Aloe: a Language of Exaltation

About

From the tens of thousands of artists whose work the editor, writer, and documenter Larry Qualls has seen over the past five decades, he has selected seven, who, over many exhibition viewings, have presented works that continue to resonate long after the shows they were enclosed. Each produces work that is steeped in a knowledge of tradition, yet is uniquely subversive, daring to challenge current customs, practices, and parameters. All had created pieces that challenged their chosen media, exploring themes and processes that resonated beyond the hermetic confines of the art world. 

For this exhibition he asked each artist to choose pieces they had made, of whatever vintage, that held particular relevance for their practice, even if these are not characteristic of what they had shown commercially. The works chosen for ALOE may be observational or inner-directed, abstract or narrative, constructed digitally or crafted through traditional means, yet they share a fierce commitment to challenging accepted ideas of the relation of sign and meaning; they both exacerbate and soothe, tearing apart settled conventions, while pointing to future possibilities.