Spring For-WordMay 6 - May 30, 2011
ABOUT THIS SHOW
Works in progress by Leon Loucheur
fabric8 is pleased to present Spring For-Word, a two-person show by collaborative team Chamber Made, aka artists Leon Loucheur and Mike Gallegos. The duo presents a collection of works exploring the relationship between language and nature, spanning the stylistic spectrum from the tightly-crafted to the loose and spontaneous.
Chamber Made is the collaborative duo of self-taught artists Mike Gallegos and Leon Loucheur. Longtime friends and spray paint collaborators, the two met in Colorado in the late 90s and have been making art together ever since. Each brings their unique style to the table, creating an aesthetic that thrives on stylistic polarity, with Loucheur focusing on a tightly-manicured realism and Gallegos on a loose spontaneity. While each artist approaches the work with his own technique, the collaboration succeeds because the two are lock-step in subject and sentiment, creating a finished product spanning a vast visual terrain while also meeting at a symbiotic midpoint of soulful expression.
Leon Loucheur is a natural. After focusing for many years on his love of creative writing, he began painting with brushes at the age of 27, and despite having no formal training, took to it with ease. Loucheur has love for a variety of techniques and styles, refusing to be co-opted into the "either/or" approach to art appreciation, knowing that disregarding one approach is not requisite for embracing another. His is the art of inclusion, placing emphasis on originality and solid painting technique to create representational allegories that reflect his perspectives and life experiences. He currently lives in San Francisco with his growing family.
Mike Gallegos is a Colorado-based artist whose work embodies a casual spontaneity alive with color and motion. His approach to painting is completely unpremeditated and reflects an evolving dialogue between the artist and piece of art -- a visual call and response brought to life in paint. Employing animals, ghosts, fonts, people, and anthropomorphic trees, Gallegos' characters are usually fragmenting into the abstract fray that encompasses them. He lives in Denver, and is up every morning before the sun to run his daily route as a garbage collector.
Spring For-Word was on exhibit from May 6 through May 30, 2011 at fabric8, 3318 22nd Street, San Francisco.