Rodrigo Avila, Kyle Keith, Douglas Philips, Don Southard, and Chuck Walker.
Featured Artists
Curated by Ruth Horwich, Disconnection IV: The Final Show Opens is the fourth in a series that began in the winter of 1992. The artists began the series as an outlet for showing their work and raising funds to fend off the disconnection notices they all kept receiving. The first show was held in an unheated vacant storefront on Milwaukee Avenue. As a result of the success of that show, they planned three additional shows with the support of the Hyde Park Art Center. The Pushpin Show and The Big Show were held in artist Douglas Philips’ studio.
The show featured worked that mostly focused on the assertion of collaboration and community. Each of the artists has a distinctive mode of expression, running a gamut from unique realism to abstraction. Rodrigo Avila’s nontraditional painted portraits featured the figure in compromising position and scenarios. Kyle Keith, also a figurative painter embraced a surreal narrative quality to his work filled with impressionistic pastel colors. Douglas Phillips mixed media pieces hung from the ceiling of the Center, incorporated painting, torn paper, photographs, masking tape and three-dimensional layering. And artist Chuck Walker’s commanding large-scale work suggested ominous aura in worn-torn areas of the world.
