Friday, April 1, 2011

TONIGHT: TOOTH, TUSK & TALON @ Proximity ( A solo show by Anthony Pedro)

Autumn Society Elder & long time collaborator, Anthony Pedro, will be debuting his first solo show at PROXIMITY gallery starting tonight, Friday, April 1st. This is one show you do not want to miss if you're in Philly. Please see more details below.
WWW.ANTHONYPEDRO.NET

Opening Reception: April 1, 2011, 6pm-9pm

Proximity Gallery
2434 East Dauphin Street (in Fishtown)
Philadelphia, PA 19125
Contact: 267-825-2949
E-mail: janel@proximityart.com




BIOGRAPHY
Anthony Pedro received his BFA in Illustration from the University of the Arts in 2007. Since then his work has been shown in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles. He was born and raised under the long shadow of New York City, in New York’s Hudson Valley; an area known for its hidden wildernesses. Anthony works mainly in acrylics. His focus is on the natural world, sincere, savage and primitive, resulting in underlying themes of heartbreak and loss. When not painting in his South Philadelphia home, Anthony works as an animal attendant at the Philadelphia Zoo.


Some words by Sam Heimer (Thanks to Jeffro via PCS)


"If you've ever broken bread
with Anthony Pedro you may have noticed a distant look in
his eyes, a twitch to his ear as if listening for an approaching storm.
Anthony Pedro is in fact a Haunted Man. Down through time blows a wind
carrying with it the whispering of grasses and the sad song of flora and
fauna long since fossil fuel. He hears this, whether or not he chooses
to, and is bound to record it in pigment and oil. The cacophony of teeth
in flesh and cackle of nearby hyena keep him up late on tempest wrought
nights. The banging of kettledrums and guttural chant is so loud he
might as well be standing white knuckled on a steamer, bobbing silently
on the Nile or Amazon.


Anthony's pockets
are always bulging, filled with a strange array of tools and charms,
lest he be ill prepared for when Gia comes crashing through the wall of
sleep, the thin veil of time, and confronts him with all the tooth,
tusk, and tal...on of his nightmares. He collects bones and hides, but
what we don't see is the phantom flesh and sinew that collects and
writhes, bleating, howling his name in the horrid tongue of the bush.
Even when at peace, his hands twitch and move as if caressing an unseen
rifle stock, carved with ornate fetishes and beasts on a drunken night
around a campfire in the Burma jungle. Anthony has long since followed
the ignis fautus into the misty woods and never returned. Anthony Pedro
is a Haunted Man.


While his time as man is of current standing,
his soul exists on a wholly different plane, a plane that is choked with
vines and abnormally large vegetation. His spirit runs through jungle,
desert, and forest alongside beasts man can never ...again behold. His
earthly body is a beacon for his mind, which receives the crackle and
hisses of transmissions, reporting his travels, hardships, grief, his
kill. This is why Anthony Pedro's work is so important, so vital to us.
It reads like an environmentalist's journal, which is doomed to jump to
and fro different periods, eons, and hemispheres. Without Anthony
Pedro's paintings we would not know about his other life, his true self,
or his curse. And when soma joins pneuma, and Anthony leaves the
present time, we can take solace in the fact that he is now complete,
and will forever walk the forest smiling, periodically making bird
calls. And when he is gone, his paintings will tell an epic story of an
adventure more expansive than the Odyssey. Anthony Pedro is a Haunted,
nay, Hunted man."



View more of Anthony's Art @ www.anthonypedro.net

1 comment:

pw! said...

congrats! sure to have been an outstanding show

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