Foundry Art Centre Proudly Presents

"ConTEXT III"

A Group Show Including the Art of Aaron Wilder

May 8-June 19, 2020

Foundry Art Centre

520 North Main Center

Saint Charles, MO 63301

Foundry Art Centre presents ConTEXT III, an all media exhibition focusing on the written word's role in the visual arts. Contemporary society is saturated with media and this exhibition showcases how intertwined the literary and visual arts are. Exhibiting artists utilize the written word literally, symbolically, texturally, and/or referentially. Juror Levi Sherman selected between over two hundred works submitted. 53 pieces by 46 artists from 13 US states and Germany are included in this exhibition.

Due to the Covid-19 outbreak the Foundry Art Centre has taken serious consideration moving forward with their exhibitions. The recognize that this is an unfortunate circumstance, but they have a responsibility to hold the safety of the community above all else. With this in mind, their response is to keep the Foundry closed to the public, until it is safe to reopen, and to host the show as an online exhibition for the public to view from the safety of their homes. They will not be hosting an Opening Reception, due to these uncertain times, but please look forward to them posting work by participating artists on virtual tours and other social media posts in the near future.

Work from the following projects by Aaron Wilder is included in the exhibition:

Delivered Under the Similitude of a Dream: This project is a deconstruction of John Bunyan’s 1678 book “Pilgrim’s Progress.” The book is a heavily didactic tale of how to live your life as a Christian. Names of characters from Bunyan’s text are applied to images of the artist as a child in non-chronological order to challenge the linear focus of aging. In doing so, Aaron Wilder applies the guise of 75 characters from Bunyan’s book to himself at different points throughout childhood.

Expletive: This is an experiment in the aestheticization of derogatory labels. Aaron Wilder employs vividness, repetition, and the form of text to disempower slurs used everyday by obscuring the word through the stacking of its letters on top of each other. What remains is an aesthetic and geometric arrangement of shapes.