February 7, 2009
Roil & Flush
Works by Anna Shapiro and Will Machin
February 4-28, 2009
opening reception February 7, 6-9 pm

Firehouse 13 is pleased to announce their February show Roil and Flush featuring new works by Anna Shapiro and Will Machin. Anna will be showing mixed media work of psychologically charged images based on her prior investigations of gender and society. Will Machin will be presenting wall and floor sculptures that meticulously construct and magnify cultures of roadside debris. Both artists tackle themes of power and positionality that flow from the increasingly rapid shifts of the 20th and 21st century.

The show will run from February 4 through 28 with an opening Saturday February 7, 6-9pm with entertainment to follow. During the show, events related to the environment and social justice will join the regular staple of FH13 rock n roll on the schedule.

Roil and Flush: Working with concepts of disruption, disposal and renewal, these two artists seek to speak truth to power in their work. Their work questions convention with a richness and humor that grows organically from the resonant spaces between common, evocative materials and images that speak to the challenges of our time. Shapiro's recent work wears away at the foundations of social injustice with vibrancy, humor and brilliance. Machin's work alternately analyzes the heart of the United State of America [sic] and dances in archeological playfulness with the signs and signifiers of the littered roadside.
At times the show is a chorus line, speaking for the intricacies of the era through which we are passing, at other times it is a duet, sounding dissonant notes inherent in the gendered socio-economic structures of the soul. For these artists the quest and question is as important as the goal. The overlapping circles of Machins and Shapiros practices has included processes that incorporate gun parts, birds, ecological public art, collaborations with non-profit organizations, and the intersection of the body and architecture as a nexus for understanding social structures, power structures and the internal patterning of thought and feeling.