Thunder-Sky, Inc. 2016: Radical Approaches

This will be our seventh year in existence, and the collection of exhibits we’ve pulled together represent Thunder-Sky, Inc.’s vision and mission pretty spectacularly:  paintings, costumes, sculptures, installations, performances, shadow-boxes, songs…  All of these artists have totally different and divergent approaches, all of them “radical” in ways you’ll need to see to believe, and all with a distinct and powerful sense of authority and ingenuity in sync with Raymond Thunder-Sky’s legacy.

January 9, 2016 – February 13, 2016:  “The Garden of Restoration:  New Works by Tom Towhey and Adrian Cox.”  Two veteran, skilled painters, one from Cincinnati (Towhey) and the other from St. Louis, Missouri, create works that are disturbingly plush and whimsical but also have the depth and cunning of masterpiece daydreams.  Hieronymus Bosch and Salvador Dali can be used as reference points, but then both painters slide away from reference into their own versions of paradise and the opposite.

February 26, 2016 – April 9, 2016:  “Utopia Parkway Revisited:  Contemporary Artists in Joseph Cornell’s Shadow.”  Joseph Cornell was an “outsider artist” before “outsider art” was engendered as a label.  In the early 20^th Century, he lived in Queens, New York with his mom and brother, and created a secret world of shadow boxes, movie-star dossiers, collages and home-movies that are seen today as remarkable works of art.  Local artists Jeff Casto, Marc Lambert,  Christian Schmit, Matthew Waldeck, and Matthew Waldeck Jr. make art that both mimics Cornell’s approach (collage, sculpture, assemblage, and appropriation), as well as the spirit involved in his vision, creating and recreating an aesthetic universe based in nostalgia, obsession, and pop culture. 

 
April 29, 2016 – June 11, 2016:  “Radically Visible:  Sky Heyn Cubacub, Lindsey Whittle, Craig Matis, and Antonio Adams.”  Cubacub, Whittle, Matis, and Adams are artists who use costume, performance, music, language, and symbol as vital ways to break down the barriers between artists and audience, and to both celebrate and invigorate the conversations and tensions around identity, appearance, and meaning.  The works in the show range from costumes, performances, songs, paintings, drawings, and collages.  

June 24, 2016 – August 13, 2016:  “Dollar General:  Installation Art by The Girls Coloring Space.”  Krista Gregory, Jamie Muenzer and Kathy Brannigan comprise the artists collective The Girls Coloring Space.  The premise of this show:  Thunder-Sky, Inc. is awarding a $100.00 grant for materials to The Girls Coloring Space with the stipulation they must spend the 100 on materials at a local Dollar General store.  That will be the only materials they can use to make art and/or to install the show outside of the white-paint and spackle and nails the gallery has on-hand.  The Girls Coloring Space has the wit, ingenuity, and sense of intuitive style needed to make “Dollar General” an aesthetic and commercial success.

August 26, 2016 – October 8, 2016:  “Well-Known Pacifically:  New Works by Antonio Adams.”  This will be Antonio Adams’ 2nd one-man show at Thunder-Sky, Inc., and his 3^rd installment of a series works that began with “Unrealized & Unforeseen” in 2012 followed by “Outcasts from Hollywood” 2014.   In “Well-Known Pacifically,” Adams’ continues to explore his technicolor notions of celebrity and reality with a sense of mischief, comic grief and funky spirituality.  

October 28, 2016 – December 10, 2016:  “Flourish:  Cindy Dunham and Carla Knopp.”  Two artists from Indianapolis work in different modes and scale, but find common ground in the gallery space.  Dunham draws and makes intensely-colored digital prints from the drawings.  Knopp, a painter and sculptor, will be featuring sculptural pieces that have the shape and form of phantom wild life.