March 1 - April 13, 2002

Opening Reception: March 1, 2002, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Shaun O’Dell’s work weaves it’s way through a mythology of man and nature paying particular attention to the way nature has been conceptualized throughout American history.  References in his work span from early American literature with narratives about the “wilds of nature” to contemporary SUV advertisements where man and machine conquer the “great wilds” as a way to de-stress from the daily grind of 9 to 5. O’Dell’s interests, such as, the work of Herman Melville (especially the tome “Moby Dick”) and the life and times of George Washington (especially his early years as a surveyor and soldier), inform the construction of a dense cosmology.  Here O’Dell maps out a mythologized American psyche using symbols such as the eagle head, the bust of George Washington, the brown bear and the gray whale. The ink and gouache paintings selected for Errand Projections from Pilgrim Glacier feature delicately rendered mutant frontier-beings.