I'm curating a show at PUSH Gallery of my friend Andy Herod's new work, Sorry I Made it Weird: Portraits of People You May Know. Check out the press release I wrote about the show, and join us on the 19th for the opening!
--- --- --- ---
Andy Herod – Sorry I Made it Weird: Portraits of People You May Know
PUSH Gallery | 25 Patton Ave - Asheville, NC 28801 | Opening Reception: August 19th | 6-9pm
photo by lydia see
What is the algorithm Facebook uses to assign the suggested connections for each user? Do they look familiar? Do we already know them? Should we? How and why do we have access to them? These are all questions Andy Herod will be undertaking in his new series Sorry I made it Weird: Portraits of People You May Know. Nationally known as a printmaker and multidisciplinary artist and musician, Herod is unpacking the cultural zeitgeist of social media with this work, attempting to tackle the unseen narratives which tether us through the internet, following a thread through social media, out of the computer screen, and in to our homes.
Herod has chosen to paint people he decidedly does not know for these portraits, causing both the subject and artist to consider access and privacy. Well known for his non-human subject-matter, Herod is interested in exploring portraiture, and states “this is an experiment for me - Facebook is a part of my everyday life, and I'm interested in what I don't like about it, and in the privacy we have given up in our lives because of our reliance on social networks.”
Herod incorporates the use of painting and printmaking processes to produce images rooted in classical portraiture based on the most common contemporary application of the portrait: the profile picture. By culling the “people you may know” section of Facebook for portraits and re-contextualizing them on the gallery wall, Herod is shifting these real people to fictionalized characters, and from one box to another – the computer screen to the “white box.”
Inhabiting the spaces between familiar and strange, acquaintance and friend, intimate and antagonist, these works ask for a willingness to engage from the viewer, who might encounter people they may know, or want to know, through this exhibition.
PUSH is pleased to host Sorry I Made it Weird: Portraits of People You May Know, new work from Asheville artist, Andy Herod on August 19th from 6-9pm.