Dawn Black / Curator's Office

Dawn Black: The Conceal Project

OPENS TONIGHT

Reception
Saturday, Feb., 21, 6 - 8pm

image: Dawn Black, Formal Invitation, ink, gouache, and

watercolor on Stonehenge, 15" x 22.25", 2008
Courtesy: Curator's Office

Curator's Office introduces the work of emerging artist, Dawn Black. Mysterious and exquisitely painted in watercolor, ink, and gouache, the works on paper present portraits of individuals altered by masks, uniforms, couture fashion, prison garb, ethnic attire, and other random eccentric forms of concealment. The artist was referred to the gallery by Curator's Office artist Jiha Moon. Black's work was extremely well received by curators, collectors and museum directors at this past December's Scope Miami Art Fair and nearly soldout.

Conceal Project examines the practice of masquerade, especially its role in relation to identity. The artworks not only explore the artist's own mania regarding disguised and surrogate identity, but of society's at large by depicting scenes of carefully selected concealed figures drawn in gouache and ink on paper. These figures are all "real" people (none being from imagination) who have been culled from the Internet and various periodicals. Of particular interest to the artist is a disguise's ability to make the wearer powerful through clandestine anonymity and, paradoxically its ability to allow the concealed person to be his or her authentic self. Oscar Wilde once remarked, "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

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