FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kristi Engle Gallery
5002 York Ave.
Highland Park, CA 90042
323.472.6237
kristi@kristienglegallery.com

Art Exhibition:
Carrie Walker “The Storybooks have been Unfair“
September 19 - October 24, 2009
Reception: Saturday, Sept 19th, 7-10pm
Artist Talk: Sunday, Sept 20th, 2pm
Gallery hours: Thursday - Saturday 12 - 6pm & by appointment

Kristi Engle Gallery is pleased to present new work by the Canadian artist, Carrie Walker. The Storybooks have been Unfair features work from an ongoing project that was sparked by Walker¹s thrift store purchase of a sketchbook full of landscapes. The collection of simple modest drawings struck Walker as an unfinished project and so, in an effort to ³complete² them, she proceeded to draw various animal portraits into them. In further pursuing the project, Walker drew enlargements of just the original landscapes, carefully tracing the efforts of her anonymous and unwitting collaborator, thereby aiding a seamless transition between the found drawings and a second ³completion² of them in watercolor. Nonetheless, Walker¹s characteristic treatment of her subjects - a precise and highly skilled rendering in the manner of scientific illustration - adds an eerie element of dissonance between her efforts and those of the found artist.

This project explores artistic notions of ownership, collaboration, appropriation and manipulation. Walker plays with the liberties and constrictions that the found sketches impose in both composition and the effects of style. Her animal additions activate the drawings, bringing them to life. The resulting scenes have become animated by these protagonists who seem to have stepped into them as unto an empty stage. And yet, by deploying a purposeful implausibility through scale, perspective and color, Walker frustrates the viewer¹s picture-perfect view of a natural world.

Walker¹s feelings about the incompleteness of the original drawings cannot be reconciled with the unknown artist¹s ideas about the landscapes. Walker¹s additions, are in effect, one world view¹s encroachment upon another. A visual back-and-forth exchange between the two artists -- Walker¹s technically skilled ³completion² of each work, paired with the unpolished quality of the found drawings -- produces a distinctive mixture of the two different artists¹ narratives. The result of this is yet another third, unrealized narrative which paradoxically manifests itself as an ³incompleteness,² that requires the viewer to ³finish² what has been started.

Kristi Engle Gallery devotes itself primarily to solo exhibitions of new works by contemporary artists. It is located in Highland Park, near the corner of Ave. 50 and York Blvd.

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