metrospective

GALLERY REVIEW

'Assembly' line

Santa Fe gallery features local artists, innovative techniques and free PBR

By Heather Wahle
hwahle@mscd.edu

Loud music echoes along the walls as a few onlookers mill around the room holding cold Pabst Blue Ribbons. No, this isn't another college party; it's an art opening at The Assembly.

As an alternative art space, The Assembly has dozens of vivid, modern works lining its walls that are anything but ordinary. The current exhibition, "The gWhat?" includes new paintings by Stephen Daniel Karpik. The show opened on Oct. 7 and will run through Oct. 30.

The Assembly is one of many art galleries located between 5th and 10th Ave. on Santa Fe Drive. The neighborhood around Santa Fe, close to downtown and the Auraria Campus, hosts the largest concentration of art galleries in Denver. On the first Friday of every month, the galleries stay open until 9 p.m. or later to exhibit new works while providing free food, drinks and fun to the hundreds of art fans who attend.

Karpik's work is like a patient's frantic scratching on insane-asylum walls. Many of the works include writing that is hardly legible. Still, this has no effect on the overall entertainment value of his pieces. Karpik's "Flowers are Evil," is one of many original pieces on display at The Assembly. The piece doesn't include blossoms in demonic rites-of-passage. Instead, the work focuses on random bits of paint and asphalt. A silhouette of a woman is featured on wood in "Parallel, intention, and what should be a criminal act." The silhouette has lost her head and is the background for verse written in dripping-blood red that is difficult to read.

"Door #1 eq sdk" and "Door #2 eq sfd" resemble spoofs of iPod advertisements. Full-length profiles of young people are silhouetted against bright backgrounds on old doors. The differences between the billboard and magazine ads are, of course, the twisted humor that Karpik laces into all of his subject matter. For example, "you aren't shit" is written in graffiti-inspired script across "Door #1 eq sdk," and the girl featured on "Door #2 eq sfd" has devilish attributes.

Karpik's "gWhat?" is set in Picasso style with a twisted profile and splotches of multi- colored paint. The abstract face in this piece is made of mixed media on framed glass. "Abort All _____ Babies / Space, negro" could be mistaken for a homeless person's cardboard solicitation. The piece hosts artistic mixtures of spray-paint on drywall.

The Assembly, located at 766 Santa Fe Dr., is devoted to the national art scene while focusing on the promotion of local artists. Its next show is titled "Wide Open" and will be a collaboration of works by members of the gallery and their friends. This show will exhibit work from many genres and promises to be of one of the Assembly's finest. "Wide Open" will be premiering at 7 p.m. on Nov. 4 and will be open to the public until Nov. 25.