Comity of Ghosts
Shawn Camp, There Are Exceptions to Everything, oil on canvas, 48x36 inches, 2020
Darcie Book, "Make No Bones III", Acrylic on cotton, 33" x 19" x 6", 2020
Darcie Books & Shawn Camp
Oct 3, 2020 – Oct 31, 2020
Comity of Ghosts: New Work by Darcie Book and Shawn Camp is comprised of disparate objects and images, connected by their experiences as living beings. Islands in the darkness, these works are examined through a lens of collective vulnerability.
The dimly lit space, warm and comforting, is like a blanket under which you can hide. But that dark is also terrifying in its inherent sense of free-fall; fear of the unknown - of what lurks in the shadows. Through a conjured manipulation of substance and light, the show oscillates between visceral physicality and ethereal immateriality. Tiptoeing back and forth between realms of the living and the dead.
In this darkened, meditative space, where individual works serve as beacons, lighthouses, and contact points, Book and Camp invite us into a world where time expands and contracts. Our normal waypoints are nowhere to be found - there is only the echo of a familiar memory as we float in the darkness amongst ghosts, friendly and otherwise.
Darcie Book is a sculptural painter and installation artist whose work explores paint as object and architecture through innovative processes using acrylic paint and metal leaf. Book's extensive exhibition history includes the Baltimore Museum of Art, Fort Works Art, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid (LA). She has been published in Sculpture Magazine and the Manifest International Painting Annual. Artist residencies include Vermont Studio Center and Facebook AIR. Major works have been commissioned by The City of Austin, Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, and Facebook. Awards include the 2016 Belle Foundation for Cultural Development grant, an international award for achievement in the arts and humanities.
Shawn Camp grew up in Coeur dʼ Alene, Idaho and completed an MFA in Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has shown work in New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Dallas, along with solo and group shows in his home base of Austin, TX. His work has been featured in South by Southwest, ArtPrize, and New American Talent and is included in numerous public and private collections. Shawn’s paintings, videos and sound pieces exploit the effects of context and light on perception - contrasting the ephemeral nature of awareness with the illusion of constancy.
