Jack, Kate, and I went to see Aaron Mendonca’s art show last night.
It was great!
We started with snacks–pita chips, humus, and grapes. They had 7-up for the kids. We stood in the hallway eating–Jack and Kate even got to sit in “real” school desks.
We meet Aaron outside–he was stoked to have won honorable mention! We missed the award presentation or whatever, but we did get to check out his piece, “Severe Hypertrichosis”–a charcoal & acrylic work on paper. It was kind of creepy with this green neck tie and chewbaca like figure, but nice. Aaron said that he had done it fairly quickly, but it did not look like it. The composition and position of the figure was fairly sophisticated. Not a beautiful work, but nicely produced. I liked it.
I really liked some water colors by Robin Fayer which were bald head images done with a bold respect for the circle shape and some nice color choices–fairly large and very iconic. Splashy, fast, and controlled. I loved these.
Most of the rest of the art looked like student work–the photographs that were included mostly lacked sophistication in composition, the abstract pieces were derivative–I was rather disappointed over all. The winning work, “IN-SIDE-OUT” was a dragon made of paper like those dinasours my kids used to put together. I was not a fan.
The curatorial choices were also difficult–the art was presented flat on the wall, with intense overhead lighting–often producing strange shadows on the work. The wall space was cluttered, like living room or something and the “exhibit catalog” was more like a Where’s Waldo game (which is what me and kids used it for) then a catalog.
The other patrons were having a good time–lots of people in and out mostly saying nice things about the art.
Aaron introduced us to some of his friends, Ed showed up, and we left. It was a good time.
David Given Schwarm 
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