Banks Violette

Start date: Sunday, March 2, 2008
Event is ongoing: Until Sunday, April 13, 2008

Engaging the masculine, machine aesthetic of Minimalism and the equally macho, but gritty, iconography of heavy metal music, Banks Violette creates an unlikely pact between high and low forms of visual communication to explore the ways fiction can turn into belief, or fantasy can be rendered real. Violette’s work is often characterized as an exploration of present-day themes of disaster, driven by stories of teen angst or devotion to—even obsession with—a particular band. The idea of performance is key for the artist, who commonly uses the stage as a motif to suggest the magic of a high-energy, apocalyptic rock show. The stage, often austere and abstract in Violette’s work, is perhaps a perfect signifier for the artist, in that it represents the site of fantasy.