Gallery Two, Chicago
Western Exhibitions kicks off the fall season with “Act Natural”, a solo exhibition by JOEY FAUERSO in Gallery 2. Fauerso will show two videos and figurative watercolors on paper that combine landscapes and figures, exploring a grey area between fantasy and reality. “Act Natural” will open on Friday, September 10 with a free reception that is open to the public from 5 to 8 pm.
Over the past few years, Fauerso has been working on a series of hand-painted animations that represent different kinds of physical and metaphorical transcendence. She draws from the histories of painting, dance, and performance art while utilizing digital animation tools to explore the nature of human consciousness. The two videos in this show introduce live-action to her work.
“Me Time” is an eight-minute video showing Fauerso making out with a series of puppets, including a firefighter, a policeman and a construction worker. She attempts to make as “real” a connection as possible with the ridiculous-looking puppets.
“Clearing”, a three-minute video, superimposes live figures over antique wallpaper depicting a forested grove. Fauerso plays a flute in this forest and her music seduces a young naked man who twirls around until he collapses, while flocks of animated birds fly overhead. Fauerso is interested in challenging the history of images that equate the female body with nature: women as vulnerable, sexual creatures. Fauerso flips this script; in her paintings and videos, the male doesn’t control or dominate the landscape but is depicted as both vulnerable and erotic.
Her watercolor paintings of lone figures being erased or subsumed by a void marry the process of painting with the painted figure, continuing her theme of joining the real and the illusory.
This is Joey Fauerso’s second show with Western Exhibitions. Her paintings, works on paper, and animations have been shown at the San Antonio Museum of Art, David Shelton Gallery, Finesilver Gallery, and Sala Diaz, all in San Antonio, the Roswell Museum of Art in New Mexico, and the Arlington Museum of Art in Texas. Her artist residencies include the Serie Project Residency in Austin, TX, Hotel Pupik in Austria, Korpulfsstadir Residency in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the Roswell Artist in Residence in New Mexico. She received her MFA in 2001 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fauerso lives and works in San Antonio, Texas.
Western Exhibitions would like to thank the Interactive Arts & Media Department at Columbia College Chicago for technical assistance with this show.