Surface coverings by Gary Kachadourian
There’s nothing better than learning about the making and meaning of art directly from those who conceive and create it. I did just that in a large Pigtown industrial building on Saturday, January 23, when artists in UMBC’s Imaging and Digital Arts program opened their studios to strangers.
Meghan Flanigan, an accomplished dancer/choreographer, exhibited a riveting split screen video that juxtaposed images of her crawling through a brilliantly sunlit but desolate urban site. If I hadn’t become dizzy from the multiple viewpoints, I could have watched this absorbing performance for hours. (Visit Movement Research Blog, to get a real sense of the role video plays in Meghan’s work.)
I also took the opportunity to reconnect with that great friend-of-the-arts-in-Baltimore, Gary Kachadourian, who until last summer was Visual Arts Coordinator for the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts. For many years, Gary dedicated himself to serving the needs of other artists. Now, here he is, in his mid-fifties, pursuing his own work. He’s back in school, immersed in new projects, surrounded (as usual) by the next creative generation. But here’s the best part: he’s as imaginative, energetic, and edgy as any MICA undergraduate I’ve ever seen. There’s the power of art-full living!
Gary was exhibiting his new life-size prints, enlarged Xeroxes of extraordinarily detailed 8-by-10 inch pencil drawings. He often depicts items or surfaces we walk past every day, yet his images elicit potent memories.
As a label explained about his authentic scale reproduction of a 3-by-4 foot section of a brick wall from a 7 Eleven Store in Baltimore County, Maryland: “[It] will hopefully give you, the purchaser, a warm feeling and a memory of a good moment. Maybe it was that pack of cigarettes that got you through a tough time, or that Slurpee that cooled you on a hot day, or maybe it’s that 16 ounce cup of Mountain Blend that gives you the strength to walk into work each morning.” For me, these drawings evoke memories of the New York suburbia of my childhood, half a century away on Long Island.
Best of all, these Xeroxes can be assembled to create imaginary rooms. On Saturday, they were configured to suggest the corner of a furnished room with brick walls; an over-stuffed sofa; a television showing a blurry black-and-white image; a festive Christmas tree complete with ornaments and lights; and a view of a parked Volvo with a McDonald’s in the distance.
Gary’s furnished room is unquestionably the perfect gift for the man who has everything and for the man who has nothing (think hapless single or divorced man). A 3-by-4 foot section of brick wall is only $9.99. You could find good use for dozens of these! There is also a print of a cinderblock wall—I will not even speculate on who might be the appropriate recipient of that item. And there’s more to come soon. Gary is already experimenting with drawing asphalt and promises that a dropped ceiling is in the offing.
For those of us who love his beautiful drawings of grass and weeds, he’s still at work on those in parallel to these built spaces and surfaces. Maybe more will pop up in the springtime.
- If you can’t wait for spring, you can see one of Gary’s installations in the upcoming Annex Theater & Gallery exhibition Parts and Labor. Curated by Michael Farley, the exhibition presents works from more than 30 of Baltimore’s visual and performing artists.
- If you can’t make the opening of Parts and Labor on February 6 at 7 p.m., mark your calendars now for the closing on March 6 at 7 p.m. Here I believe you’ll begin to see the huge impact made by the recent Baltimore Community Foundation “confetti grants.” The Annex will literally be transformed!
Filed in: Gary Kachadourian, Meghan Flanigan.
Doreen Bolger is always on the move because she can’t stop seeing, supporting, and writing about the arts in and around Baltimore City. Her lengthy love affair for the arts began in Long Island when her father, an executive in the textile industry, brought home breathtaking fabrics every night from the heart of the garment district. 