Thursday, July 28, 2011

George Domantay's Shifting Mass opens Aug. 6 in Pasadena

Shifting Mass
An installation by George Domantay

WHEN: August 6 – August 31, 2011

WHERE: 24-Hour Gallery, 80 North Raymond, Pasadena 91103

Located in the public display cases on Holly Street, between Arroyo Parkway and Raymond Avenue, directly across from the Pasadena Senior Center and Memorial Park Metro Gold Line Station. The exhibition is on view twenty-four hours a day.

http://lightbringerproject.com/24-hour-gallery/

Reception: August 6, 4 – 6 pm at Heritage Wine Company

155 North Raymond, Pasadena (626) 844-9333


The 24-Hour Gallery and Light Bringer Project are pleased to present Shifting Mass, an installation by artist George Domantay.



The titles of Domantay’s minimalist landscape and Mylar cloud formations (Static, Strike Slip Fault, Dip Slip Fault, Oblique Slip Fault, Reverse Dip Slip Fault) bring to mind geological fault lines, the result of tectonic forces. But Domantay is also making reference to the manmade fault types which appear in our pristine landscape: the graded lots of tract home developments. For Domantay these faults of urban sprawl are stand-ins for human fallibility.



Domantay draws upon his early work experience advertising model tract homes in Corona, California. Dressed in a clown costume and stationed on a street corner for eight hours a day, he would stand jump, wave, and flash his painted clown smile to the occasional passing traffic. Mostly alone, he began waving to the cumulus clouds and large vista of dirt. These graded lots and rolling clouds were the first audience to Domantay’s performance art practice which, twenty years later, he still pursues. On weekends during the course of his installation, Domantay will be conducting roving performances throughout Old Town Pasadena.



Thinking about recent earthquakes and climate crises, Domantay asks if nature’s cataclysmic events can also be a “resetting” of the population of an area, beyond any human intervention there. We can do nothing as tectonic plates shift underneath us, but we might consider the big picture as we continue to push the outer edges of habitation. These faults are ours.



Artist Bio:
George Domantay has created performances and performance installations at many venues in Southern California including LACE, Deep River, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, Mount Saint Mary’s College, Track 16 at Bergamot Station, RAID Projects, FAR at the Los Angeles Zoo, Action Space at the Brewery, Lemoyne Kennels, Spaceland, Intersections Eagle Rock, and as a featured performer at the 2003 fundraiser for the Los Angeles Community Garden Project. He was also a performer at Beyond Baroque as a proxy for Daniel J. Martinez, and in 2008 was included in a group show curated by Glenn Kaino at the Warhol Foundation in Pittsburgh. Domantay has a BA in Studio Art from UC Riverside and an MFA from UC Irvine.

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