{"id":2958,"date":"2012-04-12T08:47:35","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T13:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/college.web.unc.edu\/?p=2958"},"modified":"2024-07-02T13:28:23","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T13:28:23","slug":"stame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=2958","title":{"rendered":"MFA student\u2019s art exhibition opens in New York April 12"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Damian Stamer, "Untitled," oil and graphite on canvas, 2012<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Damian Stamer, a current MFA student in the art department<\/a> in UNC\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences, will open an exhibition \u201cSouthern Comfort\u201d at Freight + Volume gallery in New York on April 12.<\/p>\n

Freight + Volume<\/a> is located at 530 W. 24th<\/sup> St. The exhibit runs through May 19. In the gallery\u2019s video room, Stamer also collaborates on a project entitled \u201cDown in the Den\u201d with artist George Jenne, currently a teaching fellow at UNC who splits his time between New York and North Carolina.<\/p>\n

The lush American landscape panoramas of the 19th and early 20th century were filled with idealization of frontier spirit and worship of the virgin wilds which existed in the pre-Industrial-age, gilded with American patriotic pride and romance.\u00a0Stamer places himself firmly in this tradition, but brings that perspective abruptly into the present: from a political, personal as well as art historical vantage point.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Damian Stamer, "Trespass," oil on canvas, 2012<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stamer\u2019s reminiscences of his childhood in North Carolina, liberally inhabited by hay bales, barns and tobacco shacks, is as much about longing for yesteryear and simpler times as it about homage for the grand masters of sixties\u2019 Abstract Expressionism. The paintings are as much about paint and canvas as any process\/conceptual painter working today, but the twist is that Stamer\u2019s work is not afraid to delve headfirst into content.\u00a0The narrative is mysterious, rife with contradictions. Do these empty, dilapidated barns invoke a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max landscape, where Mega Corporations have devoured the land, blown up the earth and left just the vestiges, the husks of life?\u00a0 Or are these scenes indeed remnants of a bygone era, imbued with the artist\u2019s childhood memories of his grandparent\u2019s stories, floating in a dream space where reality converges into fantasy?<\/p>\n

As Stamer explains: \u201cLandscapes marry my form and concept by offering the biggest spatial trick of all, imbuing a flat canvas with infinite depth while simultaneously questioning how the physical environment I explored during childhood affects my identity formation both as an artist and individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stamer has received numerous international awards including a Rotary Ambassadorship and a Fulbright grant. He has studied internationally at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest, Hungary and the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, Germany. He has exhibited extensively in the U.S. and abroad. This is his first solo show in New York.<\/p>\n

In the gallery\u2019s video room, Stamer and Jenne collaborate on \u201cDown in the Den.\u201d This 5-minute HD video installation serves as a portal between two disparate worlds and invokes the uncanny disorientation of witnessing spaces that are simultaneously familiar and foreign. A minimalist basement den frames a monolithic video projection, a window into a southern gothic terra incognita that swings fluidly between lucid serene landscapes and the relentless detail of a grim microcosm underfoot. The work is made in the spirit of Jean Luc Godard\u2019s decidedly low-tech science fiction film, \u201cAlphaville\u201d and the suburban grotesqueries of John Cheever\u2019s short fiction.<\/p>\n

The idea materialized out of a desire for the two artists to revisit the origins of their respective creative practices \u2014 exploring, as children, the backwoods of North Carolina. This time, instead of bubble gum and slingshots, they armed themselves with High Definition video equipment and set out to transform their native environs into a mental and physical space that is unnervingly alien.<\/p>\n

Jenne has exhibited at numerous venues including Exit Art, PS 122, The Center on Contemporary Art, Jack the Pelican Presents, and Frosch & Portmann. His work has been reviewed in The New Yorker, Art in America, Time Out New York and the Washington Post. He is a former faculty member of the Rhode Island School of Design.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Damien Stamer, a current MFA student in the art department in UNC\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences, will open an exhibition \u201cSouthern Comfort\u201d at Freight + Volume gallery in New York on April 12. Stamer also collaborates on a project entitled \u201cDown in the Den\u201d with artist George Jenne, currently a teaching fellow at UNC who splits his time between New York and North Carolina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fine-arts-humanities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2958"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45233,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions\/45233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}