Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present Christian Little and Charles Ly, Wild Abandon, opening Saturday, Sept. 4, 6 - 8 p.m.
Both Christian Little and Charles Ly investigate connections between mythology and identity, drawing from ancient cultures and legends to develop their unique iconographies. Little's focus is the exuberance of youth. He masks his playful subjects in order to replace their individual egos with a sense of community and freedom. Ritual and ceremony drive the action: frog leaps, chicken fights, processions, running from the cops. Ly examines the Roman myth of Romulus and Remus, twin brothers abandoned in the forrest and raised by a she-wolf. The controversy surrounding this myth - many versions exist - provides an ambiguous narrative open to interpretation. Friends since high school, both Little and Ly are influenced by the contemporary Pop Surrealism movement, sometimes called "The Juxtapoz Factor". Like this subculture of young, DIY illustrators and artists working today, they are creating figurative, narrative works in which the central characters are usually an anthropomorphic synthesis of fictional and existing creatures. Their sensibility includes psychedelia, graphic design, anime, and an admiration for kitsch and low-brow culture.
