Easier to Control, What You Missed & You Like This - in the When Titles Fail show @ NOWhere Limited

NOWhere Limited is hosting a quite spectacular (if I do say so myself) 10-artist group show, on view through July 26, 2009! When Titles Fail: the group show that can't be labeled features paintings and mixed media works by:

Heather Dalton, Chris Huang, Max Kauffman, Craig Koch, Scott Lickstein, Ian Millard, Angela Oaks, Maggie Ross, Greg Willson and me.

I have 3 new paintings in the show, pictured and commented on below. Scroll down to see pictures of them in progress.

Links to photos of the show are here; Links to browse/buy works from the show are here

Unlike my other recent work, these 3 new pieces are not part of any series or planned "art experiments." I had absolutely no idea what the outcome would be for any of them: their imagery was pulled out of the ether, the materials I used to make them, and/or my subconscious. I had an immense amount of fun making messes work for these!

Pictured Above: Easier to Control, Elisha Sarti, Acrylic, pen, pencil, fake flowers and other collage on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2009.

For Easier to Control I collaged some relics from my days in Baltimore that I've been dying to use since 1995... mainly a mis-printed piece of paper from a kite kit I used to sell when I worked at the Kite Loft and a flowery bit of old mattress. I also threw in a bunch of de-flowered silk flowers. The figures in this painting were "divined" from People and a few "womens'" magazines, except for Magnum PI (I dunno where he came from. His pseudo-serious macho image has been burned into my brain for a while, though, and it inspired the tone of this piece more than the materials I used for collaging.)


Pictured Above: Easier to Control, detail, Elisha Sarti, Acrylic, pen, pencil, fake flowers and other collage on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2009.


Pictured Above: What You Missed, Elisha Sarti, Acrylic, pen, pencil, found fabric and other collage on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2009.

What You Missed is loosely about the futility of fashion, wall flowers, travel and the luck of the draw. Again, I used a scrap I've been saving for years. This time it's a piece from an old, fancy, silky 80's-ish blouse. I also took advantage of another mental image I couldn't seem to exorcise: cherries from a pre-packaged cherry pie circa 1998. Very mustache-y, dontcha think?


Pictured Above: What You Missed, detail, Elisha Sarti, Acrylic, pen, pencil, found fabric and other collage on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2009.


Pictured Above: What You Missed, detail, Elisha Sarti, Acrylic, pen, pencil, found fabric and other collage on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2009.


Pictured Above: You Like This, Elisha Sarti, Acrylic, pen, pencil, found fabric and other collage on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2009.

Ah, yes... fun with Facebook and People Magazine too. This one was the most difficult of these 3 pieces to figure out the future of... I did think of the name of this one before even starting to work on it. It might've had something to do with the difficulties. Also, the wildly colored pillowcase, see below, drove me crazy but I got it to work after it was muddied up a bit and buried under layers of stuff and now this might even be my new favorite out of the 3 for When Titles Fail.


Pictured Above: You Like This, detail, Elisha Sarti, Acrylic, pen, pencil, found fabric and other collage on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2009.


Pictured Above: You Like This, detail, Elisha Sarti, Acrylic, pen, pencil, found fabric and other collage on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2009.


Pictured Above: The first stages of Easier to Control (left) & What You Missed (right.)


Pictured Above: The first stage of You Like This - how could anyone actually get any sleep while resting their head on that neon forest of a pillowcase?


Pictured Above: The final stage of What You Missed - I'm adding some gloss to one cherry. I left the other one matte.

Definitely check out the other artworks in this show too! There's 50 pieces to browse through: http://www.nowherelimited.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=109_249

Everything Must Go - Work in Progress

I snapped a few pictures while working on my future-themed piece to be included in Thawed Out: Visions of the Future, a group show at NOWhere Limited Gallery in Nederland, Colorado. The finished piece, titled Everything Must Go, can be seen: here

Below are some of the scraps of paper and junkmail that served as a starting point. Most of them didn't make it into the final painting.


Here is the canvas with just a few layers of paint and scratchiness. Some of the collage elements laid out but not yet attached, still deciding:


An alternate vision of the future:


Some more paint to make an ugly volcano that must end up un-visible... And look, it seems like a strange, dark cityscape is emerging from the dark purple under the orange scrap of paper at the left:


Close, but not exactly right... too much junk... remember, everything must go. I painted over most of the text that says "Final Days," but I think the finished piece (seen: here) still has the apocalyptic feeling I was hinting at, without being quite so literal. I was kinda sad to paint over the toes, though.

Installation Views of $AVE/PRODUCE & PROFONDO GIALLO

Elisha Sarti: $AVE/PRODUCE & Scott Lickstein: PROFONDO GIALLO
2 - 24 August 2008
NOWhere Limited Gallery
Nederland, CO

Installation Views of the show are here:
LOOK INTO MY OWL

Links to browse/buy works from the show are here:
http://www.nowherelimited.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=189_223

$AVE/PRODUCE by Elisha Sarti and PROFONDO GIALLO by Scott Lickstein

Our show opens SATURDAY AUGUST 2, 2008, 4PM at NOWhere Limited in Ned, Colorado!

Here's preview images of work by both of us:http://www.nowherelimited.com/scott_lickstein_and_elisha_sarti


PROFONDO GIALLO by Scott Lickstein:
Scott Lickstein's Profondo Giallo project began as an obsession with movies, particularly those from the Italian pulp/horror film genre, known as Giallo. The artist, who studied video art under a professor from M.I.T., used a computer program to capture more than 20,000 individual frames from a vast assortment of movies on DVD. He then digitally combined and altered selected "stills" to form collaged images. Many of the Profondo Giallo images have previously been produced as prints and as purely digital art. For the latest version of the project, the artist rendered the digital mash-ups in paint, adding another layer of depth and strangeness to these striking compositions.


SAVE/PRODUCE by Elisha Sarti:
Elisha Sarti's SAVE/PRODUCE features The World According to Gooogle, a new series of collages on canvas. The source images for this series were derived from Google Image searches for subjective words like "pretty," "worst" and "perfect." The resulting canvases read as a bizarre yet captivating "pictionary."

Also exhibited in SAVE/PRODUCE are Elisha's large scale paintings: ENVY(Printed Line) and SAVE/PRODUCE. These two 7 foot x 7 foot paintings depict imagery taken from the materials the artist used to build their surfaces: saved junkmail and paperboard boxes that once contained food or other goods. The pictures and symbols in these works are based on advertisements and marketing designs so the colors, shapes and phrases have a familiar quality. They are recycled images on recycled surfaces, transformed by scale and collage into something new.


MAKE ART/TAKE ART:
Make Art/Take Art is a collaboration between Scott Lickstein and Elisha Sarti and perhaps...you! For this project, the artists created 12 black ink drawings on collaged backgrounds as well as a stack of "blank" collaged surfaces. The drawings are displayed in a grid formation; interested parties are invited to take one of the exhibited drawings in exchange for their own drawing, which must be completed on site using one of the provided blank surfaces and black ink marker or can choose to buy one instead. The drawings on display will be constantly changing, so that a participant may take a piece that has not been drawn by Elisha or Scott but by a random participant. For the duration of the exhibit, random drawings will also be available for sale (blind - you don't know which piece you will get) online for $15.

Getting Ready for $AVE/PRODUCE show at NOWhere Limited Gallery

Here is a look behind the scenes. I am preparing new pieces based on Google image searches for a two-person show with my husband Scott Lickstein at our gallery in Nederland, Colorado: NOWhere Limited. Here's more info:

http://www.nowherelimited.com/scott_lickstein_and_elisha_sarti

Look how ugly my paintings start out!