered representations of life, love, and death are hoping to invite you in long enough to feel the subtlety, intimacy and rhythm contained within each vibrant colorscape. “Like any creative facet I might dabble in, I like my expressions to yield a personal story with a little majesty and a lot of intimacy. It’s incredibly humbling to think someone might print, listen to, look at, read, consume, love, hate, or even learn from any of my human interpretations of the creative force. I don’t take it lightly.” Music: As a singer/songwriter, Aurelea River creates haunting, densely-chorded melodies on her hybrid electric violin-viola, Lola. Her touchstones are Appalachian folk, traditional murder ballads, and tales of monsters and ghosts. Like her visual art, her songs often center around a morally ambiguous, often supernatural female figure, who can be tender or vengeful. She uses a variety of distortion pedals and effects to warp the violin's sound, but always keeps a low, lush drone. Kevin Comarda is also a musician, playing guitar, moog synth, loops, dissonance. "Through pattern and sound manipulation, I am able to directly reflect some of the same overarching ideas found in the visual collages—creating a moody backdrop with room to layer in the details that tell the story. " Join us for this Art & Music Happening, with Dystopian Utopia: Art & Music of Aurelea River and Kevin Comarda, on May 18th.