Yellow Peril Gallery is pleased to present HITODAMA, a new series of sculptures, paintings, and mixed media installations by Gage Prentiss, from December 13, 2012 to January 13, 2013. The opening reception is Thursday, December 13, from 6PM to 9PM.
Hitodama is a Japanese word meaning “disembodied spirit” or “will o wisp.” The works in this series are an evolution of imagery from the complacency or confinement of our fragile mortal shells, to the freedom and fears associated with liberation from them.
“I use the symbolism of the body as a shrine, the vehicle of the soul as a moth and the path to enlightenment as the free roaming and illusive hitodama flame,” Prentiss explains. “Ultimately, we chase our life to its end and new beginning in beautiful and ugly ways. Like moths we fly forever towards a light in the darkness, not knowing what its end result will be.”
Based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Prentiss suggests using “Modern Figurative Surrealism” as the category for his art, which explores the figure and its ability to communicate with a strong visual language of its own. A trip to Italy to tour ancient sites for their historic, religious and artistic importance in 1994 inspired him to become a sculptor.
“I wanted to communicate my own faith and desire. I wanted my own questions and answers to find their way into the future after my own death, as Michelangelo had done for me,” he noted. “When you make art you give physical substance to an idea, belief or experience that would otherwise remain a phantom of the mind, a memory that can only be accessed by the thinker. Art, to me, is a self portrait that shares the parts of a person that exist beneath the skin, an intimate dialogue between object and viewer.”
Prentiss received his B.F.A. in Sculpture / Art History from Boston University in 1999 and has exhibited throughout the New England region since then. HITODAMA is his first solo exhibition in Providence, Rhode Island.
GAGE PRENTISS
HITODAMA
December 13, 2012 – January 13, 2013
Opening Reception:
Thursday, December 13, 2012, 6PM – 9PM
Gallery Hours:
Thursday + Friday, 3PM – 8PM
Saturday + Sunday, 12PM – 5PM
Other days by appointment.