As digital modern communication lays the foundation for our new relationships, has the unique touch and feel of personal contact grown tired from public space and retreated to the bedrooms of our adult population? With the addition of words like “unfriend” and “sexting” to our vocabulary, is it possible to capture human emotion through digital expression? The unique though now very private human touch in our digital age is explored in Donna Cleary’s “The X Spot” an exhibition of cross hatched charcoal drawings.
“The X Spot clearly parlays a direct link between the X generation and the new human interaction that has been birthed with it.” states gallery director David Kesting. “In this exhibition Donna Cleary uses a classical approach to figurative illustration to dialog the intimacy promised in online dating testimonials.”
The X Spot explores our society as being dependent on social media for the building blocks of relationships, pausing the spectrum of human feelings associated with intimacy. In this collection of charcoal drawings, the personal emotions of love, rejection, ecstasy and even joy are returned to a very public forum.
In this first solo exhibition by artist Donna Cleary, The X Spot embodies the range of emotions that relationships possess. In Crash Dummies, 2009 charcoal on paper, an optimistic joy is found by a couple where the distresses of a relationship are worked out in Polarized, Charcoal on Paper, 2009.
“For me,” explains the artist, "these images explore modern relationships in the context of contemporary communication, which plays havoc with the notion of identity and intimacy. In an increasingly digitalized world, communication is instantaneous, fragmented, illusory and often anonymous. It is free of the body language and interpersonal engagement present in these images. While celebrating the classic techniques of cross-hatching and sumi ink painting, these images live in the present. United with contemporary issues and technology, they remind us that despite the frantic pace of technological discovery, some things transcend time.”
Leo Kesting Gallery invites you to join us in unveiling Donna Cleary’s first solo exhibition with a reception for the artist on Thursday, January 14th from 7:00 until 10:00 pm and then running daily until February 7th.
Leo Kesting Gallery launched in 2003 and developed an aggressive campaign to introduce new figurative artists to collectors and art supporters. Leo Kesting offers the art viewing public an opportunity to see forthcoming talents in an intimate setting where undiscovered, cutting-edge artists are presented to the contemporary art scene.
