Exhibitions
GRIFFIN CORDELL + JOSEPH SMOLIN: NO SLEEP THEME PARK
The Browsing Room Gallery (Downtown Presbyterian Church) / 154 Rep. John Lewis Way N. February 8 - March 1st (Reception: February 8 6:00pm - 9:00pm)
Griffin Cordell, Joseph Smolin
NO SLEEP THEME PARK is a mixed media installation and gallery show from artists Griffin Cordell and Joseph Smolin. The show is a hyper-saturated exploration of sleeplessness, family instability, and the idea of home. Sculptures, paintings, and an off-kilter children’s book coalesce into a child’s-eye-view adventure that centers on death and dreamscapes.
Consider:
In No Sleep Theme Park every day is your birthday.
In No Sleep Theme Park every family is your family.
In No Sleep Theme Park there is nothing to achieve.
In No Sleep Theme Park you never have to go to bed.
In No Sleep Theme Park you can never die.
It's 1994 in the suburbs of Georgia. A family lives in a Sears kit house with yellow walls and dark wood trim, dark red carpet and checkered kitchen countertops. The wife, Margaret, works nights as a nurse. The husband, Luke, is tasked with putting Tina and Bobby to bed every night. Luke struggles with insomnia and a deep inability to connect emotionally with others, preferring instead to watch Walker, Texas Ranger and drink milk. One night, Luke takes a midnight drive and is never seen again.
After the mysterious disappearance of their father, Tina and Bobby awake to find themselves in No Sleep Theme Park, a spirit-world parallel of their own home. Can they find and reconnect with their father? Memories of birthdays and bedtime stories interweave with themes of abandonment in this narrative installation of suburban horror.
This exhibit is part of a two-part series at the Browsing Room Gallery featuring members of the Tiger Strikes Asteroid collective, which is active in cities such as Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Greenville, SC. Nashville curator Mauro Barreto arranged this and January’s exhibit, which featured two other members of Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Megan Bickel and Adam Perry.
Bios:
Griffin Cordell is an interdisciplinary artist working out of his studio near Greenville SC. His work is represented by 906 Art Gallery, and he exhibits both locally and nationally. He is an alum of the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities and earned his BFA in Fine Arts with a concentration in sculpture from Winthrop University.
Joseph Smolin, born in Birmingham, AL, is a painter and multimedia artist. He has shown work in numerous spaces including Echo Contemporary in Atlanta and Satellite Art Fair in NYC. His duo show with Virginia Russo, Invisible Planet, was created for the main gallery at the Greenville Center for Creative Arts. He also worked with Griffin Cordell to create NO SLEEP THEME PARK, an interactive and immersive art exhibition that debuted in the Metropolitan Arts Council Gallery. He co-founded and contributes to the nonprofit art magazine Rattlesnake, which aims to highlight a diverse set of underground voices living in the South. Smolin is also a member of the national art collective Tiger Strikes Asteroid. When he’s not painting, Smolin takes pride in building community as a curator, live painter, and teacher. He currently lives and works in Greenville, SC.
Image: The Offer, Griffin Cordell
