Walking those winding, unassuming stairs up to the second floor of the "Vox building", (a derelict property, just north of China Town, that has been re purposed housing apartments, at least one suite of textile factory-type work, and a myriad of artist-run spaces, including:
Vox Populi,
Tiger Strikes Asteroid,
Marginal Utility,
Grizzly Grizzly - and the
NEW NAPOLEON)
I didn't think we were going to make it. Fresh from a down pour of summer thunder storms and a happy hour bar boasting half price everything until 8PM, the sweat was dripping off of our faces, pooling in blotchy splotchy patterns all over our clothes. We round the corner past the elevator doors and into the deplorable bathroom situation that is the second floor - quick past the growing crowd of gawkers in the hall,
And we were made a new once through the threshold of NAPOLEON's door.
The room was white, the air was cool, and we were met with
large oversize
huge gigantic prints made from woodblock, printed just so, on long rolls of paper delicately pinned to the walls and strung over utility pipes - I found my feet.
This is why we made the trip.
The beautiful movement and abstraction and depth of Christopher Hartshorne's woodblock prints let you in. They let you go - there - where? That's up to your imagination. They deftly set the stage, one with many different avenues and options, but they don't tell you what to say. A variation of line work mixed with subtle color shifts, the work a grotesque adventure, a memory, or a want - all depending on if you had 6 dark and stormys, or just 2 pale ales, at the happy hour bar, and your ability to synthesize alcohol.
I received the image in two parts, which I show together up top. Below, the two images as they were sent as separate. The image size, 96"x38". Now that's some big wood.
Go see the show for yourself!
Gallery hours at
NAPOLEON: Saturdays 1-3. 319 N. 11th Street. 2nd Floor. Philadelphia, PA. Up through July.
And check out more of Christopher Hartshorne's work at his website,
here.
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