Conner Contemporary Art Shows Patricia Piccinini and Victoria F. Gaitán

Written by Ivy Constantine Thursday, 15 December 2011 22:50

Washington, D.C.- Conner Contemporary Art is very pleased to present Patricia Piccinini’s first solo exhibition in Washington, DC: “The Welcome Guest.” The selection of works ranges in date from 1997 to the present, including video and small- to largescale sculptures (made of silicone, fiberglass, human and animal hair, taxidermied peacocks, polyester, nylon, wool, plastic and bronze). Using natural and artificial media to create realistic and grotesque forms, the world renowned Australian artist visualizes humanity’s challenges in navigating between nature and biotechnology.  The exhibition title comes from its signature piece, “The Welcome Guest” (2011), Piccinini’s most recent creation, which recalls Goethe’s statement, ‘Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.’ The artist explains that this work “reflects on the beauty and strangeness of nature.” In this compelling sculptural grouping, a fleshy mutant creature embraces a cute little girl as a graceful peacock looks on from atop an icy perch. Here Piccinini asks: Who will we become as technology refashions the relationship between people and the natural world? Other works in the exhibition elaborate on what kinds of emotional connections could emerge between us and the strange yet vulnerable life forms our science may yet create.

Alongside this exhibition, the gallery will be presenting Victoria F. Gaitán’s first solo exhibition with the gallery: “Scenes of Mild Peril.” The exhibition features a selection of exquisite color photographs of women by the DC-based, Australian born artist. Gaitán scrutinizes gender stereotypes through the lens of physical beauty in flesh and blood still lifes. “Pelt” alluringly displays a woman’s face cradled by horns, surrounded by luxurious fur, and propped upon a wolf’s head. The seductive surfaces invite us to wonder what sense of self lies beneath them. Is the woman a predator or a trophy? Gaitán balances powerful tensions between social categories and self-knowledge in each of her works, which she describes as “calling cards from my explorations of internal worlds.”


Since opening in 1999, Conner Contemporary Art (CCA) has mobilized the careers of artists who excel in diverse media. Owner Leigh Conner brings professional integrity and over a decade of experience to the Gallery's selective participation in exhibitions at international venues including art fairs, museums, and project spaces. Together with co-founder Jamie Smith, Ph.D., Conner has steadily developed a contemporary curatorial program grounded in the history of art, presenting the art of Washington-based artists in meaningful dialogue with the art of established international artists. CCA promotes art that contributes to important movements, with particular focuses on abstraction and realism. The Gallery presented color field exhibitions featuring works by Morris Louis and Gene Davis and reintroduced the art of 1950s-1960s Washington color painters Howard Mehring and Thomas Downing with newly published source material. CCA has consistently encouraged vital new experimentation in abstract imaging, presenting seminal work in four solo exhibitions by internationally renowned digital light artist Leo Villareal, and supporting his recent 200-foot installation at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Complementary to its abstract programming, the Gallery advances exceptional figural art, such as the oil painting of Erik Thor Sandberg, the most powerful young successor to the DC realist movement, which originated in the 1970s. Sandberg's contemporary figural allegories of virtue and vice are conversant with photographs by Swedish artist Maria Friberg and sculptures by Australian artist Patricia Piccinini. Ethical questions evoked by their works resonate with problems of gender, sexuality and race confronted in figural drawings by Baltimore artist Zoë Charlton and in endurance performances by Washington, DC artist Mary Coble. CCA is located in a newly converted industrial building recently acquired and renovated by Conner and Smith. In DC's Atlas Arts District, the Gallery occupies a 7,000-square foot ground-level complex with two indoor galleries, a dedicated media room, and an open courtyard exhibition space. Providing museum-scale exhibition areas for established artists and project spaces for young talent, CCA continues to strengthen its artistic dossier. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://www.connercontemporary.com

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