The Brown Studio
1144 N. Coast Hwy 101, Encinitas, CA 92024
Mark Chamness
Tony Larson
Clay Morrow
New Paintings and Sculptures
Opening Reception:
November 16th, 2024
3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Historically, the term “crud” in Western vernacular has encompassed a range of negative
associations: filth, waste, decaying food, a disheveled appearance, sexually transmitted diseases, and unpleasant, thickened substances. Over time, its meaning has evolved to fit more contemporary contexts. The proliferation of post-consumer waste, endless digital clutter, disposable advertising, and mundane materials littering both physical and digital landscapes all reflect the derogatory weight of the word. Yet, could this term—and by extension, the neglected subjects it describes—be reimagined and redeemed from its murky origins?
In computer programming the four functions considered necessary to implement a persistent storage application are: create, read, update and delete (C.R.U.D.) Persistent storage refers to any data storage device that retains power after the device is powered off. Similar to a digital repository, art serves as a lasting depository of human ideas, inviting endless interpretations and reinterpretations, each as mutable as code in a system. Questions begin to surface, however, when considering the limitless power source or endless storage parameters of human acumen.
At the introductory phase, the artist’s “create” function establishes an input for new records in the database of each new work. The generation of new forms and expressions serve to program the proceeding functions. Like rows and columns of data, each block of information is stored until further inquiry.
The artist’s “read” function resembles a search mode found in programming. It enables the artist to sift through stored marks and decisions, retrieving specific records to assess their value. Through reflection, analysis, and careful scrutiny, each step methodically leads into an “update” phase of refinement and revision. These modifications can range from subtle adjustments to drastic overhauls. Consequently, the existing record in the database of the artwork must be altered, with all attribute values updated to reflect the changes introduced in the revision process. Ultimately, all ideas or approaches that no longer serve the established process are deleted, with the standards of deviation varying for each artist. Ghost-like traces of each removed factor may remain, while some vanish,
never to be recovered again.
The decision to use discarded or thrown-away materials to create new art mirrors the artist’s internal act of deletion during the creative process. In both cases, the removal of what is deemed unnecessary or unwanted—whether physical objects or compositional choices—paves the way for something new to emerge. Just as salvaging and repurposing discarded materials can breathe new life into waste, the act of deleting parts of an artwork can reveal hidden potential, allowing for a fresh direction or a refined vision. Both processes involve transformation, turning absence or abandonment into opportunity, where the discarded becomes integral to the final creation. Over time, the artwork becomes a mass of evolving explications—its original meaning layered with new
insights and contexts. In this way, the device is never powered down or truly abandoned, its energy source unlimited.
Mark Chamness
Tony Larson
Clay Morrow
Mark Chamness is a multimedia artist who divides his time between San Diego
and Los Angeles.
Chamness employs techniques and materials historically dismissed or overlooked in contemporary media culture. Needlepoint and discarded, plastic trash recovered from
his urban surroundings are combined as explorations of labor and value in hidden or forgotten geographies. The painterly works create a fragmented landscape of the artist's immediate environment, map-like manifestations of an attempt to slow down thought processes while inviting viewers to reexamine their own perspectives of the world
around them.
Mark Chamness is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California.
Tony Larson is an interdisciplinary artist and musician from San Diego, California.
Implementing varied media including acrylic paint, graphite, pastels, ink, studio detritus and personal ephemera, Larson’s latest group of paintings and drawings reflect an attempt to enter into a discourse with the relationship between conceptual processes and intuitive, improvised mark-making. Each painting contains its own ecosystem of improvised color juxtapositions, reactive perspectives, remnants of erasure and radical shifts in material choices. The history of each work is at once pushed towards the surface, visible to all, while simultaneously receding into new, mysterious chasms, never to be
seen again. Larson's work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times and New American Paintings.
Tony Larson is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California and Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, California.
Clay Morrow is an award winning, Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist and
director working across a wide swath of mediums including animation, sculpture
and music composition.
The sculptural works featured in this exhibit reveal Morrow’s visions of time and place, where ‘ugly’ has its day in the sun. Made primarily from disposable, single-use ‘junk’,
these garnish heaps are cut-up, melted, combined and rearranged, allowing each step
of the process to influence the outcome, not dissimilar to a cybernetic feedback loop. Discarded detergent containers, automotive funnels and other post-consumer waste all meld together and thrive as conduits to internal negotiations between the societal perceptions of disability and inconvenience and personal expressions of beauty.
Clay Morrow is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California.