J. Derrick Durham: Ghost Receptacle

May 6-28,2010

Three Walls 

San Antonio, TX

Opening: 6-8PM Thursday May 6, 2010

First Friday: 6-9PM Friday May 7, 2010

*Note: Artist will be engaged in interactive performance with audience Friday night, May 7. 

Ghost Receptacle is an experimental commentary on a three year relationship the artist has had with the dumpster in the parking lot of the artist's duplex apartment. This is an investigation of the dumpster as the ubiquitous utilitarian sculpture and depository of consumer detritus.  This is an homage to the dumpster as home for the discarded remains of failed relationships, drunken debaucheries and crappy furniture bought on Craigslist. This is the dumpster as potential future home and studio vehicle. Utilizing an combination of video, sculptural installation, drawing and performance, Ghost Receptacle aims to  address issues of transit and loss through the nexus of throw-away culture mentality.  

J. Derrick Durham received his MFA from UTSA in 2006 and is currently adjunct faculty at Texas State University-San Marcos.

Three Walls is located in studio 106D Blue Star, Building B, San Antonio, TX.

open by appointment, 210-219-1562

at the Joan Grona Gallery, Jerry Cabrera: Opening: Thursday, April 1st 6 - 9pm

Artist Statement: "At the concentration camp site and at the Jewish Museum in Germany I began to consider the importance of light in isolated environments, environments of extreme suffering and environments that are considered sacred, such as a church or cathedral."
 
"With light color exists, color itself denotes life. Light is also associated with knowledge, hope, warmth and energy. In architecture light is utilized as an element of design. If you consider how the architecture of the prison cells limited the amount of light that made its way in, that light becomes more precious to the person in the cell or in solitary confinement. Psychologically, this may have been the only element of hope present in such an environment. Light is extremely important because it becomes the only source of visual escape from imprisonment and isolation. When you look outward, for an instance you are not visually aware of your immediate surroundings, and in that instance there is a visual escape that takes place. When people gaze into a sunset they are experiencing that escape simultaneously with the visuals of color spectra created by light. We are free to experience the vastness of light every day when we walk outside into the sun."