'Collaborative Show' reworks stock '80s oil paintings with humor

 By Mary Lee Pappas / Star correspondent

Posted: January 29, 2010

Visitors to local galleries and museums in the last decade are probably more familiar with Brian Presnell's work as a preparator of exhibits than as an artist.

Presnell, who owns Midwest Aesthetic and Design, has been fabricating, designing and installing exhibits since his first gig as an exhibit tech at the Indianapolis Museum in of Art in 1997.

But a sampling of his approach to art-making can be seen through early February in "The Collaborative Show" inside the Marsh Galley at Herron School of Art and Design, where Presnell graduated in 1996.

The exhibit is a joint venture of reworked, mass-produced paintings humorously augmented over four years by Presnell and his painter friends: Darren Strecker, Sacred, Cents, Alex Peace, Devon Ashley and Joel Pinkerton.

"John Mallon gave them to me a long time ago," Presnell, 38, said of the Editions Limited Gallery owner and friend who gave him the stock oils of exotic animals, woodsy landscapes, and other provincial scenes produced in the early 1980s.

"They're bad. I was fortunate the paintings had a lot of different looks -- celebrity paintings (think Elvis), marine scenes, many different genres that we could play with and add things to."

For instance, a serene image of a barn is disrupted, juxtaposed by graffiti tagging. Now, the works are funny in a way that compliments or validates the original, rather than insult them.

"It was an opportunity for us to get together, laugh it up and paint," said Presnell. "I've done this sort of work with a lot of folks and different mediums, but this show is predominantly the paintings."

It only marginally represents his repertoire of work as a performance, mixed-media and visual artist.

Some pieces from this body of work were in his successful solo show, "I am Brian Presnell," at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art in 2006.

"It's really a fine-art show," said Presnell about the current exhibit. "I'm not the biggest fan of conceptual art; a lot of it is so heady that it doesn't make sense to the general public. There's a little conceptual nature to the work, yet it's obvious.

"I think it's important for people to go to shows, understand what they're looking at and not feel alienated. I want my work to be easily legible. That was a goal, and I think we achieved it."

Adds Presnell: "I'm trying to have fun. I'm not looking at it as my strongest or most important work. This is something I get together with my friends and do, and we knocked it out."

Brian Presnell, Herron School or Art and Design, Midwest Aesthetic and Design, Marsh Gallery, Editions Limited Gallery, John Mallon, iMOCA, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art

 

Chelsea van der Meer's silk-scarves come from need to make art

By Mary Lee Pappas / Star correspondent

Posted: January 22, 2010

Chelsea van der Meer has a home studio painted bright pink that's the hub for her silk-scarf business, which was born from her inherent, nonstop need to make art.

"My whole life I've just needed to be making something all the time, whatever it was with whatever I had," said the 23-year-old artist.

Originally from Williamsport, Pa., van der Meer majored in graphic design at Pennsylvania College of Technology. After moving to Indianapolis five years ago, she earned a degree at Ivy Tech Community College, where she thrived in traditional fine-arts courses.

Since then, van der Meer's works have been exhibited at Wug Laku's Studio and Garage on Indianapolis' Eastside and in the Stutz Building at the now-defunct Pivot Gallery. A notable design project of hers is the 2007 CD and Web site art for the band blueprintmusic. She also interned with the design firm Lodge Design.

Van der Meer exhibits through Midwest Emerging Artists, and she created the artwork for the 2009 Broad Ripple Music Fest sampler CD.

But it was a fabric-arts class with Ivy Tech's visual communications department chairwoman Stephanie Lewis Robertson years ago that inspired van der Meer's current path.

"She (Roberts) was amazing," said van der Meer. "She motivated me and taught me the basics with dying silk."

"I was really thinking about why I took to it," she said. "There's just something about the quality of silk that's like water."

Using mostly charmeuse and chiffons, van der Meer applies many dying techniques to her one-of-a-kind scarves that vary in size from 25-by-25-inch squares to 30-by-90-inch wraps.

"The results are very organic and subconscious. Art I've made in the past is very conscious -- I've decided everything. When I'm doing a painting or something, I decide how everything is going to be. But, with this, it's organic," said van der Meer. "You really never know what a dye is going to do when it meets another dye. It's a surprise when the wax comes off sometimes."

She said those surprises are luscious colors and fluid patterns that complement the fabric and look great. Her techniques include stamping, masking off colors, wax batik and multiple layers of color and painting swaths of color in with a brush.

This winter, a cotton scarf series she produced sold out, but more will be available through her Etsy shop soon at www.Etsy.com/shop/chelseaofthesea.

She also produces how-to videos and charming thank-yous for customers across the country while packaging up their orders. "I want people to feel a connection from the time it's made to when they have it, that there's a spirit and energy in it."

Of her videos, she says, "I want to be a very transparent artist. If someone wants to know something, I will share. I wouldn't have any problem with more creators in the world. There is just really nothing like the feeling you have when you are creating."

Chelsea van der Meer, Artist, Ivy Tech Community College, Pennsylvania College of Technology, Broad Ripple Music Fest, Stephanie Robertson, Stutz, fabric art, Indianapolis, Indiana