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Courtesy ADA Gallery
A piece from Jared Clark's "Hard Candy" exhibit
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Courtesy ADA Gallery
Jared Clark's "Hard Candy" exhibit at ADA Gallery
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Courtesy ADA Gallery
A piece from Jared Clark's "Hard Candy" exhibit
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Courtesy ADA Gallery
Jared Clark's "Hard Candy" exhibit
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Courtesy ADA Gallery
Shannon Wright's "Folly"
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Courtesy ADA Gallery
Shannon Wright's "Folly"
ADA Gallery’s eye-catching show “Hard Candy,” featuring work by VCU alumnus Jared Clark, ends its run on Saturday, so there’s still time to swing by and see it (maybe on a lunch break — the gallery’s open from noon to 5 p.m., though the display is impressive even when looking through the windows from the street). Clark's collection of “styropoxy paintings” are actually sculptures made from found styrofoam and epoxy resin. The pieces in “Hard Candy,” the artist notes, often have an iPad’s shape and reflectiveness, so they’re displayed on white tables and shelves to reference an Apple store. The arrangement causes viewers to see each sculpture as more like an ordinary object than a piece of art. The translucency of many pieces, when combined with the vibrant hues, captivates viewers. ADA Gallery owner and director John Pollard says that visitors are “drawn to the color, like, ‘What is this?’ ”
Pollard has high praise for Clark and his work, particularly admiring his way of “reclaiming and recycling and just beautifying something kind of ugly.” Clark has been working with found objects, and sticking them together with resin, for some time. Pollard says the sculptures are “abstract work,” more beautiful as a result of being made from things that were not attractive on their own. Just recently, Clark began adding dye to epoxy resin and using it as a primary medium in his work rather than simply a way of keeping certain groupings of found objects together. “Hard Candy” comments on the ideas of color and sculpture, while maintaining the lightness inherent to brightly colored candies.
Soon after Clark’s show ends, ADA will spotlight another VCU graduate, Shannon Wright, with the installation “Heroic Measures,” opening Oct. 3. Wright, who holds master of fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, now teaches at San Jose State. She typically works with Illustrator, a computer drawing program often used by engineers. She often maps out her sculpture ideas in Illustrator and then leaves them there, showing Illustrator drawings instead of the sculptures they represent. In “Heroic Measures,” two such drawings come to life. The installation consists of two sculptures, Folly and Flourish, accompanied by photos of each piece outside in urban environments. The exhibition gently mocks public art; both pieces are designed to look more like something government-issued than a piece carefully formed by a trained artist — “like a Roman coliseum made by the parks and rec department,” Pollard says.
Flourish is a curlicue shape such as those used in architecture for decoration. Folly is a scale model of the Colosseum of Rome, made of the same material that goes into bike racks. The title refers to architectural follies of the 18th century; the wealthy would have gazebos resembling famous buildings such as the Taj Mahal built for the sole purpose of entertaining guests. To convey that, Wright has photographed her pieces in some unlikely urban settings, such as a weed-filled parking lot.
Pollard says that the irony of Wright's pieces is that “they do wind up making the city look prettier;” in mocking public art's attempts to mask urban decay, she accomplishes that goal.
