Kimonophilia
OPENING – SATURDAY NOVEMBER 10th, 2012, 6pm
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After 9 months of collaboration and mutual inspiration, Keith Pavia and Beatrice Schleyer are ready to showcase the results of this at Local project art space.
You are cordially invited to observe the multifaceted intersections of painting and photography spanning the landscape of a common subject: KIMONO
On the night of the reception, the works in Local Project’s gallery will be supplemented by video projections created by Beatrice, an atmospheric DJ set by Stone N, a live Enka (Japanese soul music) performance by Pony, dance performances by Shiho Tanaka, Margherita Tisato, and Beatrice.
All guests with access to kimono are especially encouraged to attend the opening wearing it. Any level of formality, from yukata to furisode, is acceptable.
“We are thrilled to show this body of work at the fabulous Local Project, a community oriented art space in Long Island City”.
The work will be on view from November 10th to 23rd, Thurs – Sun 1 – 6 PM. If you cannot make it to the opening, please do stop by and visit; Keith and Beatrice will be in residence at the gallery and will be happy to show you around and tell you more about their work.
This event promises to be a garden of visual and audio delight, and is not to be missed…a flower blooming out of the wet wreckage of hurricane Sandy. To see process images from the project, please visit www.kimonophilia.com
From the Artist:
Our Kimono Art Mission
Over the four years that Keith Pavia and Beatrice Schleyer have been neighbors,
they have mutually inspired one another, and eventually it became clear that a
collaboration was in order. Their first experiment was a simple sketch of Beatrice
in a shiromuku (pure white) kimono, standard wear for burial. Beatrice has been
exploring the kimono in her photographic portraiture and performance art, and
the motif proved to be effective for Pavia as well, the simple sketch transforming
into several full scale paintings.
The formal logic of the kimono is completely different from that of western
clothing; within its restrictions and basic repeated form lie a world of patterns,
geometry, and symbolism. Pavia and Schleyer, having found a mutually resonant
subject, have created a body of work that blurs cultural and artistic
boundaries. As American artists, they are able to see the kimono in its elegance
and potential, unhindered by its association with anachronism in contemporary
Japan.
Hence, this series is also about Xenophilia (a love of the foreign). While the work
is an obvious testament to the western fascination with the gentle modesty of
Kimono and Japan’s traditional arts, many of the pieces reflect Japan’s attraction
to America’s wild, vibrant, and uninhibited spontaneity. Somewhere in this
mutual, international fascination lies a cataclysm, a new and unexpected flavor; it
is the heart of this collaboration.
The artists used all of the tools in their arsenals to illuminate this subject, and
traversed many routes to find intersections between their media. Expect to see
surprising permutations of inter disciplinary harmony.
