Emerging Artists

Michael Elvidge
Zack Dove
Jeremy Gruda

November 2000

14+ is a venue for emerging artists to share their creative activity. This show has been created to allow young people to share the work they have created out of themselves, outside the confines of school art programs.

Around the age of 14+ many young people turn to art to express their inner world and question the culture they have inherited. Provocative images of social concerns, body image, sorrow and beauty become the icons out of their uninhibited desire for expression. Traditional media such as drawing and sculpture are used, as well as more recent modes of expression such as the 'zine' and collage constructions.

Confirmed artists include Phaedra Tettero-Crosby, Eli Dilly, Zack Dove, Michael Elvidge, Sarah Elvidge, Catherine Fisher, Jeremy and Camilla Gruda, Ariel Massett and Barry McGee.

The evening of the opening Saturday, November 4 will feature music after 7:00 p.m.

Co-Curator Annamaria Gruda

"Young People art!" What is that supposed to mean? What is it? Usually the phrase refers to exhibits showcasing the products of school art classes, pieces that are crafted to meet a given curriculum. The response given to these efforts is a mark, expressing varying degrees of approval depending on how closely the piece fits a prescribed formula, similar to the grading of vegetables.

The art in this exhibit was not collected from the areas schools; this is not an assembly of the regions finest selected vegetables. The pieces being shown were not created to seek approval; they are attempts to express, to question, to confuse, to offend. They describe rage, fear, turmoil, and maybe even beauty.
14+ will not fit into the familiar, generic form of exhibits of "young people art". You may not approve but you will react.

Co-Curator Barry McGee