“Rubber Bands” (2013)
Light Work and Community Darkrooms are presenting George Gittoes’ “Nothing Is Enough,” through Dec. 20 in the Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery in the Schine Student Center. An artist talk will be held in the gallery on Wednesday, Oct. 2, at 4 p.m. The talk is free and open to students and community members.
Gittoes gives a powerful, close-up response to conflicts best known to most people from the nightly news—famine and peacekeeping in Somalia; de-mining after civil wars in Cambodia, Pakistan and Afghanistan; sectarian violence in Northern Ireland; ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia; the elections in South Africa that brought Mandela to power; interruptions to the peace process in the Middle East; and the Kibeho massacre in Rwanda, from which the work he developed at Light Work extends.
While an artist-in-residence at Light Work Gittoes created an image-making process that he calls synthage. “Nothing is Enough” synthesizes Gittoes’ artworks by integrating many media and works together into a single image. The “synthages” meld the horrific events described and depicted of human atrocity by dancing among all of the media that Gittoes uses in his art. Hints of drawing, painting and photography deny a quick read of the work. The images in this exhibition are the first of many to come in what has been a growing and active exploration of new works made from histories that are not ever told too many times.
Gittoes is one of Australia’s foremost figurative painters, filmmakers and photographers. For the last decade, Gittoes has been working in areas that are usually the reserve of journalists. His work catches the complexity of individual circumstance, of human frailty, empowerment and survival, against a backdrop of world issues. They are images about both “the moment” and “the big picture.” Taking a global approach to his work as an artist, Gittoes works from many locations throughout the world, and bases himself in studios in Sydney and New York. He presents his work in multimedia exhibitions that include photography, drawings, paintings, film and video installations.
This exhibition is curated and presented in conjunction with the Syracuse International Film Festival, from whom Gittoes is receiving the second annual Bassel H. Shahade Award for Social Justice.
For more information, contact Light Work at 315-443-1300 or info@lightwork.org.
