2009 – 2010 Season Press Release
[PDF, 240 KB]

Bradley Chriss: Visions from the End of the World
September 3 – October 3, 2009
Bradley Chriss’ small, apocalyptic watercolors are situated at the unlikely interstice between the sentimental and the nightmarish. The intimate scale and seductive colors cajole and beguile the viewer into confronting the sinister reality that humanity is ultimately powerless within its own environment. Visions from the End of the World will open with a performance by Chriss’ performance art group, The Post-NeoAbsurdist Anti-Collective.

Andrew Wodzianski: House
October 8 – November 7, 2009
Andrew Wodzianski’s paintings lift imagery from William Castle’s b-movie horror flick from 1959, House on Haunted Hill. While a painting exhibition in its own right, House will also incorporate the gimmickry and audience participation for which director Castle was legendary. Visitors to the gallery will be invited to participate in a scavenger hunt and will ultimately have the chance to win a painting from the exhibition. On Friday, October 30, a costume party will be held in conjunction with the exhibition.

Kenny George: Pacguy
November 12 – December 19, 2009
Kenny George crosses the line from fine art to mainstream consumerism, to transform and commodify his work and himself into objects from popular culture. The focal point of Pacguy, part of FotoWeek DC, will be a cocktail-style arcade game that borrows its format from the ubiquitous Pacman game. George uses an image of himself to replace the Pacman icon and to merchandize a fictionalized caricature throughout the exhibition. In addition to the video game, which visitors will be invited to play, Pacguy will feature lenticular flip animations, a retrofitted slot machine and a computerized pogo stick.

Jackie Milad: Inside Mouth
January 9 – February 13, 2010
Part art, part anthropology, Jackie Milad describes her work as a, “reference library for gestural language, simultaneously unsettling, humorous, seductive and familiar.” Inside Mouth will feature a series of elegant, lyrical line drawings that chronicle the subtlety of facial expressions and show androgynous figures in awkward exchanges with one another. A photographic analog documents volunteers imitating the expressions that appear in the drawings.

Jennifer Dorsey: Alma Mater
February 19 – March 27, 2010
Jennifer Dorsey photographs interiors of everyday architecture, often focusing on seemingly mundane details. In her first solo exhibition in Washington, DC, Alma Mater, Dorsey chronicled the interiors of two area high schools over the course of two summers. The photographs reveal the unexpected and uncanny beauty of the schools' utilitarian spaces.

Bart O’Reilly / Solas Nua: Old Lines from the Luminous State
April 2 – May 8, 2010
Solas Nua, Flashpoint’s resident organization dedicated to contemporary Irish arts, will foray into visual arts with an exhibition by painter and video artist Bart O’Reilly. O’Reilly, a Baltimore-based Irish artist, will present Old Lines from the Luminous State, an installation investigating artistic process. Both the paintings and the short video works draw fodder from the artist’s experiences, including visits to ancestral barns and working with developmentally disabled adults.

Marc Roman: Veritas Obscura
May 14 – June 19, 2010
Marc Roman combines photography, drawing and painting on mounted plexiglas sheeting and cast resin to give sculptural form to traditionally two-dimensional techniques. His interest lies in the unusual application of layered abstraction to create a body of work that chronicles the relentless pursuit of physics from the discovery of x rays and radium to the splitting of the atom and its ever shadowy presence in our lives today. Veritas Obscura will depict a "century of the electron” timeline encompassing the entire gallery that will entertain and depict all theories equally, both conspiracy and otherwise.

Jeffry Cudlin: BY REQUEST
June 25 – July 31, 2010
In a tongue-in-cheek jab at the art world, Jeffry Cudlin will survey critics, collectors, gallerists and artists to determine what makes a work of art desirable. Using this data, Cudlin will create “ideal” works of art. BY REQUEST will also take into account the tastes and preferences of the visitors to the opening night reception to develop a guest satisfaction index.

Matthew Mann: The Cinecitta Chapel
August 6 – September 4, 2010
Painter Matthew Mann combines 14th century imagery with the cowboy archetype in a contemporary adaptation of Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel in The Cinecitta Chapel. Creating surreal and oftentimes humorous paintings, Mann interprets American-ness through the lens of Italian quattrocento painting and the gunslinger as defined by foreign-born filmmakers and writers.