BE THERE
GamelandPresented by Morgan Lehman Gallery December 14, 2006- January 27, 2007Reception: December 14, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pmDarlene CharnecoMorgan Lehman is pleased to present Gameland, an exhibition of new mixed media works by Darlene Charneco. Through the images in Gameland Charneco continues to explore the meeting points of real life and virtual life, concepts previously mined in earlier exhibitions with Morgan Lehman Gallery, Everywhere and Cyburbia. In this exhibition, Charneco investigates social networks, and the gradual reorganization of information on the World Wide Web into shareable and intuitively navigable spaces. With these paintings, she is building her personal version of what she imagines will become a new world order of communication and community. Charneco’s work draws on a number of sources, including game theory, virtual worlds, The Sims, puzzles and problem solving. Her work is informed by the growing popularity of online communities, especially social networks such as MySpace and Flickr. Charneco draws our attention to these internet communities as thriving “cities”, each with its own geography. She is interested in the virtual version of urban planning and navigation as these online “cities” grow in popularity and size. These towns are seen by the artist as microcosms of contemporary society, both interacting dynamically with and reflecting upon the world in which we live. Ms. Charneco uses household nails, acrylic, enamel, glitter, model houses and trees, and multiple layers of resin to create 3-dimensional paintings. The works represent a lifetime of constructed memories, as well as the virtual worlds she has visited and created in her online social communities. In her artist’s statement Ms. Charneco asks the biggest question that engages her: “From an aerial view, it is hard to ignore the similarities of our cities and roads to the internal structures of a large and complex organism. One might consider the Web as a growing nervous system, full of sensors, gathering and sending information to and fro. What is our role within this organism?” Born in 1971, Darlene Charneco received her BFA from Southampton College of Long Island University and attended SUNY Stony Brook for her MFA. She has exhibited and guest lectured at numerous museums, galleries, and arts councils including the Parrish Art Museum, the Heckscher Museum, and the Smithtown Arts Council. Ms. Charneco currently lives and works in Southampton, NY.
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