33PA | 6/1-6/30 | Online

Opposing Forces

Confrontation looks different to everyone. It varies in intensity, in meaning and in circumstance. In some situations, the idea of expressing one’s concerns in direct opposition to another is so intimidating, the very notion almost impossible to consider. In other situations, confrontation is a natural and healthy part of life.

Ariane` Kamps, Psyche Awakes to Eros, oil and rose gold leaf on aluminum Dibond panel, 16 x 12"

In a new online exhibition hosted by 33PA, artists were asked to interpret what the concept of confrontation means to them, in all of its complicated forms.

In Aki Kano’s watercolor Dinner with Mom, two women sit together at a table filled with food and drink. While the scene appears to be the simple sharing of a meal between mother and daughter at first glance, there’s a palpable tension in the air upon closer inspection. The mother, tight-faced, glances sideways toward her daughter, while the daughter averts her gaze entirely. One person’s phone sits directly on the dinner table, while the other phone rests on a table further away. Perhaps a difficult discussion is about to commence.

Aki Kano, Dinner With Mom, watercolor on cradled board, 24 x 36"

Two men engage in a battle of wit and strategy in Lisa Fricker’s chess scene Black or White. “These men set up in the park to enjoy a good fight on a fabulous day,” she says. “Chess is a paradox: the idea of the peaceful pursuit of war, exercising intellect instead of physical aggression. My intent was to portray their strategic intensity—mirrored in [their] focus on the board and one piece in the decisive moment as [their] surroundings fall away.”

Lisa Fricker, Black or White, oil on linen, 30 x 40"

Psyche Awakes to Eros, by artist Ariane` Kamps, references the story of Cupid and Psyche originally appearing in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses from the second century. For Kamps, the confrontation here derives from the intensity of romance. “After accidentally shooting himself with his arrow of love, Eros (or Cupid) finds himself waking to Psyche, and for the first time finding himself in love,” she says. “Falling in love is a very disarming act, and this is the moment we find these two in. They awake to the realization that they cannot live without the other, forever changing their life’s path.” Kamps used rose gold leaf for the first time in this piece, adding that “the warm gold tones add a sense of magic and a reflective, almost mirror quality that made the process, and the result, really enjoyable for me.”