PRIVATE FRONTIERS: Chris Ballantyne & Michael Light December 15, 2012

Exhibit runs 15 December - 26 January, Reception: Saturday, 15 December 4-6pm

Private Frontiers features the work of Brooklyn-based painter Chris Ballantyne and San Francisco-based photographer Michael Light in a collaboratively-conceived exhibition. Having addressed similar themes in their work for some years, both artists have been in dialogue for the past year to develop work that examines the human urge to stake territory and its more absurd manifestations on the American landscape. The exhibition will include Light's large-scale aerial photographs and artist books documenting the American West, and Ballantyne's quirky, quasi-minimalist paintings.

Chris Ballantyne paints the buildings, roads, fences, parking lots, and pipelines of depopulated suburban and exurban environments with such deadpan finesse that it takes a moment for the incongruities to emerge. Hillsides are neatly sliced to demarcate irrational boundaries. An empty parking lot dotted with random palm trees becomes a maze of irregular routes and random double-wide spaces. Ballantyne renders these dysfunctional constructions, divisions, and passageways with sly humor in a crisp graphic style. His delicate craftsmanship provides the perfect veneer for depictions of aberrant infrastructure and environmental re-engineering.

Michael Light's majestic, disconcerting photographs document the collision points of human development with open space. Using a customized, large-format camera that allows him to lean from a door-less, self-piloted aircraft, Light continues a decade-long quest to examine the American West from an aerial vantage point. His extreme process provides a singular perspective on spectacular geology and the gated, exclusive "communities" of the Western states. Like Ballantyne, Light coolly exposes the surreality of landscapes audaciously sculpted and manipulated for human exploitation, with ironic reference to the grandiose Earthworks of Michael Heizer, James Turrell, and Robert Smithson.

Official Website: http://hosfeltgallery.com