Tricia McLaughlin

 Disposable Heroes 

November 21, 2014 – January 2015

Opening Reception: Friday, November 21, 6pm - 8pm

Artist Talk: Saturday, December 13, 3pm

Gallery hours:  Friday, 2pm-6pm; Saturday and Sunday, 1pm-4pm;

and by appointment 

(closed November 27 – 29, December 25, 2014 - January 3, 2015)

info@medianoche.us

Inspired by American anarchist and peace activist Emma Goldman’s speech “Patriotism:  A Menace to Liberty”, media artist Tricia McLaughlin manifests a multimedia world of ruling and warring apes.  Part fine art, part kitsch, McLaughlin’s ape series stands merchandising on its head, offering up the infamous simians as animation, painting and sculpture.  The gallery becomes a war zone of ideas emanating from the actual words of the renowned activist spoken in various tongues: English, Spanish, Korean, Arabic, Polish, Hebrew, Wolof, and others.

For Emma Goldman, "War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle.  Therefore, they take boys from one village and another village, stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other."

For Tricia McLaughlin Disposable Heroes continues her exploration of the human need to impose order and design upon the world:  “In some ways my approach to art borrows from Goldman’s anarchic spirit.  The status quo isn’t always the best rule. The social constructs we live by affect our behavior.  Modifying, or exaggerating those constructs and rules, changes the game.  More so when it is a game of power.”

ARTIST BIO

Tricia McLaughlin is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work in fantasy architecture in the form of 3D design, animation, painting and sculpture.  She has also been awarded two grants from the Jerome Foundation (Travel Grant, 2006, and Media Arts Grant, 2004) and an Artist’s Fellowship for Video from New York Foundation for the Arts.  In 2006 she completed a 9 x 90 foot animation of a virtual aquarium for a permanent public art commission at the City of Virginia Beach Convention Center.

Her work has been screened and exhibited in the US, Canada, England, Germany, Spain, Russia, Chile, South Korea and Japan. She lives and works in New York, NY, USA. Currently she is an Associate Professor of Animation and Electronic Media in the Visual Arts Department at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury.