the map show ::

Opening Reception:
Sunday, February 10, 1-4pm 2008

curator Vandana Jain
February 10 – April 6, 2008

The map show presents eight contemporary artists who use maps in unique ways. AJ Bocchino and John Maier plot information and create order from chaos, taking a literal stance on mapping. Maureen Catbagan, Mike Estabrook and Adam Henry approach their work more playfully, almost mocking the map as they utilize it for its pretense of information, while both Carol Irving and Sarah Kipp try to chart the grey zones of truth and identity through performance and video. Lastly, Hugh Davies collects and archives hand-drawn maps gathered from strangers around the world, creating an alternative MapQuest.

Contact: Exhibition Director, Lynn Stein, 845-358-0877, LynnStein@aol.com

The participating artists are:
Adam Henry, Maureen catbagan, Sarah Kipp, Carol Irving, Hugh Davies, A.J. Bocchino, Mike Estabrook, John Maier.

Adam Henry ::
"A Few Things Have Happened #4", 13" x 13" x 13", crumpled map, 2000-4. (maquette).

The core of Adam Henry's investigations is a fascination with our system-oriented society. His work is a process of splicing together various modes of systemic representation such as cartography, perspective and signage. By bringing together these different codes, he illuminates realities that logic cannot reach. In "A Few Things Have Happened #4: Reunited States", Henry takes a large flat world map and crumples it into a ball, so it takes on the spherical form of a globe.

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Maureen catbagan ::
"Arial View of my Parietal Lobe Region, April 9, 2003". 36" x 48", photo collage, 2003.

Maureen Catbagan explores the shifting boundaries of territoriality and power in her work. In this collage, she treats her inner thought as a living landscape that is temporal, volatile, and resistant to definition. Deceptively scientific and controlled from afar, her topographical collage drawings collapse as they try to define borders and chart her thought patterns. By attaching specific thoughts and feelings to various land formations and masses, the maps become a literal way for the viewer to travel through the artist's brain.

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Sarah Kipp ::
"The Ballad of Barbara Leech", 2006 (live performance)

Sarah Kipp is a painter and performance artist who deals with autobiographical elements of the physical and mental self. Kipp is interested in who and what we are as humans, what it really means to be alive and how our perspective changes as we grow. During her performances, she uses herself as a canvas by projecting slides of family members onto her face. In her new performance for the gallery, Kipp will tell us a story about our innate fear of strangers, with a twist.

Sarah Kipp performs: The Man in the Window, Feb 10 Sunday 2:30 no charge >

click to see more of the artist's work >

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Hugh Davies ::
"Australia, Europe, and the United States", 3 framed panels with protruding wire sculptures, 12 x 16 inches, 2006-7. (detail)

Hugh Davies is an Australian sculptor and new media practitioner.

Davies and Marcus Helm co-formed Analogue Art Map in 2001. Through architectural interaction, mapping social networks and psycho-cartography, the group seeks to both record and generate connections between creative individuals and the spaces in which they live. For this project, Davies relies only on small maps hand-drawn by strangers while he is travelling, and then collects these maps as a sort of "human" MapQuest. For the show, he will be presenting maps that he has gathered from Australia, Europe and the United States.

click to see more of the artist's work >

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Mike Estabrook ::
"Bubblegumization", bubble gum and chewing gum, 5'x 6', 2003-8. (detail)

Mike Estabrook's work is a melding of politics, fantasy, and humor.   He takes visual conventions like maps, newspapers, war photographs, or army recruiting propaganda, and alters certain key elements so as to both cast light on and distort the intended meanings of these things.   The modifications are often absurd, crude and blatant, and do not attempt to pass for the "real thing". "Bubblegumization" uses colorful bubblegum to delineate the top ten sugar producing countries in the world, in contrast to a world depicted in monotonous chewing gum.

click to see more of the artist's work >

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John Maier ::
"Pepsi vs. the Past", two panels: 8' x 13' each, woodcut intaglio and hand rubber stamped, 1993.

John Maier creates visualizations that map data to make social patterns more accessible to the public. His investigations have explored gun use in New York City, the New York State prison system, and the global reach of corporate power. In "Pepsi vs. the Past", Maier contrasts the sweep of historical empires with the global reach of Pepsico and its subsidiaries.

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Curator's Bio ::
Vandana Jain is an artist and curator living and working in Brooklyn. She has organized and curated a number of shows on the Lower East Side, notably The 4th Independent's Biennial at CHARAS/El Bohio in 1998 and Founding Fathers at ABC No Rio in 2004. Her work had been exhibited at the Soap Factory, Sarah Bowen Gallery, PS1, Momenta and the Queens Museum. She was a recipient of the Emerging Artists Fellowship in 2007 and her sculpture is currently on view at Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria, Queens.

Rockland Center for the Arts (RoCA) gratefully acknowledges support from the Arts Fund for Rockland, a project of the Arts Council of Rockland, as well as the County of Rockland, the Town of Clarkstown, NY Council for the Humanities, Orange & Rockland Utilities, 1-866-I Don't Know, Center Members and Donors.

This program is made possible, in part, with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a public agency.