In his second solo exhibition at the gallery, Sean Duffy continues to explore his interest in cyclical resurrections of movements, in art as well as in pop culture. Duffy’s preoccupation with specific cultural moments and their resonance in our collective consciousness are at the center of an artistic strategythat slyly subverts the meaning of gestures and their relevance in a specific time and context.

In his new work, Duffy focuses on the pop music star, a figure that personifies cultural moments and at the same time exemplifies the ephemeral nature of celebrity. In his “Creatures of the Night” series, Duffy transforms old record album covers into portraits that range from sinister to ridiculous. By scraping away large portions of the albums’ original photographs and adding black backdrops, Duffy silhouettes his subjects in front of a full moon on a dark night. ”Triple Victrola” is a three tone-armed, brass-horned gramophone. It plays 78 rpm records of the hits “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” and “Blue Moon” by artists including Oscar Peterson and Mel Tormé. The records can be played simultaneously, producing dense musical compositions in which passages are foreshadowed and echoed in quick succession. Under the gallery’s high ceilings, Duffy suspends several large scale mobiles that suggest solar systems. Each planet is formed from album covers salvaged from dollar bins. Glimpses of familiar images appear among the spherical collages – a reflection of Billy Joel, the hip pockets of Bruce Springsteen, the stoned expressions of The Doobie Brothers, the new wave fashions of The Human League.

Sean Duffy received his MFA from the University of California at Irvine. He has shown at the Robert Fullerton Museum, San Bernadino, the ArtForum Berlin Project Space, Berlin, Germany, the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, the Irvine Fine Arts Center, Los Angeles ContemporaryExhibitions, and has been included in group exhibitions at the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, the Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, and the Nevada Institute for Contemporary Art, Las Vegas.

The gallery is located at 5363 Wilshire Boulevard, two blocks west of La Brea Avenue, between Detroit and Cloverdale. Gallery Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 12 – 6 pm and by appointment. For visuals, please contact the gallery at vielmetter@earthlink.net