DIRT FLOOR gallery
56 Church Street
Beacon, NY 12508
Contact: Marsha Aliaga or Stephen Dickens @ DIRTFLOORgallery@gmail.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 21, 2010
The Beast Within — Marko Mäetamm, Michael X. Rose, Caroline Ruttle
June 26 to July 17, 2010
Reception: Saturday, June 26, 7:30 pm to 10:30 pm
Dirt Floor gallery is very pleased to present an exhibition of work by three artists who open doorways to dark and unexplored chambers of the human psyche. Co-curated by Marsha Aliaga, Stephen Dickens, and Greg Slick, The Beast Within explores phobias, fantasies and, ultimately, provides revelations through painting, video, and works on paper. The exhibition runs from June 26 through July 17, 2010. A reception for the artists will be held on Saturday, June 26, from 7:30 to 10:30 pm.
Marko Mäetamm, always the keen observer of domestic life, tells stories through relatively simple, darkly humorous visuals and text that locate the universal within the personal. According to Mäetamm, “I make my works to find answers to certain questions in my life. Many of these questions often lead me to the critical topics in society, such as the role of family in society today, consumerism, the economy, jealousy, sex, domestic violence, child abuse, etc.” His videos provide a voyeuristic look at a home life infused with the strange and absurd. Mäetamm is a multimedia artist who shows his work internationally, and has represented his country, Estonia, twice in the Venice Biennale.
Michael X. Rose combines the mythological richness of Gothic Romanticism with the histrionics of outsider art and B-movie kitsch. Through his paintings, Rose seeks to discover or create “that pivotal moment in human events when there is no turning back; disaster or salvation is imminent.” He describes himself as that artist who has found the doorway to certain unnamable places. Once opened, that metaphysical door cannot be closed. Epiphany is his personal goal: reflection on the eternal. For the viewer, metaphysical psychic transformation through sublime visual terror and surprise is often only a few hammering heartbeats away. Rose’s work was the subject of a recent solo show at the Kingston Museum of Contemporary Art.
Caroline Ruttle guides us on a journey along the twisted corridors of the female psyche through the mediation of contemporary Virgil/Beatrices—female narrators who perform shadowy dramas only found within the liminal spaces of normal communication. Her guides, drawn in ink and simply colored, are often suspended in a white void where mysteriously animated objects and creatures, both real and mythological, lurk or make physical contact. Through this promiscuity of images her work becomes freighted with complexity and biographical meaning. Ruttle is adept in several mind-spirit-body arts, and counts her early experiences raising chickens on a Pennsylvania farm as presaging her immersion into occult studies.
Dirt Floor gallery will be open on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of each month. Visits can also be arranged by calling Stephen Dickens 516.633.1719 or email: DIRTFLOORgallery@gmail.com
