Untitled

  Keith Crowley: Unseen March 7 – March 30, 2014 Opening Reception: Friday, March 7, 2014, 6pm -10pm

 PHILADELPHIA, PA- Unseen is a group of paintings that are distillations of photographic imagery. These thinly layered paintings conjure the anticipation of a moment or a memory of something briefly unveiled. The sources from which the images are gathered involve snapshots, newspapers, Youtube-stills or whatever possible place or thing reveals itself as uncannily familiar. The paintings possess a subtle degree of pictorial dissonance, which suggest potential encounters that may happen – or be missed entirely.    Keith Crowley has lived in Philadelphia since 2001 and Unseen will be his first solo exhibition as a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid. Crowley previously exhibited at Bridgette Mayer Gallery from 2008 - 2013. Crowley received his MFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design and his BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design Art Education Studies: Mansfield University, Mansfield, PA. His work has been exhibited at Fjord, Fox Gallery: The University of Pennsylvania, The National Constitution Center, OCMC Second Space, PA, TSA/New York, Perkins Art Center, NJ, Alagon Gallery, IL. Currently, Crowley works as a Preparator at the Princeton University Art Museum. (Image: Nocturne (Effulgent Pause), 48 x 72" oil on aluminum panel)

Art on the edges

"Rachael Gorchov and Caroline Santa, both artists themselves, decided to organize a group show on a theme they knew well, the inefficiency of the art-making process, and what they term the "messy edges" of the studio, that place of experimentation where things are made that do not necessarily relate to the real work at hand but keep the creative juices flowing.

The result is "Intramural," the venue is Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and the artists whose playful doodlings were chosen include Frank Bramblett, Natalie Campbell & Heidi Neilson, Keith Crowley, Angela Dufresne, Julian Kreimer, MP Landis, Kele McComsey, Jackie Shatz and John Morton, and Christopher Ulivo.

The pieces that resonated the "messy edges" loudest and clearest for me were Landis' id12.007, a piece of paper that Landis must have been using as a blotter while making other works, complete with rings of paint left by jars and cans and penciled notes to himself, all of it to an unwittingly Twomblyesque effect; Ulivo's shadow puppets and scenery from The Day the Clown Cried; and painter Bramblett's How to Draw a Pig, autobiographical stories that suggest the possibility of a second career."