Kevin Todora
Erin Cluley Gallery
150 Manufacturing Street Suite 210 Dallas Texas 75207
e-mail:
July 10 > August 22, 2020
KEVIN TODORA is known for pushing the boundaries of the photographic medium, often merging the painterly and the digital in a playful way. Revealing itself through cunning juxtaposed imagery and trompe l'oeil shadows, the end result is an image with a rich, familiar texture and implied depth. In 7head, Todora continues this dialogue and renders the work as a way to process the tumultuous past year of pandemic and all-consuming politics.
The figures began as therapeutic gestures and digital sketches in an attempt to alleviate the artist's anxiety, stemming from constant consumption of the news cycles (a.k.a. doom scrolling). Experimenting with a range of diverse media, Todora captures texture, explores different states of his materials, and examines the interaction between various colors to achieve the ideal visual vibration. The animated colors, in part influenced by reading children's books to his two young daughters, imbue both a feeling of optimism and of shock – simultaneously overstimulating while also providing a reprieve from the collective gloom of the past year.
First imagined from a darker perspective, the concept for Todora's exhibition made reference to the seven-headed dragon, a mythological personification of the apocalypse. However, to free the concept from a solely pessimistic outlook, he permeated it with humor. The title also makes reference to the use of the number 7 as a vulgar phallic insult in Cantonese slang, with "7head" being an extension of that idiom to say that someone is especially stupid or useless.
KEVIN TODORA earned his MFA in 2009 from Southern Methodist University, and his BFA in 2009 from the University of Texas at Dallas. In 2013, Todora was the subject of a solo exhibition at Dallas Contemporary. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Barry Whistler Gallery, University of Texas at Dallas and the Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, as well as the inagural Soluna Festival amongst artists Pipilotti Riist, Alex Prager, and others. Todora has been published in an issue of New American Paintings and has been awarded the Kimbrough Grant through the Dallas Museum of Art.
The figures began as therapeutic gestures and digital sketches in an attempt to alleviate the artist's anxiety, stemming from constant consumption of the news cycles (a.k.a. doom scrolling). Experimenting with a range of diverse media, Todora captures texture, explores different states of his materials, and examines the interaction between various colors to achieve the ideal visual vibration. The animated colors, in part influenced by reading children's books to his two young daughters, imbue both a feeling of optimism and of shock – simultaneously overstimulating while also providing a reprieve from the collective gloom of the past year.
First imagined from a darker perspective, the concept for Todora's exhibition made reference to the seven-headed dragon, a mythological personification of the apocalypse. However, to free the concept from a solely pessimistic outlook, he permeated it with humor. The title also makes reference to the use of the number 7 as a vulgar phallic insult in Cantonese slang, with "7head" being an extension of that idiom to say that someone is especially stupid or useless.
KEVIN TODORA earned his MFA in 2009 from Southern Methodist University, and his BFA in 2009 from the University of Texas at Dallas. In 2013, Todora was the subject of a solo exhibition at Dallas Contemporary. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Barry Whistler Gallery, University of Texas at Dallas and the Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, as well as the inagural Soluna Festival amongst artists Pipilotti Riist, Alex Prager, and others. Todora has been published in an issue of New American Paintings and has been awarded the Kimbrough Grant through the Dallas Museum of Art.
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Kevin Todora |
OPEN HOUSE :
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 27TH 12-5PM
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