AUTOMAT Gallery is pleased to present Night Floats by Philadelphia-based artist, Dave Pettengill. This active and changing installation project will be in the window clad space of the Broad Street Studio at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The Broad Street Studio both reaches out into the public dwelling of Lenfest Plaza and recedes into PAFA itself. By generating a series of invitations composed of various sundry elements and origins, Pettengill addresses the permeability of an encircling boundary and space between inside and out.

Night Floats is on view 24-hours a day at 128 North Broad St. Philadelphia, PA 19102.

 

Please join the artist on Wednesday, Sept 20, 11am-2pm for an artist reception &  Thursday, Oct 5, 6:30-8pm during the opening of Chuck Close Photographs.

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Dave Pettengill: davespettengill.wordpress.com

Statement:
The aim of my work is to create metaphors about the way individuals construct their realities. These works embody the contradictory process through which individuals piece together understanding in their worlds. Combining disjunctive materials, some pieces form a simple formal illustration of this idea. Other pieces combine both formal and conceptual elements to build a richer, more layered poems. Drawing, in now particular hierarchy, from the culinary world, music, earth and environmental sciences, religion, history, politics, eastern thought and technology, the intuitive and impulsive way these works come about, is a learning process through which I am to see how parallels can be drawn throughout all subject matters. The interior or exterior spaces which these pieces develop, become three dimensional allegories for the web through which all the things can be discussed. The process is long winded, overwrought, highly improvisational and chaotic. Formal relation help draw one though the space, while graphic and tidy icons offer islands of distillation and a more easily recognizable and digestible balance to the chaos. Contrast is my most important tool as an artist and a tool that I find we are most likely to learn from if remaining open minded at the time of the experience.

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