Take a spin, the Game of Going Off to
War, 2012. Mixed media. 50 x 50”.
CRAIG NORTON:
TIM
CAME HOME FROM THE WAR AND ISN’T TIMMY ANYMORE
May 12th – June 17th,
2012
JIM KEMPNER FINE ART
501 West 23rd Street
New York, NY 10011
Gallery Director: Dru Arstark (212) 206-6304
Jim
Kempner Fine Art is pleased to present Craig Norton’s second solo show at the
gallery: Tim Came Home from the War and
Isn’t Timmy Anymore, a confrontational
narrative about the horrors of war and the struggles endured by soldiers upon
return from battle. This narrative was created using Norton’s signature technique:
a combination of expressive, photo-realistically drawn faces and hands with
swaths and swirls of wallpaper collage. Three-dimensional wooden structures -
walls, doors, caskets – are incorporated into the tableaux, adding a new sense
of psychological and physical depth. The show will be on display from May 12th-
June 17th, 2012 and the artist will be present at the opening on May
12th, 6 -8 pm.
Craig
Norton’s installations have brought social awareness to issues such as civil
rights and lynching in America (the subject of his first show at Kempner), the
Holocaust and other genocides, and gun violence in America. This most recent
tableaux evolved from conversations Norton had with a family friend, a veteran who
returned after three tours of duty with a purple heart and severe brain
injuries. As a result of these injuries, the veteran felt lost, isolated, and
unable to connect with those around him, symptoms commonly associated with Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder. Using powerfully gestural and evocative collage
techniques, Norton draws attention to PTSD as a pressing national crisis.
A
highlight from the show, Take A Spin, the
Game of Going Off to War, uses dark humor to illustrate the mental and
physical unpredictability every soldier faces.
Similar to a game, viewers are invited to “spin the wheel” to see the
various options: lose an arm, leg or
genitals; come home unhurt, unchanged, the same as when you left; accidentally
kill a non-combatant; die; suffer PTSD; spin again. In My Daddy was a Decorated War Hero, Norton addresses the problems of
suicide among war veterans: a little
girl stands screaming outside a room, where she has just found her father’s
dead body. The dramatic foreshortening
of the man’s body and the twisted expression on the little girl’s face heighten
the dynamism and raw emotion of this image.
My Daddy was a Decorated War Hero detail, 2012. Mixed Media.
48 x 62”.
The artist lives
with his family in Perry, Missouri.
