Current Space is thrilled to present PINTA MANTA, an experiential, multi-media art opening debuting new paintings and neons by Baltimore- based artists Elena Johnston and William Cashion (also known as the bassist and co-founder of Future Islands) and TRY SOFTER, a solo exhibition of watercolor works by Lexie Mountain. Please join us for the opening reception.

Opening Reception: April 27th, 7-10pm
Exhibition Duration: April 27th - June 1st
Gallery Hours: Fridays and Saturdays, noon - 4pm

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Pinta Manta
William Cashion & Elena Johnston

Elena Johnston and William Cashion created the paintings presented in Pinta Manta working in tandem, employing creative strategies that prioritize setting, sound, elements of chance, and a sense of play.

In a cozy north Baltimore shed that serves as both Johnston’s visual-art studio and Future Islands’ practice space—pleasantly cluttered with tools of art and sound—the collaborators position canvases horizontal to the ground at waist height, each overseeing an opposite half. Working with a predetermined color palette and drawing inspiration from playlists heavily stacked with Latin American and West African electronic and popular music of decades past, each artist makes strokes alternating between the deliberate and the impetuous—some even made without visual contact with the canvas. At times, one artist will prompt a mirrored symmetry of sorts by challenging the other to recreate or respond in their quadrant to a wild stroke they’ve just applied in their own.

Handwritten notes are kept of each song played during the creation of each larger painting, the finished playlist becoming a key accessory and decoder of the work, honoring the aural space in which it was created. Some works are completed in one session, others revisited until both arrive at a place of completion. A few are later selected for a new form of permanence, fabricated as neon-tube light displays that allow the source work to be reconsidered, colors and lines vividly illuminated and liberated from flat dimensionality.

This body of work and the creative process that informs it both originated in 2014 with a smaller painting, A Dream of You and Me, that Johnston and Cashion created to be documented via time-lapse for the music video for the Future Islands song of the same name. Accepting a subsequent commission to create a similar piece on a larger scale opened up new possibilities for this collaboration, and the artists have continued to refine a process that positions each finished work as a time-lapse construction of sorts. In doing so, they’ve discovered a new expression for both the elements of chance Johnston employs in her solo work, and the prioritization of setting and ambiance prioritized in the recording and performance of Cashion’s band Peals.

Pinta Manta (Spanish for Painted Blanket) is named for the 1983 António Sanches song of the same name, played in heavy rotation during the creation of this body of work.

Elena Johnston grew up in Havertown, PA, and holds a BFA in Illustration and a MA in Art Education from Maryland Institute College of Art. She has earned international recognition for her collaborations with musical artists including Beach House and Future Islands, as well as her 2008 volume Paper Kingdom: A Collection of Baltimore Music Posters! She has lived in Baltimore since 2002, where she works as an artist.

William Cashion grew up in Wendell, NC, and holds a BFA in Painting & Drawing from East Carolina University. He is the bassist and co-founder of internationally acclaimed 4AD recording artists Future Islands, whose fifth album, The Far Field, was released in 2017; and is also one-half of the Thrill Jockey band Peals. He has lived in Baltimore since 2007.

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TRY SOFTER
Lexie Mountain

TRY SOFTER presents watercolors from 2015-2019, acknowledging a social world of crowded nature, necessary retreat, and the detritus of physicality. Synthetic and natural pigments collide in intimate conflict, and congested vistas full of eyeballs and noses suggest the damage we do to ourselves.

As geological approach to both studio practice and one's interior landscape, trying "softer" engages with a temperament of radical self-forgiveness through automatic mark-making. Frailty is a form of strength, flaws become gifts, and collapse is an opportunity to rebuild. A watery approach erodes the boundary between mistake and deliberation, masculine and feminine, self and other. Wearing patiently away at obstacles while hewing to its own singular nature, this method of persistence is transformative, permeable, fearless, and constantly at risk.

Lexie Mountain is an artist, writer, and comedian living in Baltimore, MD. From programming public events, art shows, pop-up galleries, comedy nights, and free festivals to creating work that investigates the role of women in art history and contemporary culture through the performativity of digital media, Mountain’s expansive oeuvre has been a part of Baltimore’s cultural landscape for thirteen years. Her all-femme experimental a capella performance group Lexie Mountain Boys has been activating public sites in North America and Europe since 2005, and she has continuously maintained a solo improvised music practice since 2002. Her writing appeared in Art in America, Bmore Art, Baltimore City Paper, and The Toast. Currently she works in watercolor, field recording, stand-up, and poetry. She loves lobsters, dance parties, and feminist science fiction.

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Current Space has been partially funded by the Meow Wolf DIY Fund, The William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, Mayor Catherine E. Pugh and the Baltimore Office of Promotion and The Arts.