GUM GUM OWL
Tim Cohen and Doug Spencer, Guest Curated by Paul Garcia
Lane Meyer Projects is pleased to present GUM GUM OWL, a two person exhibition featuring artworks by Tim Cohen and Doug Spencer, guest curated by Paul Garcia
October 22, 2021 - December 5, 2021
Opening Reception: Friday, October 22, 2021, 7pm - Late
For Immediate Release:
Lane Meyer Projects is proud to present GUM GUM OWL, a two person exhibition featuring artworks by Tim Cohen and Doug Spencer, guest curated by Paul Garcia.
Tim Cohen’s vibrant collaged paintings come across as equal parts naive and tongue-in-cheek. What Cohen lacks in technical artistry, he compensates for with a fearless color palette, coupled with an astute eye for composition. Hints of humor and wisdom lurk just beneath what the eye can see in his depictions of familiar, yet unsettling and sometimes absurd exo-urban landscapes. In Cohen’s cut-up paper universe, we find everyday heroes and villains commingling with wild horses and stray dogs, whie staid city skylines brush shoulders with pink houses and purple mountains. Cohen’s new work portrays a modern Odyssey of sorts, wherein a viewer gets pulled into a series of half-uplifting vivid dreams, positions so close to each other that it is impossible to know where one begins and the other ends. Upon further inspection, Cohen’s pieces reveal a tactful, hopeful sense of humanity and the inevitability of weirdness in the world.
Doug Spencer’s vibrant menagerie blurs the lines between human and animal, between visual simplicity and complex optical illusion. At first glance these pieces may just seem to be pleasant bursts of color but they become something much more strange when the viewer draws close. Proximity changes the experience of the art: shadows move, eyes follow you, focus changes. It can be disarming to get lost in a piece only to suddenly see yourself reflected back in the acrylic or mirror, a subtle mask now adorning your face. Spencer creates his work through a variety of processes including hand cut stenciling, fumage (smoke), airbrushing and tinted resin applications. Through these techniques he finds personal ways to express the wild creatures and geometric shapes to which he has always been drawn. Gum Gum Owl is another chance to push his ideas in new directions and keep experimenting with what he calls “uncanny spatial relationships. Doug would like to give a huge and heartfelt thank you to the following for helping him make this show happen: Hayley Helmericks, Ava Goldberg, Chris Ng, Fin Art, Lane Meyer Projects, Pon Pon, Aaron Collins and Tim Cohen.
