Kevin Curry

In Residence: June 6 – August 5, 2011 Exhibition: Opens Friday, August 5, 2011; continues through September 2, 2011Learning Lab: ArtLabHome: found locationsAn exhibition and exploration of home, place and belongingOpening Reception: Friday, August 5, 2011, 5:30 – 8:00 pmExhibition continues through September 2, 2011Creative Resident Kevin Curry’s work involves a multidisciplinary collection of history and storytelling that reflects on the looked-over, passed-over, hidden and forgotten parts of our culture and lives. The reinterpreting of language and information is a key element as he chronicles the lost and discarded, the preserved and the relished. Having lived in a multitude of locales throughout his life, Curry’s latest work embraces the various cultural concepts of ‘home’ and the need to belong somewhere. During his eight-week residency at PlatteForum, Curry has focused on this continuing body of work addressing the concept of home, love and communication through the use of reclaimed materials and histories. This work moves through the clichés and stereotypes to question and examine just what is it we treasure and why.Kevin states: “We leave behind so many artifacts, that we are being physically and metaphorically overrun by our own past as it ebbs and flows through and around our lives. These trace elements of past experiences – indicators of future events - fuel my passion and my work.” In the exhibition, keys from hundreds of keyboards play with the notion of “home”; selections from old thrift store paintings are used to re-create new vistas of familiar sights and pre-owned fabric remnants serve in the creation of a 1,000 square foot quilt titled “Housewarming” – a piece created to literally embrace the notion of home.Included in the exhibition are works by fifteen ArtLab teens that address their personal views of home and how their personal interpretation was employed to create a physical presence for both memory and emotion. The teens, guided by Curry, transformed PlatteForum’s gallery into diverse village of homes, memories, and longings…where everyone belongs. Learning Labs with ArtLab interns. Kevin's website.