Ah, the fine line between fetishizing materials and ignoring their instrinsic power...I go to a school where certain painting professors can talk for hours about Robert Doak lead white... but what exactly are they doing with their lead white? It's a conundrum: while I find stretching and prepping my canvases with rabbit skin glue and oil ground extremely satisfying and enchanting (it's all about finding that elusive surface!), I see Johannes Van Der Beek's latest show of tie died paper towels and bent soup cans to be a delightful and yes, sensitive example of transforming lowbrow materials to form poetic meaning. There's a lot of crap out there, made with crap; but a transformative experience can be made with just about anything under the sun. That said, I'll leave the paper towel creations to others, thank you very much.
That said, I'll leave the paper towel creations to others, thank you very much.