:Palm Tree: :Palm Tree: :Palm Tree:
May 5 - June 3, 2017
In 1946, Louis Réard debuted his revolutionary new swimsuit design to audiences in Paris. He said it would split the atoms of fashion in a nuclear explosion; he called it the “Bikini,” after the famed Marshall Islands site where the United States tested the Hydrogen bomb and other atomic weaponry.
The Bikini has come to symbolize the tropical paradise vacation, all but obliterating the destructive connotations of the term’s origin. In :Palm Tree: :Palm Tree: :Palm Tree:, Sara Vanderbeek and Jenn Wilson explored the dualistic meanings of Paradise. Vanderbeek’s paintings both celebrated and deconstructed the textile design, landscapes and colors of tropical culture, while Wilson’s paintings of Arcadia and mythic utopias explore the darker side of the “ideal” through an art historical lens.
Sara Vanderbeek is an Austin-based artist, independent art consultant, and curator. Her artwork has been included in several solo and group shows nationally, including the McNay Art Museum (San Antonio), Art Palace (Houston), The Contemporary (Austin), Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum (San Antonio), Women & Their Work (Austin), Big Medium (Austin), Deitch Projects (New York), Christie’s Auction House (New York.) She has upcoming shows at grayDUCK Gallery (Austin) and Co-Lab (Austin.) She earned a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2003.
Jenn Wilson is an artist living in Austin, Texas. She has shown nationally and internationally with TSA LA (Los Angeles), Corbett vs Dempsey (Chicago), Packer-Schopf Gallery (Chicago), Eggman & Walrus (Santa Fe), American University of Beirut (Lebanon), SACI Institute (Florence, Italy), University of Arkansas Fine Arts Center Gallery, Austin Museum of Art, and Kohler Art Museum in Wisconsin. Her work has been reviewed in Artslant, Bad at Sports, Newcity Magazine, Austin Chronicle, TimeOut Chicago, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Reader, and the Chicago Tribune. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008.