Opening Thursday March 15th, 6–8
ADA Gallery, 228 West Broad Street, Richmond, Va.
Gian Pierotti and Allan Ludwig are artists dealing with shared concerns regarding our unstable societal systems and the need to prepare for a collapse they see as inevitable. They seek refuge through their works, hoping to provide alternatives and create constructive visions for the future.
Pierotti recasts the traditional medium of clay into a wildly inventive practice of ceramics, producing his playfully eccentric takes on everyday objects. His sculptures (tents, a bread oven on wheels, a hook on chains, knives, barrels) suggest the imaginary artifacts of survival tools to be used during some unnamed future calamity.
Ludwig explores the possibilities presented by grid systems to make sense of the world by remapping and rebuilding the everyday objects and images around us. Through an understanding of the foundations of form by means of the grid, he suggests that we can visualize the potential for revolutionary new systems and structures.
Both artists employ elements of fantasy and the speculative nature of science fiction into their work. Through these humble building blocks of a proposed future, they reimagine the familiar and suggest a reconsideration and remaking of society and the world itself.
Gian Pierotti was born in 1975 in Utah and raised in the mountainous regions of the West. Glimmers of a future artistic calling were present in his youthful fabrications of make-believe weapons from the vines and brambles in his surrounding environs. More recently he participated in a Dungeons & Dragons-themed show Doom Slangers at Allegra La Viola Gallery, New York, as well as receiving his MFA in the Crafts Department of Virginia Commonwealth University.
Born in 1977 in Orlando, Florida, Allan Ludwig’s artistic career was launched when he won a Wheel of Fortune board game in a coloring contest from the local newspaper. He later earned a BFA in painting from Brigham Young University in 2004 and his MFA in painting from Claremont Graduate University in 2007. His work has been published in New American Paintings. He is presently immersed in reading 20 years worth of Madman comics.