35 Claver Place

I like to make places. For me its about being where I am, having somekind of relationship with a place and telling it's story. What I do is get myself into a place, take materials, make drawings, start making things, channeling things that have to do with that place. I love history, the history that is between the cracks.

Review of Enriched at Parker's Box from freewilliamsburg.com

We made the long trek over to Parker's Box and were quite impressed by the controlled chaos that is Enriched. Apparently the directors allowed John Bjerklie, Matt Blackwell, and Andrew James to basically live and work in the gallery for three weeks. It wasn't a pretty process from the sound of things, but they managed to put together a big, wobbly ramshackle mess of paintings, drawings, and sculpture. Bjerklie's money tree with an exploded brief case may be the centerpiece of the group's salon aliéné. That might be a bit strong, but the show has a wild, juvenile energy that is quite infectious. L and I bumbled about the space looking at James' intentionally awkward paintings that climb the gallery walls and Blackwell's pastiche animals.

Money Tree installed at Parker's Box

There is a lot to digest in the show, like the title suggests, that gallery has never been so stuffed with art. The back of the gallery features a smaller almost ancillary installation of small works on paper by the three artists. A military surplus cot and television sit in the corner hinting at the hours the artists invested in the communal act of making so much. I enjoyed Blackwell's pencil and ink drawings that surround a rather pathetic looking horse. The spare, tremulous images function like traces of memory, from grocery lists to doodles, each one conveys something of the artist's personality. I never get tired of seeing "Fuck-ed Upd," scrawled somewhere in an exhibition. It's like a gang sign for artists. I liked the drawings more than his animal sculptures but I always prefer drawings anyway.