the only people that should see it are the ones that see it

Amos A. Frazer | Andy Millien

October 21 - December 11, 2021

David Hammons once installed a piece on the ceiling of a gallery and refused to have anything identifying it. When asked, he said, “the only people that should see it are the ones who see it” meaning you have to be looking from the outside, the periphery, in order to appreciate the work and why it was there. 

Amos A. Frazer is an artist whose practice is an extension of his daily life. While studying at FIT, Frazer discovered T-shirts as a mutable object, ubiquitous and versatile as a political statement, a fashion statement, a layered metaphor. These mini-canvases are often silk-screened with cloud symbols and elemental phrases such as “calorie,” a component of stored energy. This idea of the incremental informs Frazer’s more sculptural pieces as well. In the spaces that surround him, Frazer finds his inspiration in the flotsam of the city; lumber, broken mirrors, organic matter, discarded drywall are transformed into expressive sculptures that float, swoop, flow.

Andy Millien finds his muse in his asthma inhalers, his woodworking practice, on his skateboard, and in the small voids yet unfilled. His vision is one of the future, a Sun Ra-inspired utopia of self-sufficiency. Here, Millien creates stools resembling dissected plateaus, helmets designed for little to no atmosphere, and survival backpacks all made from common and not-so-common materials. This isn’t about isolation, it’s about independence, the feeling of being untethered. Millien’s work is about form and function; the all-atmosphere helmets are perfect orbs, the hanging oblong has an operating light. 

Where does the creative impulse begin? Its origins aren’t always from the art historical canon, but it’s safe to say that it exists outside of center. These artists assert that beauty exists in moments, materiality is a stand-in for identity and the collage of the everyday a synecdoche of the self. A true creative can find beauty in moments and meaning in what we have overlooked. Like cotton candy, a few kernels can be spun into a colorful cloud.