Joshua Bienko
Piper Brett
Layet Johnson

DRIVE: The Story of My Life

August 06 – 29, 2015
Reception / Thursday, August 06, 6–8pm

DRIVE: The Story of My Life brings together the work of artists Joshua Bienko (Knoxville, TN), Piper Brett (Philadelphia, PA), and Layet Johnson (Little Rock, AR). It is difficult to define Bienko as painter, Brett as a sculptor, or Johnson as a conceptual artist as such. Each works in and out of specific mediums in an effort to resist the a priori “logic of an intentional assertion of meaning.” Forms and ideas move in and out of each other forming a net of discoverable intersections for the viewers and the artists. This collaborative effort is an exercise in the logic of the “maybe,” and the “presence of the undone.”

Lacanian Drive is a concept whereby one circles around and around an object of desire, without ever going right at it. This persistent circling can be more pleasurable than the object of desire itself. A Drive in basketball is to go straight at the goal. The works included in the exhibition negotiate the dialectic between the direct and indirect. Bienko’s works toe the line between drawing and painting. The neoprene surfaces suggest competition and sport. The  imagery aims to strike a near tragic near comic lyricism. Johnson’s drawings are journalistic entries into his experimental and referential “sketchbook.” With drawing, writing, and collage, Johnson investigates art historical and personal narratives while pushing the bounds of comic styles. For “Drive,” Johnson will create his first large scale series of drawings born from past smaller works made for Instagram. Brett channels the logic and spirit of the mentally unstable and defiantly creates solutions for these invisible problems. Inspired by the genius of deviance, Brett’s sculpture Invisible Man suspends the aftermath of an illegal tire dump in North Philadelphia into something that is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely.