Just in time for the spookiest holiday of the year, RJD Gallery is hosting a group show called Daring to be Different: Art with an Edge! featuring six artists whose work some might find unsettling but who believe therein lies much of its value.

Artist Grant Gilsdorf admits his work might feel edgy and challenging to viewers but he has always prioritized authenticity over mass appeal. “Instinctually, comfort and complacency have always registered as dangerous to my creativity,” he says. “I find myself constantly pushing new boundaries and testing the fortification of previously established ones…I’m not interested in a casual interaction with art, rather my works stimulate an emotional or intellectual response, and often those responses originate from the intersection of unease and beauty.”Grant Gilsdorf, Three Weary Graces, oil on linen, 24 x 30"

His painting Three Weary Graces is his personal take on the “three Graces,” goddesses of Greek mythology whose personification of grace, beauty and charm have inspired artists for centuries. In Gilsdorf’s version they are depicted as depleted and haggard, but a small gold thread of hope remains. Inspired by the pandemic that forever changed our lives, Fractured depicts a moment of transformation—the new that is emerging and the vestiges of the past that remain. Christina Pettersson, The Hunting Ground, graphite on paper, 45 x 80"

“[As] artists, [we] must embrace the full spectrum of the human experience—including the doom and glory of being alive,” says Gilsdorf. “I refuse to dismiss the unappealing facets of life. To do so would give an incomplete and inauthentic representation of reality, thus severing the viewer’s opportunity to see the beauty just beyond the shadows. In fact, I believe that bleakness can be a purifying way to encounter the good in the world.”Grant Gilsdorf, Fractured, oil on linen, 30 x 24"

For Carrie Pearce, whose subjects are  often more “humanoid than human,” there are no rules in the fantasy world. “I spend most of my time in the imaginary world and the imagination is a powerful toy,” she says. “[My work] lies somewhere in the realm of the fantastic, where the bizarre and extravagance mingle with visions, automatism, magic, reality, unreality, fairytales, ghost stories, the supernatural and the absurd.”

Pearce created the two paintings in Daring to Be Different during the pandemic. “I had completely lost my sense of humor, which generally plays a role in my art. I found it difficult to be inspired by my normal subjects so ‘Covid’ became my muse,” she says, adding that the scarecrow is an ancient symbol of protection, while the figure in The Ghost represents both Covid-19 and the virus of racism.”Carrie Pearce, Boogie Man, oil on panel, 30 x 39"

Carrie Pearce, The Ghost, oil on panel, 36 x 24"

Also in the show is Italian painter Salvatore Alessi, whose mind-bending works often defy gravity and play tricks on the eye. In Hourglass, a tangle of mostly nude bodies levitates above a heap of clothed figures on the ground, out of which another nude body is rising. “I think it is essential for an artist to put viewers in front of uncomfortable, hidden and little-accepted realities and I always strive to do so,” Alessi says.“I don’t mind seducing with captivating images but I want to create an inner short circuit within the viewer that shakes him.”Geoffrey Laurence, Berlin, oil on canvas, 28 x 22"

Collectors have often told artist Geoffrey Laurence that they experience his work on a visceral level. Berlin references his grandparents who ended up in Theresienstadt concentration camp as well as the golden age between the two World Wars when Germany experienced a cultural renaissance. His other painting in the show, The Old Man’s Shoes, embodies a film-noir aesthetic and, with a nude figure holding a gun, wearing men’s shoes and an indiscernible lump in the bed, is prickling with mystery.  Geoffrey Laurence, The Old Man’s Shoes, oil on canvas, 44 x 32"

Kris Lewis, Sprung, limited edition unframed print, 26 1/2 x 20"

“I am not interested in making my paintings only as interior décor,” says Laurence. “I do not consider them particularly dark, rather that they deal with life as it is, not the Doris Day Hollywood version of the ’50s.”

For Kris Lewis, art with an edge is an apt descriptor for much of the work presented by RJD Gallery. “Much of the art I come across in the gallery is fervidly layered with a great deal of emotion,” he says. “I can’t really explain it but I definitely enjoy dark subject matter and macabre imagery. I’m naturally attracted to things that disrupt my sense of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and the emotions that run with it seem to keep my own sense of morality firmly grounded.” —

RJD Gallery
227 N. Main Street • Romeo, MI 48065
(586) 281-3613 • www.rjdgallery.com 

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