Friday, January 18, 2013

Zoom in/Zoom out : The Paintings of Counsel Langley

We are pleased as Punch to welcome our local creative and all around awesome gal, Counsel Langley as featured artist for the month of February! 

Counsel  works with acrylic paint, graphite and ink, as well as generous amounts of glitter, paper, and various recycled materials.

Her recent series of works were originally inspired by the Campbell McGrath poem, "Nights on Planet Earth." They reflect moments of awareness that so much is happening all at once, that tigers and happy hour exist on the same planet; that Jupiter and Twinkies share a solar system. "I find these times of hyper-awareness powerfully beautiful, disturbing, comforting, overwhelming, enlightening and unpredictable."

As a part of her larger body of work these paintings are hybrids of two opposing approaches. One, loose painting techniques: dripping, pours, splatters, which effectively represent natural elements—weather, water, clouds, smoke, etc. The other approach, using pen and ink with architects' tools, templates and compasses, Counsel fastidiously draw controlled lines, concentric circles, grids and repetitive dots; using these to reflect structures and infrastructures that we build.

"I am influenced by the look of outer space, computer chips, dramatic weather, electric circuits, decay, rock-n-roll glamour, plans and diagrams, b-rate sci-fi control panels, urban environments, fluid turbulence, engineering schematics and architectural drawings."

You can see Counsels work and meet the artist at the Red Raven Gallery starting with Artwalk on February 2, 2013.  The show runs through March 1st.  

Core
Counslel Langley