Get Surreal Again with Baton Rouge Gallery’s Surreal Salon and Soirée

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The Second Annual Surreal Salon will run from Jan. 3-28, 2010 at Baton Rouge Gallery (BRG), 1442 City Park Ave. This exciting exhibition will feature the work of contemporary artists from across the country shedding light on the lasting effects of Surrealism – one of the most intriguing movements of the 20th century – on the way that contemporary art is created in the 21st century.

The Surreal Salon will feature works from 35 artists representing more than a dozen states. The work on display will run the gamut from video to sculpture, from jewelry to paintings all with a surreal tinge. This exciting multimedia exhibition will offer an exclusive look at American contemporary art, which can only be seen at BRG.

BRG is proud to announce the juror's selection of artists for the Salon. The juror for this year’s Salon is David Ball, artist, illustrator and faculty member of the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Calif. Hundreds of entries from throughout the United States were received this year making the juror's decision very difficult.

 

Click Here to View the Virtual Catalog of The Second Annual Surreal Salon:

Click Here

 

 

Artists selected to participate in the Salon include:

Chris Aaron Baton Rouge, LA	Ashley K. Bell Baton Rouge, LA	Ron Bennett Waggaman, LA	Craig Black Gonzales, LA
Robert Bowen San Francisco, CA	Hannah March Campbell Baton Rouge, LA	Rachel Clark Knoxville, TN	Paul Dean Baton Rouge, LA
Lacey Dupré Lafayette, LA	Henryk Fantazos Hillsborugh, NC	Wylie Garcia Burlington, VT	Victoria Goro-Rapoport Kearney, NE
Morghan Gray Baton Rouge, LA	Amy Guidry Lafayette, LA	Todd Hines Baton Rouge, LA	Walter Hnatysh Lake Worth, FL
David Humphreys Baton Rouge, LA	Bruce Humphries Cheltenham, PA	Lisa M. Johnson Oxford, OH	Marlene Llanes Pasadena, TX
Mario Marzan Carrboro, NC	James Russell May Louisville, KY	Mary McBride Baton Rouge, LA	Florence Alfano McEwin Green River, WY
Lee Ann Moser Baton Rouge, LA	Armin Muhsam Maryville, MO	Melanie Peak Baton Rouge, LA	Russ Revock Cleveland, OH
Blake Sanders Baton Rouge, LA	Christopher Smith Baton Rouge, LA	Madelyn Smoak Durham, NC	Tamara Staser-Meltzer Petalvma, CA
Dyana Walker Kerrville, TX	Emily Williams Columbus, GA	Michael Yankowski Natchitoches, LA

BRG’s Second Annual Surreal Salon will be punctuated with a one-night celebration of the exhibition on Saturday, Jan. 23 from 6-10 p.m. Titled the Surreal Salon Soirée, this evening of art, exciting live music and costumed attendees will be an event that will surely be unlike any the arts community in our area has seen before. All are invited to view and celebrate the work included in the Surreal Salon (and hear the announcement of this year’s winners and the awarding of more than $1,000 in prize monies) while enjoying live musical performances from DJ OttO and GIVERS.

DJ OttO (Otto Orellana) has put his own spin on the social, party and music scenes in the Capital Area. His infectious mixes and spins have earned him a cult-like following. It’s always a party when the native of Honduras via New Orleans is heard mixing and spinning tunes causing audiences to dance all night long. Over the past five years, his participation in unconventional DJ roles such as at Stabbed in the Art, CultureCandy’s UncommonThread Wearable Art Shows, Velcro! Indie Dance Party and WTF 90’s Night catapulted OttO’s DJ career. These parties showcase OttO’s knack for multigenerational, multi-genre musical experiences sure to get everyone in a fantastic frame of mind.

The night’s headliner, GIVERS have established themselves as a crowd pleasing juggernaut in the regional music scene by filling venues to maximum capacity despite being a relatively young band. This quintet creates a colorful chemistry that utilizes a vibrancy that transports audiences to a lucid dream-like atmosphere anywhere they perform. Crowds are sucked in, thrown about and become part of what can only be summed up as an experience not to be missed. They have recently toured with such national touring acts as The Dirty Projectors, Casper & the Cookies and Everthus the Deadbeats. Their debut album will be available in the spring of 2010.

This evening of visual art, live musical performances and surrealist games will challenge attendees to top the “surreal” costumes from last year’s event. Last year’s affair saw attendees dressed as geishas, fairies, animals and superheroes. Others drew inspiration from iconic surreal artworks by Salvador Dali or René Magritte while some attendees created their own original works of wearable surreal art just for the event! Cash and prizes will be awarded to those judged to have the “most surreal attire” at the Soirée. Admission to the Soirée is $15.

Click Below for a Video of last year's Exhibition and Event:

 

Surreal Salon’s Juror Featured in Special Sundays@4

On Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010 at 4 p.m., Baton Rouge Gallery’s Sundays@4 program will host a special engagement featuring David Ball, juror for the Second Annual Surreal Salon. Ball will be discussing his artwork, painting technique and the Surreal Salon exhibition. Ball’s work has been exhibited in the United States and has been featured internationally in art publications in China, Taiwan and Germany. Additionally, he has worked extensively as a freelance illustrator working with the likes of the Village Voice, Boston Review, Chicago Tribune, PC Magazine and Playstation.

Working from ready-made texture, surreal, amorphous collage application and unconsciously applied abstract brush work, Ball allows his images' surfaces to suggest the direction of their growth, beginning only when the base evokes something he responds to on a basic, intuitive level.

The entire process is both additive and subtractive, a series of layered, mixed-media stages whose intent is to arrive at a distilled essence, an image filtered into existence via a subconscious path of least resistance.

After the Surreal Salon Soirée, please come back on Sunday, January 24 for a meet-and-greet with Ball, who hand-picked from hundreds of submissions the works featured in this year’s Surreal Salon. The talk, which begins at 4 p.m., is free and open to the public.

 

Get Even More Connected to BRG

Check out BRG’s very own myspace account at: http://www.myspace.com/batonrougegallery for up to the minute information about what is going on in and around the gallery.

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Also we now have a youtube account http://www.youtube.com/batonrougegallery that you can view clips and videos from past and present Gallery events and exhibits.