319 N. 11th Street exploded last week with multiple show openings on every floor of the building including the notable “Unseen” show at Tiger Strikes Asteroid featuring the paintings of Philadelphia artist Keith Crawley.
Open until March 30th, the exhibition features five eerily photographic paintings in the tiny two–windowed room. Crawley claims to draw inspiration from our impression of the modern landscape including snapshots, newspapers and Youtube–stills. The odd familiarity and realism of his paintings can be at times both comforting and off–putting.One of his most interesting techniques is a blurring of a scene, as showcased in his extremely large painting, “Nocturne (Vacant Fete)” which takes up an entire wall of the space. The painting shows an apartment building at night lit up with colorful dangling Christmas lights, but what makes it so compelling is its vantage point. The image is blurred in such a way that it looks like a photograph taken from the perspective of a car driving past, and the lights curve to the right in an almost dizzying but recognizable way. It is very compelling to look at this dark, photographic scene in terms of a painting hanging on a gallery wall, and Crawley’s work set Tiger Strikes Asteroid apart from the other galleries on the floor.
At the opening reception, there were anywhere from 10 to 20 people bustling about in the gallery (that’s about four people per every one painting), though I’m sure the space is not that exciting every day. The entire exhibition, probably like most exhibitions in the small room, was charmingly pocket–sized so that the paintings really did surround the gallery–goer. With the task of choosing only five paintings to show, Tiger Strike Asteroid curates a very particular experience that I think compliments the nature of the artworks. That being said, it’s worth it to explore the other spaces too, as you can really only spend so much time with five paintings.
319 N. 11th Street, Suite 2H
Philadelphia, PA
Saturdays and Sundays 2–6 p.m.
