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Predator Instinct
new works on wood by Ashes in Orange Peels (Suzanne Walsh)
March 26 – June 17

March 26 – opening reception
7 – 9 pm // FREE
featuring a live performance by Will Morrison of the Vacuum Bell

April 23
AIOP issue one magazine and special edition hom[ep]rairie EP launch
reception 7 – 9
featuring Joy Shannon and Will Morrison performing the EP in its entirety
copies of the magazine and the EP will be available for sale
sale price: $15

Get details on Ashes in Orange Peels here: ashesinorangepeels.blogspot.com

ARTIST STATEMENT
As an artist, I am obsessed with contradictions stemming from a childhood between Europe and the East Coast and a suburban life in Orange County, California. First to Geneva, then Prague where we stayed in a small apartment (within what used to be my grandfather’s family home before Communism), and then back to backyard camping with the girl scout troop in a sea of pink homes that all looked the same. Always trying to integrate, always trying to fit in and feeling much like a hybrid of several different and often times opposing cultures and environments, my ability to draw became the great bonding agent with which I could communicate in all areas of my life.

The series Predator Instinct deals directly with identity confusion. Growing up in Southern California we are, almost to a one, products of parents who at some point were chasing or actively living a dream life. Whether they achieved what they had hoped for or not, the erratic nature of dream chasing is what we are accustomed to and therefore attempt to seek out ourselves, with mixed results. The animals in these works are all hybrids from common animals found on all continents. wolf/coyote/fox, deer/rabbit/mouse. The environments are multi-layered with full desert scenes existing beneath blankets of fur-like snow. My hope was to convey a highly aesthetic truth as to how it really feels to grow up here, each painting a knowing wink to the joy and the panic of being both predator and prey in one.

As an added bonus. my friend Joy Shannon, herself an Irish/SoCal hybrid, offered to compose a series of music inspired by the themes behind my work. She asked fellow musicians Will Morrison, Sean Wallace and Mark Sheppard to join her and the result is a deeply lyrical and witty series of songs that are as harmonious as they are strangely schizophrenic. I was so moved by the collaboration, that I decided to produce the record now entitled hom[ep]rairie. It will be available on itunes on April 16th as well as included as a download in the first ever issue of Ashes In Orange Peels magazine, also set to release on the 16th.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ashes in Orange Peels has evolved into a creative think-tank dedicated to making connections between galleries, visual artists, musicians and non-profits in order to directly affect the functionality and sustainability of the arts as a whole.

AIOP began as a name and a kind of shield behind which artist Suzanne Walsh hid as she littered the world with re-purposed typewriters, bikes and other various “reclaimed sculpture” leaving her mark by abandoning her work in cities from Prague to New York to Los Angeles.