Okay is the New Fabulous
Works by Judith Brotman
Opening Reception
October 8th
6- 10 pm
Artist Statement
My exhibition at Tetrapod Gallery, “Okay is the New Fabulous,“ includes three recent works: 1001 Nights (more or less); My Family and Friends (and I) as Tarot Cards; and The Tales 1 (yes, they could happen to you). The first of these, 1001 Nights (more or less), is composed of index-card-sized mixed media pieces, each of which contains text from one or more book pages whose content has inspired, disturbed, or left me feeling ambivalent. All of the texts are re-configured and only close attention may allow you to discern a title or author. I pose the question: How are we defined by the stories we carry, by the many words we have digested over time?
My Family and Friends (and I) as Tarot Cards includes 78 mixed media/collaged index-card-sized works containing the collaged/embellished image of a person or persons who have somehow impacted my life. In transforming the images, I am acknowledging that our relationships, including our memories and perceptions of them, may shift over time. I borrow from tarot, not the more common association of fortune telling but its philosophical ideals of a meditative or spiritual pursuit. I feel strongly that we dream, think, imagine, and participate most expansively when we pause to reflect on our own lives and the experiences/relationships that have affected us positively, negatively, or (most often) complexly.
The final piece in the exhibition is an audio piece titled, The Tales 1 (yes, they could happen to you). In this work, I narrate a series of titles, each one an unlikely pairing of two seemingly unrelated or improbable tales. Titles such as The Tale of The Unrepentant God and the Younger Saxophone Player pair the familiar with the strange as life sometimes does.
All three works in the show are serial in nature and might suggest the unfinished or incomplete, evoking the question: What happens next?” In all my work, I consider these spaces of not knowing to be both complex and generative despite, or perhaps due to, the resulting cliffhanger of uncertainty.
Community Collage Night
October 18th
7 - 11 pm
All collage materials supplied by Tetrapod Gallery
Drinks and Snacks welcome
Bio
Judith Brotman is an interdisciplinary artist and educator from Chicago. Brotman received her BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies. Her work includes mixed media installations and theatrical immersive environments which occupy a space between sculpture and drawing. More recent work incorporates language/text based conceptual projects which are also meditations on the possibility of transformation. Brotman has exhibited extensively in Chicago and throughout the US. Exhibitions include: Threewalls, Chicago Cultural Center, Hyde Park Art Center, Gallery 400, Illinois State Museum, The Bike Room, INOVA, the DeVos Art Museum, Hampshire College, Smart Museum of Art, SOFA Chicago, The Society of Arts & Crafts, Boston, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Brotman has taught at as a Harper Fellow at The University of Chicago and currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Okay is the New Fabulous
10/08 - 10/30 2022
By appointment only
865 N Virgil Ave,
Los Angeles, CA 90029