Send It Up was a duo exhibition by Jesse Bond and Leroy Winter shown at The Material Room in Richmond, Virginia. The show featured collaboratively made paintings and sculptures installed in dense proximity, overwhelming the gallery as objects spilled from the ceiling and pushed through the walls. Abraham Lincoln clutched a giant flute amid a cavalcade of centaurs, palm trees, penguins, spirals, tie-dyed canvas, institutional logos, and crawling babies. Bluetooth speakers hidden behind the paintings played sound effects as an industrial agitator embedded inside a flute vibrated aggressively. The excessive repetition of images created a stuttering mess of visual feedback and reflected how growing up online can blur what is considered culturally significant and what is trivial. In Send It Up, the artists appear as both being overzealous makers bent on pleasing an imaginary audience and as a pair of Mountain Dew fuled middle-schoolers armed with a MIG welder and unlimited painting supplies. If nothing else Send it Up was a large body of work made by two close friends in the midst of a riff off that departed so far from its origin point they are just as confused as the audience.
Press Release
Written by Chase Frost
Written by Chase Frost
Flyer
Made by Nell McKeon and Harrison Wyrick
Made by Nell McKeon and Harrison Wyrick