The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present Neapolitan (Comic Book Diplomacy, Go Cups and Water Bottle Buoys), an exhibition of recent work by Christopher Saucedo. The exhibition will be on view at Arthur Roger Gallery, located at 432 Julia Street, from May 6 – June 30, 2017. The gallery will host an opening with the artist in attendance on Saturday, May 6 from 6-9pm, in conjunction with Jammin’ on Julia.
In the realm of confections, Neapolitan signifies three side-by-side flavors of ice cream in the same container. This exhibition, Christopher Saucedo’s first with the gallery, is also a rich tripartite of distinct bodies of work: Comic Book Diplomacy, Go Cups and Water Bottle Buoys. The artwork, made concurrently, is unified by the artist’s preoccupation with water or fire as the imagery and technical processes reveal. Handmade paper, chain-stitched embroidery, delicately balanced mobiles and carved polystyrene are all in play as they activate the popular imagery of comic books and drinking containers with global maps both real and imagined.
Comic Book Diplomacy is a rearrangement of international editions of American Super Hero comic books collaged in provocative manners that reinterpret the subject and present compelling visual, social and geo-political narratives. The primordial tension between fire and water elevates the humble drinking container in Go Cups, a reference to the plastic cups given by bars in New Orleans to their patrons so that they might take drinks off of the premises. Saucedo draws the containers designed to hold liquid with fire, literally branding the image into handmade paper. Water Bottle Buoys (sculpture that floats) came about as Saucedo considered the duality of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ water. Plastic water bottles, although vessels of clean drinking water, also create an environmental dilemma with the continual disposal and accumulation in our oceans. Saucedo argues that since Styrofoam never decomposes it just might be the new material of statuary. With global warming and rising sea levels, why not make sculpture that floats – in this case a self portrait in his exact volume, as a plastic water bottle – anchored to a stone.
Christopher Saucedo was born in 1964 in Brooklyn, NY. He received his B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY in 1986 and his M.F.A. from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1988. After attending the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, he did post-graduate work at the Queens University at Belfast, Northern Ireland. He has exhibited nationally and internationally and is the recipient of numerous grants, including from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Joan Mitchell Arts Foundation. Saucedo currently teaches at Adelphi University in New York.
For more information please contact the Arthur Roger Gallery at 504.522.1999 or visit our website at arthurrogergallery.com.
