PRESS RELEASE 

MARQUEE PROJECTS

Flag Me Down, Pick Me Up

On View: Nov 30th - Dec 31, 2018

MARQUEE PROJECTS  is pleased to present  Flag Me Down, Pick Me Up,  a group exhibition featuring recent artworks by Lisa Blas,  Tyler Healy, and Paul Weiner. A reception for the artists will be held on Friday, November 30th from 6 pm to 8 pm. 

The artists brought together in this show will exhibit work that shares a common interest in the use of the American flag. Flags, in general, have much to do with traditional tribal tendencies and notions of identity: the idea of “us versus them.” But in today’s heated political climate it’s “us versus us,” with divided factions claiming that their allegiance to America is stronger than that of others. This exhibition hopes to bring about greater dialogue on what role the American flag, and what it signifies, now play. Can we pick up the pieces, strive to reduce conflict, and promote a greater sense of unity, peace, and equality? 

Lisa Blas acknowledges that the American flag exists in the simultaneous spaces of private, material culture as well as public, national treasure. Postcard stands, souvenir shops, tourist venues, front porches, and lobbies of buildings host the flag – to be seen, contemplated, and consumed. Her work begins by folding this ubiquitous sign into ephemeral still-life arrangements that serve as the departure for paintings, collages, and photographs. When the flag is layered in such a manner, visual fragments remain – suggesting repetition and re-distribution. Notions of heritage, history, and belonging form and re-form themselves. A marker of collective identity, the American flag becomes a site where multiple points of view can interact within a field of abstraction. 

Tyler Healy uses actual American flags as a starting point, embroidering them with other iconography, text, and symbols charged with politics, socio-history, economics, and contemporary environmental issues. These flags are often further extrapolated into collages, combines, and installations; asking the viewer to stop and reconsider the American flag in new contexts of ironic and provocative juxtaposition.

Paul Weiner’s primary focus is a form of abstract painting that riffs on neo-expressionism and post-conceptual painting but is also imbued with political and social meaning. Many of his recent works grapple with America’s contemporary identity and history and generate obscured and distressed representations of a culture in flux. Weiner’s paintings contain a library of symbols that refer to the American flag, art history, cultural hybridity, sports, folk history, the legal system, and the military industrial complex.