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<\/a>Jamie Angell in front of Tim Roda’s photograph, Untitled #150 (Living Large)<\/p>\nWhile taking Jamie Angell\u2019s portrait, enjoying the company of his infectious smile, we spoke briefly about one of his favorite photographs: “Untitled #150 (Living Large)”\u00a0(2007) by Tim Roda. In this photo, a car is parked outside a town house with a man (Roda) in the driver\u2019s seat is looking back, possibly waiting for someone, a young boy (his son) in the back seat stares at the camera, and the camera\u2019s flash appears on one of the apartment\u2019s windows. Roda\u2019s photographic process flies in the face of photography and his works are more subtly self-aware than others in Angell\u2019s collection. Roda denies spacial clarity, he does not use light to enhance or highlight the motif, but uses a traditional depth of field or print with the end goal of crispness. His photographs are staged, often using household items, and family members. Combined with the black and white photographic vocabulary, a sense of nostalgia is consistently achieved \u2013 aspects that Angell appreciates in Roda’s work.<\/p>\n
In the back room where some works in storage are kept, the most strictly abstract works such as Daniel Hutchinson\u2019s “Zero” (2012) hang together.\u00a0In the adjacent space, one monitor displays three video works and one short film on loop. In two of the videos there is classic New Media iconography in the form of many busy layers and reference to electronic mediums. Another video, “Stitching the Snow” (2009) by Vessna Perunovich \u2013 who also has an abstract painting and sculpture in the show \u2013 seems to be a documentation of a traditional land art action involving walking in the snow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On the two largest walls of the front main space, works are arranged salon-style and grouped loosely into landscapes and portraits. Hung on the wall of landscapes are works by Erin Loree, Gavin Lynch, Paul Butler and Jon Rafman just to name a few. Some of these works hint at Jamie Angell\u2019s quirky taste. Derek Mainella\u2019s “Untitled (Acid)” (2013) is a painted yellow and black canvas-turned smiley face that is frowning from the weight of its torn canvas features.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A sense of Angell\u2019s collection can also be gathered from his penchant for self-aware photographs. Jakub Dolejs\u2019 photograph “Escape to West Germany” (2002) for example seems to be at first glance a scene of heightened drama, but upon closer inspection is as much staged tableaux, as is the suspended disbelief required for live theater. In Dolejs\u2019 work, the subject leans awkwardly forward holding a cheap suitcase prop, a fake baby, and is posed, standing in fake snow in front of a painted back drop.<\/p>\n On the second large wall among the portraits, a darkness of subject matter emerges. Some of the works are down right scary and uncomfortable.\u00a0 Saul Chernick\u2019s drawing, “The Glutarian and Serpent” (2005) includes a mournful person groping themselves, Rafael Ochoa\u2019s C-print, “Boy with Two Hounds” (2013) is like a nightmare from Goya, and Catherine Heard\u2019s “Untitled” figurative sculpture (1998) made of hair and teeth has since haunted my own dreams. Kim Dorland\u2019s “HER” (2008) is also hung on the portrait wall. The canvas, piled high with inches of thick oil paint had been in storage drying until this occasion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>Neil Harrison, Blue Square 2, 2014 (left) &\u00a0Daniel Hutchinson, Zero, 2012 (right)<\/p>\n<\/a>Installation view<\/p>\n<\/a>Jakub Dolejs, Escape to West Germany, 1972 (left); Vessna Perunovich, Continuum, 2000 (right)<\/p>\n<\/a>Installation view of the “Portrait” wall<\/p>\n