Hard Time Mini Mall

Shooting Gallery is pleased to present Hard Time Mini Mall, a group show curated by New Orleans’ Red Truck Gallery. Join us for the opening reception Saturday, April 13, from 7-11pm. The exhibit will be open to the public for viewing through May 4, 2013.

Averse to cute, glib art, Red Truck Gallery owner Noah Antieau has curated an exhibition to reflect his conviction that for art to be truly noteworthy there should be evidence of labor. Hard Time Mini Mall will showcase eleven artists, each one with a clear focus on craftsmanship: Frank Relle, Jason Holley, Andres Basurto, Laura Ortiz Vega, Chris Roberts-Antieau, Bryan Cunningham, Jason D’Aquino, Ian Berry, Joe Decamillis, Adam Wallacavage and Tom Haney.

Much of the work of Hard Time Mini Mall is instilled with an Americana aesthetic, often in unexpected ways. Hours of work and miles of discarded jeans go into Ian Berry’s realistic compositions carefully constructed from denim while Jason D’Aquino, a miniaturist accustomed to working on areas measuring less than a square inch, creates drawings stylistically inspired by vintage illustration and traditional tattooing. Frank Relle’s haunting photographs of New Orleans at night pay homage to Red Truck’s homebase and Laura Ortiz Vega is just one of the artists that expands the scope of the show, with recreations of graffiti in and around Mexico City created with an indigenous technique of the Huichol involving colorful wool thread and cera de Campeche, a dark orange beeswax particular to Mexico.

Encompassing a multitude of approaches, Hard Time Mini Mall is clearly fueled by Noah’s affinity for artists working with unconventional methods, a natural predilection he ascribes to a childhood spent among craft fairs where his mother Chris Roberts-Antieau, a self-taught textile artist, would display her own handiwork. Chris’ hand-sewn fabric collages, which appear as paintings from afar and are displayed within self-designed frames, will not only be hung in the show but the aesthetic of craft and folk art her work imbibes will be richly expanded on through the range of artists highlighted within the exhibition.