Calvin Laituri
“August Rust”
May 2nd – May 31st, 2020
Artwork is priced unframed. Framing available upon request (price tbd due to current quarantine).
Haven Gallery is pleased to present “August Rust”, a collection of new ink drawings from New England artist Calvin Laituri. Laituri’s work is made up of highly skilled line work, built from a push and pull approach where ink is laid down on his clayboard medium, and carved out with sharpened tools, resulting in highly defined and meticulous strokes reminiscent of a cross hatching technique. Each drawing cultivates its monochromatic palette to emphasize the artists control of values, contrast, mood and narrative, as inspired by printmakers and artists of the past. This dichotomy of technique serves as an accentuation of the artists play on dualities throughout his work. A commingling of the ease of small town America juxtaposed with the grandiose architecture of decadent periods of the past, such as antiquity and medieval art, are further contrasted by Laituri’s combination of the organic, natural world, with that of which is man made.
Laituri’s work evokes the imagination as time becomes uncertain. His surreal use of scale creates imaginative scenes that suggest alternate realities or not so distant futures. His imagination blossoms in more ways than one as he redesigns architectural styling of the past with that of his own imagination, offering us something both familiar and new. A focus on the extraordinary details and great sense of movement take center stage. An interesting continuation of the artists exploration as each stroke, simple and small in its form, gives birth to a grand and complex subject. A reminder perhaps, of the beauty found in both that is simple, and that is which complex.
