Serial Comma June 5 ‒ July 25, 2015 Planthouse is pleased to present Serial Comma, a show featuring artists Derek Bourcier, Robert Medvedz, and Robert Yoder that delves into the graphic nature, the roughness, and the sublimity of contrast. Working in blunt fashion, using excised lines, crude applications and the thick, unwieldy material of ready made objects, artists Derek Bourcier, Robert Medvedz, and Robert Yoder employ a variety of media, including sculpture, collage, and painting. Investigating the familiar and the uncanny by using density, simplicity and a strong dose of pigment, they create a critical distance between man and object. Serial Comma references the ‘endless list’, and it also evokes a cavalcade of vaguely sinister associations: of serial killers and their habitats, of the underground, the displaced, the primitive, and the anarchic. In their paintings, Medvedz and Yoder present black and white symbols, both articulated and scrawled, to effect alternately precise and messy veiled self-portraits. In Florida-based Bourcier’s sculpture and video, the artist connects his gaze to anthropomorphized kitsch, and to the hauntingly familiar, establishing his relationship (or lack thereof) to the everyday objects that surround him. The works of Serial Comma are unapologetic; they invite an exploration of identity and mortality, and an appreciation of the melancholic. Derek Bourcier (b. 1980, Logan, UT) received a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA in 2002. In 2011, he received an MFA in Contemporary Art Practices from Portland State University in Portland, OR. He was a member of the unpopular rap group Linda and Ron’s Dad and painted murals with teenagers involved in the juvenile court system through ArtWorks, a non-profit organization in Seattle, WA. His work has been exhibited in the Portland Building Installation Space; RECESS gallery in Portland, OR; the Seattle Convention Center; the International Center for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ, and the Portland Art Museum. He was a recipient of the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award in 2011. He employs sculpture, video, and photography in referencing elemental phenomenon observed within cities, draw- ing personal meaning from the ways in which humans affect the environment. He lives and works in St. Petersburg, FL. Robert Medvedz (b. 1970, Windsor, PA) is an artist working with printmaking, painting and drawing. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1992 with his BFA in painting. Robert’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Greene Gallery in Geneva, Switzerland and at Earl McGrath Gallery in New York City. He has exhibited internationally and in the US in a number of group groups shows, including those at the Greene Gallery in Geneva, Switzerland; The Drawing Center, New York City, NY; Showroom, Santa Fe, NM; and at White Columns in New York City. Robert Yoder (b. Danville, VA) is a Seattle, Washington based artist and is the director of SEASON (season.cz). He received his BFA from James Madison University in Harrisonburg,VA and his MFA from University of Washington in Seattle, WA. Robert has had numerous solo and group exhibitions, including shows at Charles Cowles Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, Frye Art Museum and the Peeler Art Center. His work in is many public collections including Microsoft, Boeing, Hallmark, Nike and Hewlett Packard, and is collected by a number of museums, including Seattle Art Museum, Portland Art Museum, in Portland ,OR; Tacoma Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and The Henry Art Gallery. His work is included in the collections of the cities of Seattle, WA and Port- land, OR. In 2001 Robert was the recipient of a Pollack Krasner Foundation Grant. He has also received an Artist Trust Fellowship award and the University of Washington School of Art Alumni Award. His work is represented by Frosch & Portmann, New York and Zurich; and Platform, Seattle, Washington.
