CHROMA
Exhibition Images
Dec 2, 2011 - Jan 21, 2012
CHROMA: MIA YOON - DEREK TOOMES - ANI HOOVER
Opening Reception: Friday, December 2nd
6:00 - 9:00 p.m.
When finalizing an exhibition concept to unite the works of Mia Yoon, Derek Toomes, and Ani Hoover, Flanders Gallery pondered the significance of the word “chroma.” While its Greek roots refer to something as basic – and, in the visual arts, necessary – as the qualities of color, it has another denotation as the color component in television signals. This dual meaning, blending both the essential elements described by ancient civilizations and the scientific progress of modern-day man, seemed particularly representative of the spirit of the exhibition’s selected works. CHROMA brings together the styles of these three artists who start by using color to broach technological discussions in a contemporary age.
Mia Yoon’s gradient installation of color nodules mounted in a grid across the wall immediately evokes a factory assembly line. While each sphere is a tantalizing study of formal properties, the overall effect speaks to mass consumption and plentiful supply. However, Yoon has handcrafted each element of the installation. Their varying colors and nuanced surfaces, in addition to the individual craftsmanship that each received, complicate the notion of them as industrial metaphor. Instead, she is translating art objects into a form recognizable by denizens of the technological age.
The work of Derek Toomes employs color as a form of process. In his CMYK series, he overlays architectural plans, sewing patterns, and hand-tooled typography with swaths of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, the industry standards for color printing. The pieces layer these records of processes and in doing so underscore the commercialization, standardization, and mass production that enter into creative fields of production. On top of these, he adds elements like highway signs and advertising billboards, dated representations meant to evoke nostalgia toward an unspecified time. His F Words series deals not with a critique of technology but of the lost enthusiasm behind technological advancements. The drawings, combining nostalgia and disappointment, describe a world now indifferent to the spirit of exploration that the space race engendered.
Ani Hoover’s early career encompassed many paintings focused on the interactions of color. Of late, she has been repurposing those former paintings to provide the fodder and self-described “found color” for her RE-Works on Paper. Her series Works from Recycled Materials further demonstrate a spirit of reuse, installing segments of soda bottles and plastic containers. Hoover’s practices examine the effects of a mass consumption society enabled by technology – notably through the systems created and practiced to handle the increased product and waste – and she echoes their fruitfulness by putting them into practice in her art making.
Lauren Turner
December 2011
