Red by Kevin Peterson
Decades ago, cultural critic Guy Dubord analyzed the burgeoning mass media culture of the 1960s, saying that all of our experiences and our ideas of what they should be like are mediated through the images we see in advertising and cinema. His social commentary rings even truer today, as most of us dedicate large chunks of our days to perusing our Tumblr feeds, scrolling through Instagram on our phones and seeing what our friends are up to through our various social networks. Saturday night, the sister galleries White Walls Gallery and Shooting Gallery (located side-by-side in San Francisco) will be opening two solo shows that interact with our image-saturated culture.
Greg Gossel, whose show “Fading Fast” will be on display at White Walls, creates his collages from found advertisements pasted on walls and billboards. The scratched and ripped up images of once-pristine models point to the ephemeral nature of the constantly-changing images in our visual fields. At Shooting Gallery, Kevin Peterson’s “Prospective” seems to comment on the layered way we experience images through photography. His photorealistic paintings of lonely, sullen children standing in front of graffiti mimic the way a camera lens can warp an image. Peterson’s compelling imitation of the way we recreate images painted on walls through photography creates an infinite loop of images that his somber characters reside within. Take a look at our preview of “Fading Fast” and “Prospective” and make sure to stop by the openings of both shows on June 9.
Columbus Circle by Kevin Peterson
Angel by Kevin Peterson
Help by Greg Gossel
Famous Last Words by Greg Gossel
Down & Out by Greg Gossel
Burn Out by Greg Gossel