Mahan Gallery is pleased to present Between Mapping and Memory, a collaborative and abstract narrative exhibition by Columbus based artists Alana Odenweller and Scott Vogel.

Through varying degrees of representation and continuity of figures and spaces within their paintings, Odenweller and Vogel blur the distinctions between representational and abstract painting methods. These methods are interwoven to create illogical situations. It is the artists’ intention to hold the viewer longer by presenting abstracted narrative possibilities that offer contradictory, circular and incoherent content that suspends logic.

 During their painting process, Odenweller and Vogel search through images from multiple sources and appropriate elements that appeal to the individual artist. As artists, they approach the pieces they are working on from different points of view. They make their own individual connections with the images as they work separately on the same piece. When re-approaching the piece after the other has painted, each is forced to re-evaluate their former logic as they begin to paint again. This process often goes through multiple cycles. Ironic visual alignment of images, often lead to unexpected connections and ideas for them. The curious viewer will be rewarded with subtle playful details the artists inherently embed in their works.

 Although they paint together as collaborators, they keep their individuality within any given painting. Alana renders images at a slow and deliberate pace, coaxing out details through a careful and thoughtful process. She builds images with several layers of faint line work and thin washes and brushstrokes. Scott is more efficient with his brushstrokes, attempting to infuse the forms with line work that pushes his threshold level of accuracy, all the while embracing his mistakes. With their individual styles of paint application, color and differing degrees of representation, Alana and Scott enrich and complicate the viewers experience.

Curator(s)