Macro Machines: New Work by Russ White

Large scale colored pencil drawings, sculptural installations, and photographs reflect on the personal and the political with a dark, satirical sense of humor.

A solo show of large scale colored pencil drawings, sculptural installations, and photographs, "Macro Machines" is fundamentally about what forms us as individuals and as a society. White reflects on childhood stresses and assumptions, attitudes about our national climate, and our challenging relationship with the natural world. The work is at once funny and somber, personal and political, cartoonishly bright and darkly real.

A clever play on Micro Machines—the tiny toy cars of White’s childhood—the pieces in “Macro Machines” are large in scale and address how we have, in adulthood, brought the assumptions, loyalties, and traumas of our childhoods with us. Richly detailed and lushly colorful, the colored pencil drawings of vehicles act as stand-ins for larger social institutions: the police, the school system, or the military, for example. White’s sculptural installations bring these satirical visions to life, as though his drawings leapt off the page.

Influenced by satirists and artists as diverse as Jello Biafra, Kara Walker, and Maurizio Cattelan, White tackles problems in the world head on with a dark sense of humor. With direct references to his own childhood, like the World War II tank reimagined as his family’s old wood-paneled station wagon and the model airplanes hanging from the ceiling that were made by his father back in the '50’s, White’s work is self-effacing, funny, and emotionally impactful. In a political climate that seems to reward ignorance and indignation, White’s work challenges viewers to explore beyond their comfort zones and to confront their own belief systems.

Other Events Related to this exhibition:

Sunday April 17th - Artist Talk Sunday hosted by Gamut Gallery's Juleana Enright (RSVP on Facebook)
Saturday April 23rd - Exhibition finale part of the Genrabeast take over featuring the CD release party of Ghost Army - $10 cover (RSVP on Facebook)

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