FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: “Subverting the Dreadful Normal” Solo Art Exhibition 11/4 - 12/15/2022
Cultural Subversive Art An Ab-Normal Outlier From Central Coast Traditions
Pacific Grove Art Center, Annand Gallery
568 Lighthouse Ave, Pacific Grove, CA 93950
(831) 375-2208
pgartcenter.org
Subverting the Dreadful Normal: The Art of Edward M Corpus
November 4-December 15, 2022
emcanimator@gmail.com
(831) 277-6673
emcanimator.com
A naked toddler sits placid and unperturbed in the midst of writing vipers. A brown-complexioned boy stares at a blonde schoolgirl, his head engulfed in flames. Hermann Göring stands bedecked in a Nazi SS uniform of gaudy cerise outside a cage of Mexican migrants. No matter how bizarre, whimsical, grotesque or beautiful Edward M Corpus’ images may seem to the viewer, contemporary issues are at the heart of his visual allegories and metaphors.
Eighteen of Corpus’ disquieting fine art and graphic works will be on view during his solo exhibition at the Pacific Grove Art Center. These artworks will hang in PGAC’s Nadine Annand Gallery between Friday, November 4th and December 15, 2022. A reception for the artist is scheduled for November 4th between 7 and 9 PM.
The Central Coast of California boasts a long tradition of artist communities inspired by its scenic beauty. Edward M. Corpus’ artwork stands as an outlier. If the occasional landscape or seascape finds its way onto his canvases, it’s only as a backdrop to flying saucers, supernatural beings or a burning Chinese fishing village.
Corpus refers to his art as cultural subversive, expressing concepts congruent with an evolving ethos of social justice and inclusion. He aims to subvert through visual art what he considers the dreadful normal, the desensitized and passive acceptance by people to social injustice.
Working primarily in traditional wet and dry media, his work combines images with the written word to challenge viewers’ assumptions of what is “real”. He draws on the imagery of mythical archetypes, mystical traditions, dreams, altered states and personal experience to cast light on contemporary issues. Influenced by early Dada, Surrealism and magical realism in art and literature, he seeks to inspire viewers to explore through art the hidden truths of the subconscious and unconscious mind, and to reject capitalist notions of normality in a culture that accepts as normal the detritus of wealth and power inequality.
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