By Mary Lee Pappas / Star correspondent
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."
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