Astronauts, Monsters and Silicon Flowers

Scott Listfield, Leah Johnstone-Mosher, Jeff Warmouth

Curated by Matthew Nash
August 4 - September 9, 2006
Reception: Friday, August 4, 7 - 9:30 pm

Installation Views

Globe Review/Pick 8/17/2006

Opening shots

NEW! MP3 of All the artists talking about their work

Press Release

Download Press Release (one page version) with color pictures

Who among us, while lying on the living room floor watching a Saturday afternoon B-Movie, was not tempted to dream of life in the future? Who did not fantasize about traveling through space, of fighting city-destroying monsters, or living among amazing futuristic fauna?
The artists of “Astronauts, Monsters and Silicon Flowers” each bring their dreams to life, with a slant of maturity and humor. Scott Listifield’s paintings of astronauts evoke a dream of space, yet also ponder what it would mean were space travel an every day occurrence. Jeff Warmouth’s video installations rethink the classic ‘monster movie’ for a new context, and conflate cinema with the kitchen. Leah Johnstone-Mosher’s flowers update our dwindling gardens for the digital age.

By juxtaposing these artists the curator Matthew Nash (actually artist/editor/writer/curator)seems to be asking us ,“Has our dream of the future become reality? Can we still lie on the floor and wonder?”

About the artists:

Jeff “Jeffu” Warmouth is a Massachusetts-based media artist who has managed
to make a career out of playing with his food. His artwork incorporates
photography, video, sculpture, and digital media, and often uses jokes and
comic twists to subvert logic, language, identity, and culture. Jeff has
exhibited at the DeCordova Museum, the Boston Center for the Arts, and Art
Interactive in Cambridge, and his award-winning film/video work has screened
in festivals internationally. He received his MFA from the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston, and currently heads the Interactive Multimedia program at
Fitchburg State College. For more info, visit http://www.jeffu.tv

Scott Listfield is primarily known for his paintings featuring a lone exploratory astronaut lost in a landscape cluttered with pop culture icons, corporate logos, and tongue-in-cheek science fiction references. Scott studied art at Dartmouth College (which might not have been the brightest thing to do) and, after some time in Italy and Australia, settled in Somerville, MA with his wife and longtime accomplice Joanna and his longtime dinosaur Dinosaur. His paintings have appeared in New American Paintings, and he has been profiled in the Boston Globe, the Somerville News, and online at bigredandshiny.com. His work has been exhibited in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, and Maryland, and he is represented by Gallery Locco Ritoro and by scintus.com. He is generally regarded as somewhat fashionable by his peers, and maintains his own website at http://www.astronautdinosaur.com.

Leah Johnstone-Mosher received her BFA in Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Boston in 2006. Born and raised in New York, she has held numerous internships, including one at the Art Student’s League of New York. Her current body of work deals with technology and nature, approaching the topic with alternative materials and a bit of humor. Her work has been shown at The Gallery at Porter Exchange, Cambridge.