Works by Todd Schroeder and Craig Drennen on View in Random Cinder Blocks Digitally Mastered Exhibition at 2CarGarage Contemporary Art Gallery

Exhibition:      Random Cinder Blocks Digitally Mastered : Work by Todd Schroeder and Craig Drennen
On View: Friday, April 4, 2008 – Monday, April 28, 2008
Opening Reception: Friday, April 11, 2008, 6-8 p.m.
Where: 2carGarage Contemporary Art Gallery, Downtown Savannah
Contact: Wendy Cooper, Managing Director, 912.323.0616
wcooper@2cargallery.com

Savannah, GA 2CarGarage Contemporary Art Gallery will present Random Cinder Blocks Digitally Mastered: New Work by Todd Schroeder and Craig Drennen. The exhibition will open Friday, April 4, 2008, with an opening reception on Friday, April 11, from 6 until 8 p.m. and will be on view through Monday, April 28, 2008.
     The exhibition will feature new work by Todd Schroeder that has been inspired by a random cinder block that was ever-present in Schroeder’s back yard. Of course, that is only the beginning of where this body of work began. A random cinder block also appeared at Schroeder’s studio concurrently. During the same time, Schroeder’s son picked up the expression “So Random” and was saying it repeatedly. The works are a result of questioning the work “random,” and hence those things that happen randomly.
     Schroeder’s drawings and paintings begin with a concept and evolve. His works, seemingly random, like the random cinder block in his yard, are actually very premeditated, with every step involving thinking and planning. “Todd’s works are very process oriented, but never seem that way. They are not just abstractions of a concrete idea. His works are also intelligent in their whimsy,” says Wendy Cooper, managing director of 2CarGarage.
     In the Random Cinder Block series, Schroeder has taken a graphic element that evolved from his sketches that were inspired by the random cinder block. This design element is repeated, reinterpreted, and re-contextualized in this series of works. Expect to see brightly colored swashes of paint and ink with graphic, expressive line drawings playing across the composition, some creating a new landscape of sorts, inspired by Chinese calligraphy painting.
     A few works from other series will be included such as from Schroeder’s Orange Peel series in which a design element of an orange peel has been reinterpreted into various ink drawings.
     Schroeder is currently a professor of fine art at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Schroeder’s work has been in numerous exhibitions in venues across the nation and is included in several private and corporate collections.
Craig Drennen is also a professor of painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design who served as the department’s chair from 2006 to 2007.
Drennen’s work is also conceptually based. Since December 2002 Drennen has organized his work around the 1984 movie Supergirl. Digitally Mastered includes works that include extremely illusionistic line drawings, such as that of a sheet of notebook paper, combined with realistic three-dimensional portrayals of floating objects, as well as a pencil and ink portrait of Helen Slater, the star of Supergirl.
Drennen became interested in Supergirl, which opening in 1984, as subject matter in late 2002. He liked the idea of making subject matter about a Hollywood film. “Supergirl was not a success and has been submerged beneath an ocean of subsequent output,” says Drennen. Helen Slater, who played the title role, has become somewhat of a zombie—half celebrity and half mortal. I don’t have the money or the resources to make a feature length film, but I can re-code the existing film according to my own agenda. In the end, I try to make interesting artwork from a failed film.”
For every work, there is a partner work that is its opposite – the back of it, its reverse. This was an exercise for Drennen to see if he could “split his intuition into two channels. Whatever mark I make on one surface, I do it again on the other. To do that I have to recall the conditions that generated it—and the process begins to resemble acting,” says Drennen.
Drennen’s work has been included in numerous exhibitions in galleries in New York, Boston, Miami, and London.
For more information, call 912-236-0221 or email wcooper@2cargallery.com. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday from 12 – 6 p.m.



     

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