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Eric Bohr & Charlie Milgrim
Vexing History
Mercury 20 Gallery
25 Grand Ave. (at Broadway)
Oakland CA 94612
Exhibition dates: March 6 οΎ– March 28 2009
Opening Reception: Friday March 6 from 6-9pm (in conjunction with Oakland Art Murmur)
Afternoon After: Saturday March 7 from 12-4pm (in conjunction with Oakland Art Murmur)
East Bay artist Charlie Milgrim sees the future through a lens of the shaken up past beyond the precipice of the present. Milgrim’s work in sculpture installation and drawing embodies the interplay of art science and fate as she works with materials that harness gravity as an active element. Using materials that would otherwise become landfill such as discarded bowling balls the artist re-contextualizes them to function as conceptual reminders of delicately balanced or potentially destructive forces both natural and political.
Charlie Milgrim "Two Histories" bowling balls and scale 2008
Charlie Milgrim was born in New York City. She received a BFA from California College of the Arts and an MFA from UC Berkeley. She has exhibited her work at the Oakland Museum the Haines Gallery in San Francisco Gallery 16 in San Francisco OK Harris in New York City and has work in many private collections including the Di Rosa Collection in Napa CA. Her studio is in Berkeley next to the railroad tracks.
The mixed media paintings of Eric Bohr probe the lasting effects of history and the artist’s search for meaning under a close and often blank grey sky. Growing up in a family of recently urbanized farmers the bleak horizons and nearly monochromatic palette of the Michigan landscape inspire Bohr’s memories and imagination. Bohr’s work chronicles the loss of open working farmland as well as the subsequent closing of automobile factories that drew many from the farm to the cities and the migration and dispersion of families as social and economic systems collapse and regenerate.
Eric Bohr "nutmeat tonnage" acrylic burlap sack ink and bridle (inset) on canvas 72" h x 60"w 2008
Eric Bohr was born and raised in Lansing Michigan and apprenticed with Michael Jacobs in Venice California. He has shown in San Francisco Los Angeles and New York City. He currently lives and works in Emeryville.
Both artists will present video installations relating to their work.
In the Backspace: A group exhibition featuring current painting photography sculpture and mixed media from gallery artists.