About the Exhibition
Opening reception: Wednesday, August 12, 6 - 8 pm
The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University is pleased to present an installation by Thomas Buildmore and Morgan Thomas. The SEMIOPTICON installation aims to explore the use of semiotic symbols seen throughout historic and contemporary art, and recognizable to our audience, to transform the gallery into a sacred and worshipped space. In the same way the Capuchin monks decorated their walls with skulls, the elaborate paintings of the Sistine Chapel, and the illustrated scenes of future hunts by cavemen, the paintings on each gallery wall strive to reflect on this innate drive in human nature to communicate through decoration.
Additionally, not unlike street art/graffiti or Buddhist sand paintings, the impermanence of the painting installation intensifies the connections and identifications visitors will perceive. Much like any painting installation, the ephemeral nature of the paintings, whether in a gallery or on the street, transcends the place into a worshipped space that will invoke a sense of loss at its removal. Buildmore and Thomas purposely reduce the installation to simple black and white so visitors can closely examine the significance, style, and beauty of each design and iconography. By treating the gallery as hallowed ground, even through the installation process, Buildmore and Thomas challenge their viewers to see the gallery as a contemporary sacred and spiritually invigorating place. |
