Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Philadelphia is a generous, artist-run/artist-curated exhibition space that connects the Philadelphia art scene to the the rest of the art world by showing the work of Philadelphia artists alongside work by artists from other towns–i.e. New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. This month, TSA presents paintings by out-of-towner Clint Jukkala and drawings by local artist Mia Rosenthal. Here’s an excerpt from the essay TSA co-founder Timothy Gierschick wrote for the show.
“For Mia Rosenthal, her straightforwardly sweet simulacrums of sent and received postcards impart a secondary, more spiritually acute layer to an already powerful metaphor for those places we cannot go, cannot be, or are not – as well as those people who inhabit them, or are passing through before us. On the uncomfortable cusp of welcoming a new life – her child – Rosenthal found comfort in celebrating one recently-departed life, that of her uncle’s, by painstakingly reinterpreting the talisman of shared postcards – those small purchased icons of travel and exoticism; the skimmed-off leftovers of a life’s memory. The drawings’ mostly hatched and linear interpretation extend the sense of improbability and distance – while preserving the warmth….
“Clint Jukkala previously worked more with the positive – shakily digital renderings of top-heavy bouquet forms; or slowly branching, slow-motion fireworks. Recently though, Jukkala’s bouquets have dissipated and migrated to the edges, and suggest portals, or doorways; the promising rainbows building, enveloping and bordering, rather than blossoming or branching into bouquet or fountain forms. His bright lines quiver and undulate ever so slightly, but always manage to click into appropriate positions in time to allow us egress.
Mia Rosenthal lives in South Philadelphia, PA, and teaches at the University of the Arts. Clint Jukkala lives in New Haven, CT, and is an assistant professor of painting/printmaking and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Art at Yale University.
“Clint Jukkala & Mia Rosenthal,” Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia, PA. Through June 26, 2010.
Next Next post: Recto or Verso: What kind of artist are you?