from Imeday Imeday Olladay Icklenay

By Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw

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This month's picture will be the last from Katie Caron's one-year stint as curator. She thanks Open Letters for the opportunity encourages our readers to visit their local galleries.

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Artist's Statement by Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw

Combining elements of performance, photography, painting, sculpture, costume design, food, and mechanics we create grand spectacles that engage all the senses. We manipulate environments in elaborate social experiments that engulf the audience within the work.Embracing the roles of entrepreneurs, small-town Americans, and community providers, we transformed an old carpenter's truck into a fully functioning restaurant. By retrofitting the rear of the truck with hydraulic arms, the truck physically unfolds into a complete dining area. Controlled cultural collision occurs as we serve down-home cuisine temporarily transforming neighborhoods into Southern outposts. The cultural displacement is apparent as hordes of trendy New Yorkers engorge on fried food as we unabashedly promote an all-American message.In Imeday Imeday Ollarday Icklenay, guests were invited to partake in lavish dinner parties. The transformed gallery was filled with animalistic performers with cannibalistic traits (all represented by old masters' inspired photographs), who entertained and served the opulent, almost sinful meal. As the decadent courses were served, the crystal-clear table, outfitted with hydraulics, would rise 10 feet in the air, literally separating the select guests from the less fortunate masses at the public openings. Absurd occurrences and foreshadowing occurred throughout the meal as guests over-indulge, remaining blissfully unaware.