Learning to Crawl" (Cleveland, OH)

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On View
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.

NEW

Learning to Crawl -- Before you can crawl, you need balance. It's clear from this
show that Matt Sesow and Dana Ellyn Kaufman, Washington, D.C.-based artists in a

self-proclaimed experimental phase, will soon be standing upright. But their work

also is polarized, either obvious or confusing. Many of their acrylic and oil paintin:

here belong to a project called 31 Days in July, pictures inspired by last month's

daily news, one image per day. Most are Kaufman's blunt, literal, pulp-style

reactions to specific events: Karl Rove's unpunished blunder, the London attacks,

the G-8 conference; others are more general and surreal (one compares Kate Moss

to a starving African child). Her best one powerfully juxtaposes Lance Armstrong's

victory with the aftermath of an Iraqi car bomb. Sesow is the duo's abstract

expressionist, painting frightening alien figures with pointy nipples, bulging eyes,

hooks for hands, cue-ball heads, squat legs, and huge feet. They're messy, furious,

and slightly cubist in perspective. But while his work is more engaging, it's largely

uncommunicative. He references the Madonna and Child in "Ascending," but what

to make of "Generic Overdose," in which a hideous creature crouches mysteriously Faetsusewre acter Deye” part
in pain or fear? There's an intuitive depth to Sesow's work, but crawling, for him, of Learning to Craw! at

will entail quiding us more clearly to appreciate him. Through August 30 at Saside-Outside Aut Galery.
Inside-Outside Art Gallery, 2688 W. 14th St., 216-623-8510. Zachary Lew’

bnutps:/www.sesow.com/eravl.him

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Art/Stage

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NEW

Learning to Crawl — Before you can crawl, you need balance. It’s clear trom

this show that Matt Sesow and Dana Ellyn Kaufman, Washington, 0.C.-
based artists in a self prociaimed experimental phase, will soon be
standing upright. But their work also is polarized, either obvious or
confusing. Many of their acrylic and oil paintings here belong to a
project called 31 Days in July, pictures inspired by last month's daity
news, one image per day. Most are Kaufman's blunt, literal, pulp-style
reactions to specific events: Karl Rove's unpunished blunder, the London
attacks, the G8 conference; others are more general and surreal (one
compares Kate Moss to a starving African child). Her best one powerfully
juxtaposes Lance Armstrong's victory with the aftermath of an Iraqi car
bomb. Sesow is the duo's abstract expressionist, painting frightening
alien figures with pointy nipples, bulging eyes, hooks for hands, cue-ball
heads, squat legs, and huge feet. They'te messy, furious, and slightly
cubist in perspective. But while his work is more engaging, it's largely
uncommunicative. He references the Madonna and Child in “Ascending”
but what to make of “Generic Overdose,” in which a hideous creature
crouches mysteriously in pain or fear? There's an intuitive depth to
Sesow’s work, but crawling, for him, will entail guiding us more clearly to
appreciate him. Through August 30 at Inside-Outside Art Gallery, 2688
W. 14th St, 216-623-8510. — Zachary Lewis

ccom/erawl htm

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PRESS RELEASE "LEARNING TO CRAWL" "Inside-Outside Art Gallery"
(2688 W. 14th Street in Cleveland, Ohio)
AUGUST 2005
Fellow DC artist and "31 days in july" participant, Dana Ellyn Kaufman, will
be showing with me at the "Inside-Outside Art Gallery" (2688 W. 14th
Street in Cleveland, Ohio).
OPENING RECEPTION: 6-9PM ON FRIDAY AUGUST 5TH

About the show (by Matt Sesow):
"Learning to Crawl" is an exhibit of two of Washington DC's hardest
working and dedicated artists. The title of the show was conceived by Matt
Sesow to help explain the idea that similar to the way a baby must learn to
crawl before it learns to run, an artist faces a similar route in his/her
development.
Students whom choose to attend art schools are oftentimes taught how to
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paint, how to execute "technically accurate" representations of objects,
safely and under the tutelage of an "expert". The trained artist is taught to
run immediately, without risk of falling or using "incorrect" materials and
techniques. Oftentimes the crawling phase of learning is skipped, and the
art student is left to paint post-graduation hitting a creative wall hearing the
"voice of correctness" from their instructors. Although Dana Ellyn attended
art school, she taught herself how to crawl as a child artist, creating as a
self-taught artist, alone. Indeed, she is learning to shed the art school
compulsion of creating perfect pretty pictures.
The world of the self-taught artist is series of mistakes, blunders, and
accidents. A self-taught oftentimes "falls" into the pursuit of painting,
without tutelage, and without support. There is no graduation and no goal
to being a self-taught hobby artist. Individuals who turn to art without
education are oftentimes channeling personal struggles into the art in order
to help heal or explain feelings. Matt, inspired by Warhol's "15 minutes of
fame" tag line, insists that everybody has at least 15 paintings in them. The
real struggle is the endurance and dedication it takes to believe in yourself
enough to do it all the time, get past the 15 paintings, keeping it fresh, and
improving. Matt feels he is still "a crawler", with the occasional "first step".
Currently, Dana and Matt paint together at least once every week in one of
their two Washington, DC studios. They have been a positive influence on
each other's work and direction, continuing to crawl and run together.
Thanks for looking, Dana and Matt.

Matt Sesow:
Matt started painting in Washington, DC as a hobby and a way to impress a
girl back in 1993. At that time, he was gainfully employed as a software
engineer for IBM and had never considered painting as a way to make a
living... let alone spend his free time. Since then, the thousands of
paintings he's created have evolved from being curious oddities amongst
friends and family, into a full-time professional pursuit with hundreds of
collectors around the world. Matt's work has gained a lot of attention within
the gallery and academic field studying "outsider art".
In the beginning, Matt obsessively created paintings that were influenced
and inspired by a childhood accident with a landing airplane. When he was
eight years old, he was struck by the propeller of an airplane that
subsequently amputated his left-dominant hand. Early paintings reflected
the trauma and frustration of growing up in rural Nebraska with a physical
disability. While his work continues to be influenced by disability, Matt's
paintings have emerged to tackle a variety of societal, personal, and
historical subjects. Since leaving the computer field in 2001, Matt has been
living entirely off the sale of his paintings.

Dana Ellyn Kaufman:
Dana Ellyn has always known that she is an artist. Growing up in
Connecticut she oftentimes spent hours on end quietly drawing in her room
honing her skills of representation. Dana was recognized throughout her
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childhood by winning a variety of international and statewide awards for her
abilities as an artist. Her determination catapulted Dana to be admitted on
scholarship into the fine arts and art history program at George Washington
University (Washington, DC).
Beginning in 2002, Dana left the corporate world to pursue art full time. Her
abandonment of several of life's luxuries has afforded her the time and
focus to create a dazzling array of thoughtful and well-conceived paintings.
The allure of a Dana Ellyn painting is that it tells a story, her paintings have
meaning, and sometimes the message may come as a shock... Don't let
her pigtails fool you.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE PAINTINGS...

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