Buffalo’s art scene can lead you to the most unexpected of places, including industrial gallery settings such as Hi-Temp Fabrication. Over the past couple of years Hi-Temp Fabrication, located in The Cobblestone District, has played host to a number of local heavy hitting artists who have taken the opportunity to showcase their works in a setting unlike anywhere else in the city.
Hi-Temp Fabrication is an operational industrial building that happens to be owned by a guy whose family has a bent for art. Since there was a vacant floor within the building, a decision was made to dedicate it to artists, thus bringing a needed cultural emenity to a historic section of the waterfront. Recently we even saw artwork appear on the outside of the building (see here).
On Friday, March 15, 2013 @ 6-11 pm, the public is invited to the opening reception of Fragments. The group exhibition features mixed-media work by Buffalo-based artists Thomas Webb, Chuck Tingley, OGRE, and Max Collins.
*A free public opening reception featuring baked goods by Wandercrust will be held at Hi-Temp Fabrication (79 Perry St., Buffalo, NY) on Friday, March 15, 2013 from 6-11 p.m.
About the artists:
OGRE: OGRE make friends (lead image)
“OGRE on long scary joreney. Sometimes sad. Sometimes super. Never alone. OGRE carry love everywhere. He get to share love with other mortals to make their joreneys good too.”
Chuck Tingley: Nothing Lasts Forever
“Build and destroy. Rebuild and destroy. Evolve. Through interpersonal relationships, environmental change, population growth, depleting resources, and accelerating technology, the world is constantly changing.
Nothing Lasts Forever. My work is an argument for this reality. I am a product of my environment; painting is my way of stepping through the looking glass. Fragments of dream and memory refracted through a filter of emotion are central to the theme of my work.
More than the life and history of doors and windows as utilitarian objects, their layers of paint, scratches, and provenance allow us a view into the world only as far as we can see. This secondhand observance can create a barrier leaving us feeling detached from real life.
Trial and error. Abstraction and figuration. Ink pen, spray paint, charcoal, acrylic, and oil. An ephemeral balance is struck between deconstruction and evolution. The end result doesn’t offer resolution, or even a calculated narrative. Instead, my works concentrate on what I am most inspired by: entertainment, news, technology, life, dreams, and memories. I suspend these fragile moments in time because Nothing Lasts Forever.”
Chuck Tingley was born and raised in Buffalo, NY, where he is currently working toward his BFA in painting at Buffalo State College. Working in mixed media on canvas and found objects, Tingley combines abstraction and figuration in his paintings to develop distinctly contemporary works. Solo exhibitions include last year’s ART IS DEAD at 464/Blink Gallery in Buffalo, NY; 2010’s Fauxtales at iPrintfromHome.com in Tonawanda, NY; and Emotional Effusion at 464 Gallery. Tingley’s work can be found in private collections throughout the country.
Max Collins: NO MORE TALKING
“NO MORE TALKING is a body of work fundamentally focused on the social and behavioral effects of digital technology. It is responding to a developing trend of how our behavior is becoming altered as a result of our connection with and dependency on the digital tools around us. There is a population interacting with computers to the point where individuals have been diagnosed with ‘internet addiction’ after displaying traits usually found in cases of substance abuse. The portraits in this series represent the expression and physical state of these addicts portraying a stare of blank apathy and disconnection, immersed in a virtual realm, more absorbed in cyberspace than the tangible world. The subjects are lit solely by computer screens creating a new physical space, similar to how the internet has evolved into its own separate ‘reality.’ On display at Hi-Temp Fabrication will be the third installment of the series, featuring new portraits presented on Plexiglas lightbox frames.”
The artist Max Collins is a native of East Aurora, NY, who received his BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art & Design in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He recently relocated to Western New York and currently maintains a studio in the Black Rock neighborhood of Buffalo at 464 Studios. His photography has been published in The New York Times and The Michigan Daily, and solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at MAIN(ST)UDIOS in Buffalo and at the Springville Center for the Arts in Springville, NY. He has also executed public murals in Ann Arbor, Springville, and Buffalo.
Thomas Webb: Projections
“‘We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.’ — Oscar Wilde
The balance between good and evil exists within all of us. For every good intention or helpful idea
there is also part of us that can do harm. In some people these differences are easier to distinguish than in others. But in everyone there is that fragment to do wrong.
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I wanted to explore the idea that each person has a ‘devil’ within them, no matter how small it may be. How we choose to handle these devils affects our lives and the world around us.”