(left) Stacy Lynn Smith, Fragment (Blue) (detail), 2012Kilnformed glass, porcelain tile, 35.375 x 17.625 x .75 inches
(right) Michael Endo, Encampment (detail), 2013kilnformed glass, 13.75 x 19.625 x .125 inches
Portland, OR – Bullseye Gallery presents The End and After, a duo exhibition that explores the ongoing fascination with the end and what remains, on view March 6 – April 27, 2013.
Stories of the end of the world go back to the beginning of civilization. Justin Taylor, editor of The Apocalypse Reader, notes, “Almost from the beginning of time, people were convinced that they were on the cusp of the end of time.” There is something fundamental in our nature to wonder about the end. “The fact that any one of us exists,” Taylor continues, “is so phenomenal that it immediately occurs to us that we probably shouldn’t be and maybe soon we won’t.” Beyond the end, whether it is religious; biological; or cataclysmic, we look at what comes after. We envision the world moving on without us. Cities reclaimed and our stories being buried beneath time. We fantasize about being a survivor, alone or in a group, eking out an existence with the remnants of our known world.
Portland artists Michael Endo and Stacy Lynn Smith explore ideas of the end and also what will come after. Endo’s glass paintings depict a world that has been left behind or is being rebuilt. “I am interested in small apocalypses, a closed factory, an injury, earthquakes, and tornadoes,” Endo explains. “They differ from the earth shattering events depicted in fiction, but they are no less devastating to those that live through them.” Smith, on the other hand, examines everyday imagery. “I excavate, organize and collect promotional posters, cards and flyers,” says Smith. “The mass of ephemera I gather speaks to the complexity and scope of navigating life today.” Smith transforms this imagery into multi-layered glass prints. By looking at what is left behind, the echoes of our lives, she “points to the larger questions about history and how meaning is created.”
