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You Knew This Was Coming: A group show at Park Life Gallery

September 17 – October 18, 2010

Opening Friday September 17, 2010

Sahar Al-Sawaf, Sadie Barnette, Rich Bott, Mike Calway-Fagen, Thomas Helman, Vincent Manganello, Clare Parry and Louis M Schmidt.

Curated by Louis M Schmidt.

This show brings together a group of artists based in Southern California whose works employ various styles of visual language and media that intersect across themes of culture, humanity and social critique.

These artists take-on an intimidating array of concerns and employ a wide variety of formal and conceptual strategies in order to do so. Through meticulously rendered collages, drawings, paintings, prints, found materials and photography, each of the works in this exhibition, whether beautiful, grotesque, enigmatic, absurd, crude or polished- push, pull and tease-out biting critiques and welcomed social assessments. The artist’s works strive to strengthen our capacity for critical reflexivity and help us to see what gets lost in humanity’s patterns.

The Artists

Sahar al-Sawaf is an Iraqi-American experimental filmmaker and artist

currently residing in Los Angeles. Sahar’s films and art have been

exhibited at numerous venues internationally. She received her Master of Fine

Arts from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).

Sadie Barnette was raised in Oakland, CA. Using drawing, photography, and

objects, she creates a visual language system out of sub-culture codes and west

coast vernacular, geometric formalism and economy. She received her BFA from

CalArts in 2006, and is currently pursuing her Masters in Visual Arts at the

University of California, San Diego.

Rich Bott is a media artist and performer who lives and works in southern

California. As one half of the duo Animal Charm, and independently his work has been

shown in The Whitney Museum of American Art, Centre Pompidou, Wexner

Center For the Arts, LACMA, MOCA, New York Video Festival, San Francisco

International Film Festival, Videoex Festival Zurich, and Lux Center for the Arts,

London.

Mike Calway-Fagen has solo shows coming up at The Good Citizen in St. Louis,

MO; Vox Populi in Philadelphia, PA; Sewanee University in Sewanee, TN; and

will take part in upcoming group shows at California State University Long Beach,

Nurture Art in Brooklyn, NY, and the KY7 Biennial in Lexington, KY.

Thomas Helman is a Los Angeles-based experimental media artist and software

developer whose work has been exhibited internationally. Growing up in the

darkly surreal post-modern dystopia of Las Vegas provided him with a deep-rooted

understanding of the desensitized overstimulation and hyper reality

echoing within the hollow vacuum of the undead American Dream™. His current

work focuses primarily on the development of non-linear immersive environments

through non-traditional use of software, interactivity, image, and sound.

Vincent Manganello is a painter from Southern California. He received his BA in

studio art from the University of California, Irvine after study for several years at

Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga. Most recently Vincent has completed

his MFA degree in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego, where

he met his sometimes collaborator Rich Bott.

Clare Parry grew up in New York City, spending equal amounts of time on both

sides of the Hudson between Brooklyn and the suburbs of New Jersey. She

recently received her MFA from the University of California, San Diego and

received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2004.

Clare has exhibited her work nationally and has recently participated in shows in

Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and San Diego. Most recently, she

installed a permanent site-specific piece at Flux Factory’s new location in Long

Island City, New York.

Louis M Schmidt grew up in Illinois, in a rural town of 300 people. Skateboarding has been the

most important influence upon his life. He worries a lot that he is dumb. He’s worn

glasses since the third grade, which he thinks was 1983. He’s been in love more than

once. He loves peanut butter and crossword puzzles. He’s a collector. He’s a

misanthrope. He’s an optimistic pessimist. He want the straight story. He prefers plain

talk. Rumors abound that he smiles more lately.

Park Life

220 Clement St.

SF CA 94118

415.386.7275

www.parklifestore.com

info@parklifestore.com