BLACK ROOM
PEAT DUGGINS
OCTOBER 18 – NOVEMBER 15, 2008
Reception – OCTOBER 18 (8-10 PM)
Please join us Saturday, October 18th from 8 – 10 p.m. as Art Palace presents Black Room, a solo exhibition featuring the work of Peat Duggins.
Starting with the hypothesis that the western frontier, largely untouched or else having been built fast and furiously, is relatively free from history’s yoke. Peat Duggins presents the west as clean data for a cultural litmus test reflecting our values now. He develops Hickory Ridge, a fictitious community that has been the focus of his work for the past five years, to explore the personal and social identity of 21st century America.
Black Room provides the back-story of Hickory Ridge. The work in the show is a meditation on history itself, specifically the ebb and flow of human progress as set against the perennial, natural world. Peat transforms the gallery into a civic space that references both historical architecture and elements of our everyday environment. The most dominant elements of the exhibition are eight woven tapestries that correspond to compass directions traditionally associated with seasons and time of the day. Seen in the round they form a complete cycle of nature and culture.
Black Room is on view from October 18th through November 15th, 2008. Art Palace is located at 2109 E. Cesar Chavez St. (next door to Taqueria Chapala) between Chicon and Robert Martinez. Gallery Hours: Saturday noon to 5pm, Wednesday 7 to 9pm or by appointment. For further information or images, please contact the gallery at 512.496.0687 or artpalacedirector@gmail.com.
About the artist:
Peat Duggins moved to Austin after studying at Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University. Since his last solo exhibition at Art Palace in 2006, he has received the Dallas Museum of Art Dozier Travel Grant to help fund a documentary and has presented his work as part of ArtPace’s “2 to Watch” program. He has also participated in several residency programs including Bemis Center for Contemporary Culture and The MacDowell Colony, and been included in exhibitions at The Austin Museum of Art, Road Agent Gallery, Texas State University, and The Texas Biennial. Peat lives and works in Austin, where he is also a founding partner of Okay Mountain.