E6 Gallery/Robert Berman Gallery Presents
River of Time
New works by Josh Graham
June 2nd - 25th
Opening Reception / June 2nd 7 - 10pm
Robert Berman / E6 Gallery is pleased to present “River of Time” an exhibition of new works by Brooklyn based artist Josh Graham.
Graham’s digital assemblages ebb and flow on the fault line between fiction and reality. The nature of time is explored and documented in complex landscapes of urban blight and detrition. The images are so seamless and sublime that they take on a somewhat organic reflection of the tireless composition. Artifacts of war and industry lay weathered amongst bourgeoning flora and fauna; stripped bare of any meaning or function to pure form and color. Juxtapositions suggest beyond the pale renditions of natural history dioramas where time is suspended at the brink of epoch. The mies en scene of found images resonate though a silent orchestration of light and shadow. Void of any passage, these frozen constructions allow the viewer to formulate narrative based on their own personal relationships to the objects and space contained.
“River of Time” focuses on the artist’s recent works in a range of visual output including digital collage, video installation and photo. These three forms of media make up the integral framework within the artists practice. The interrelationship between the mediums is evident throughout the work, as is the result of their convergence on the artist’s method. In the exhibition Graham’s milieux of fragmented realities are explored through a series of corresponding works from the various mediums.
Artist Bio /
Josh Graham is a visual artist and composer based out of Brooklyn. He is highly regarded as one of the early pioneers in today’s abrasive music community, being recognized widely for his involvement in the New York doom outfit, A Storm of Light, and his visual contributions to the seminal post metal band, Neurosis. Graham’s desire to coalesce music and visuals into a cohesive experience has spawned countless monumental records and performances over the last decade. Grahams vast discography has long been imbued with an equally rich visual aesthetic, thus creating a uniquely recognizable catalogue of work. Graham began exhibiting his work in 2007, and has shown extensively throughout the united states, in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Recent shows include “Catalyst” at 5024SF (2008),“Voices in the Bardo” at Shadow Space Gallery (Philadelphia) 2010, and Scion’s “Installation 6” a traveling video exhibition in Los Angeles/ Austin/ Minneapolis/ Brooklyn/ Wichita 2010.
Graham’s work — up to and including musical set pieces with any number of his earth moving bands, from a past with Red Sparowes to a present with A Storm of Light — addresses with no uncertain focus the inescapable slide of time in passages significant and singular where the fleeting nature of the illusion of permanence and its ruin are nothing if not inevitable. In print/altered photographic mnemonics, visual installation, and sculpture, Graham pursues an obsession with light, dark, shadow space and natural forms.
Large formats [6 feet plus] on aluminum dominate [with wolf sculptures redolent of his ground-breaking work with musical confrontationalists Neurosis abounding], and round out an expansive body of work that is, in micro and macro, about nothing if not the emphasis on form, structure, discipline and their eventual loss. Using found objects, digital manipulations and video/audio installations, Graham’s work presages a near eschatological understanding of life cycle and being.
- Eugene Robinson
