Karen Klee-Atlin, Barbara Shaiman, David Traylor – Theatrics Scene 3

Theater is a way of calling attention to important things, to better understand ourselves and others and to entertain. It is a way to evince pathos but also to celebrate the foibles of life. It can take many forms from small, quiet gestures to large, loud and colorful displays. In this show, David Traylor, Barbara Shaiman and Karen Klee-Atlin, through painting, ceramics, and printmaking, use the idea of theater as a starting point to respond to our changing environment, to call out the capriciousness of modern life and to explore the concept of spectacle.

The work in the show represents a transition from my previous environmentally based works to something more theatrical, frequently related to juggling. All sculpture has a performative aspect as it is presenting the artist’s thoughts and ideas to an audience in an abstracted form. This new work moves further in that performative direction. I was delighted to collaborate with Marita Dingus on two of the pieces, Friendship 1 and 2 which meld images of water and streams with the theatrical images of face painting and costuming.  
                                                Barbara Shaiman