JANCAR: Mery Lynn McCorkle and David Grant

If you are a closed friend of mine you know my love for the arts and no other place like Chinatown makes me feel right at home. Merging both my visual and nasal senses. This time I found myself at JANCAR just fresh out of a study session for my American Art History course. Most likely, others would have ditched more art pleasures for other activities that indulge the senses, but not me. I had not yet had my dose for the day. Though, yes!, we can debate that art is plentiful and everywhere… It’s simply unavoidable, but that’s for another post. So please, stay tune.


JANCAR: First View

If you have not yet explored Chinatown’s art scene I suggest you get yourself down there as fast as I write: GO!

You just can’t deny great art in a setting that embraces it’s surroundings. Oh, and of course good eats are just steps away. Need I say more?!


Mary Lynn McCorkle:First View

The title of the exhibition was in itself contradictory, but it played as a transition in your mind. The title could not be simply self explanatory in this case. Depth is what it looked for and what it served.


RAW Silence

SILENCE was the chosen title for this exhibition. However, as viewers we quickly transitioned silence into loud heard cries: Oppression, Innocence, Bodily, Vulnerability. The use of mixed media tore apart bodies, and broke the silence. Immediately, I ventured if the artist approach had anything to do with human vulnerability. The raw silence in her work sparked thoughts of innocent people being killed, mistreated, due to higher power.


Detail

Above is a detail from one of McCorkle’s mixed media works. If you look closely, on the far left background microcosm sized signals of life flow freely throughout the piece being covered by a body of transparent white colored painted shield. A shield that can no longer hold together. Wounds, or stitches mark the shield. A map of the body. Nonetheless, they’re pieces I wouldn’t mind having at home. I can picture myself endlessly staring at each for hours. For thought, for self meditation.


The Underground!

JANCAR also runs a PROJECTS section, showcasing three different artist. In this case out of the three, David Grant swooned me off ground.


Gallery View

The instant I walked in to this underground fortress, I was taken away with glee when discovering David Grant’s abstract sculptures. Grant’s sculptures expressed body, and mounts of it. His bodies expressed form, but feeling was more resonant.


Evolving


Universal Communication

The bodies not only felt, but developed new body parts. Grant touches on the idea of body builders, on how they undergo the removal of fat from their bodies to tone muscle, but there’s gainers that do the opposite. Gainers gain fat for the indulgence of erotic, sexual pleasure. A common human trait, the undergoing of attraction… ending with our sole goal of universal communication: sexual desire.