Fri 9/2 @ 5-10PM
The CAN Triennial in the Waterloo Arts District closed at the end of August, which means there’ll be brand new shows to see at this month’s Walk All Over Waterloo.
Deep Dive Art Projects is opening a show, provocatively called Coming at You, Red Hot and Full of Desire, featuring work by recent Cleveland Institute of Art graduate Amani Williams, which she created during a residency at Deep End’s print studio early this year. The layered watercolor monotypes that came out of that stint are an expansion of her painting practice, both based on the female form.
“Inspired by traditional pin-ups of women from Betty Page to Vargas, Williams takes the heterosexual teasing of the model’s gaze and turns it on its head,” says the show’s release. “To Williams, (the traditional pin-up) embodies servitude and compromise to achieve a fantasy geared towards cis straight American men. According to Williams, this common presentation of women that has continued to the present through all media is damaging to women — both in terms of shaming women for their own sexuality and fully embracing the commodification of women as a pleasure-servant to men.” Note that the some images may not be suitable for children or Republican legislators.
The show’s opening reception during Walk All over Waterloo runs from 5-8pm, earlier than most of the other galleries, so stop there first. It will be on view through October 15 every Wednesday @ noon-4m and Saturday 9/5 @ noon-4pm.
Waterloo Arts is also debuting new shows in both its gallery spaces. Recent CIA grad from Michigan Seneca Kuchar’s On Blocks: Repair Manuel for an America Dream, “honoring the community and camaraderie of an American auto body shop,” will be in the main gallery space. Her oily diagrammatic paintings show exploded automotive systems side by side with mechanic’s repair kits required for reassembly. Rachel Yurkovich’s Are You Civilized to Death? in the auxiliary gallery features looping videos and collage poetry that look at the interaction of the natural and built environment and what happens when one interrupts the action of the other. The September 2 reception for both shows runs from 6-9pm. They’ll be on view through October 1.
The gallery at Praxis Fiber Workshop will also be opening a new show, a solo show of work by Ann Coddington, an art professor at Eastern Illinois University. Her fiber-based sculptural forms are created using a variety of techniques including twining, netting and looping. The opening reception will run from 6-8pm and the show will hang through October 19.
Meanwhile you can still catch two ongoing shows: Tiffani Glenn’s Rise to the Occasion: Women Empowered at Framed Gallery and Bridget Caswell’s Contrast Contoured at Space: ROCK and Maria Neil Art Space.
Glenn’s brightly colored, often subtly humorous, stylized acrylic paintings draw from cartoon imagery, graphic design and fashion design to depict an astonishing range of black women and girls in various pursuits — painting, dancing, singing, getting dressed for a night on the town, hanging out with a friend. She says she “believes in inspiring women to be proud of who they are and embracing the things that make them different.”
Caswell’s show depicts local burlesque and drag performers, with side-by-side images depicting them in stage attire and as they appear every day, shedding light on both their normalcy and their theatrical creativity. “Drag and Burlesque are the art of shining in all your gloriousness, highlighting your favorite parts of yourself and creating a limitless character that is your best you,” she says. You might want to keep your Republican legislator away from this show too, although it’s entirely suitable for children. The show features more than 60 sets of images at two locations. It will be on view through October 7.
In addition, stop by the Tower Stage at the corner of Waterloo and East 156th to hear sets by two local indie rock bands, Non Bruises and Aaron Civil War, starting at 6pm.