Found-photo and Ephemera Portraits

Opening reception: December 7, 6 - 9 pm

Show runs two weeks, December 7 - 22, 2012

 Selected works from the Utrillo's collection of thrift art. This show features found photos of people, ranging from a tiara-crowned little girl to a disturbing montage of backwoods kinfolk. Utrillo's was a thrift art and framing shop, on East 10th Street, Indianapolis, which was founded by artist Greg Brown in the early 1990s. Also on display, portrait sketches by Harry Blomme.

“My plan was to show a fairly straight-forward presentation, but the work defied standard arrangements. In the end, I mixed everything together, and added even more disparate works. And so heart-melting children's photos hang next to the har-har hairdo photos, next to the haunting 19th century Russian couple. The scary mountain folk snapshot collage and Randy Wyatt's O.J. Simpson painting, are corralled from the children by vertical grouping. Harry Blomme pencil portraits cover one wall, and Georgia Kraus watercolors grace the opposite corner. The absurdist approach tempers the emotional extremes, bringing the freak and the sweet onto more common ground.” Carla Knopp 12-1-12 

Most works will be for sale, proceeds will be donated to Gleaners Food Bank.

Found-photo and Ephemera Portraits opens tomorrow

Some installations shots of the current show. It opens tomorrow and runs December 7 - 22. Most of the art is for sale, with proceeds being donated to Gleaner's Food Pantry, Indianapolis. The works include magazine clippings, found photographs, thrift store paintings, as well as work by Georgia Kraus and Harry Blomme. Price range $5 - $50. We can authenticate your purchase with the official "Utrillo's" stamp, if you like.

I'm really enjoying this show. I hadn't planned a curated approach, at least not beyond basic arranging of the work. It did go beyond that, and it was a very intriguing process. I'm not sure I can impose my own vision, to this degree, onto the work of active, living artists. But I'm certainly more open to that scenario now. 

More images of the show are here.