Innocence Found
June 9 – September 4, 2004

DFN Gallery is proud to present our summer show, Innocence Found. The thirty-three artists featured have contributed images about the desire to return to an original state of innocence. Innocence found is both an affirmation of the existence of innocence and a rigorous examination of its darker counterpoint. All of the archetypes of childhood are here: kittens, cartoons and flowers; but the kittens are stunned by a loaf of bread, the cartoons reference oversexed Tex Avery animations, and the flowers are the hallucinogenic equivalent of Theodore Rousseau.
Some of the works are direct observations of innocence without cynicism. This guilelessness should not be mistaken for a lack of sophistication, however, but as subtly complex contradictions. If a pubescent girl is the epitome of innocence, are we as viewers reifying her purity or colluding in her objectification? Can a plaster deer truly embody innocence if its surface is etched with the dings and pockmarks of its weathered history? Does an untrained artist’s iconography remain pure after it has been absorbed into the marketplace?

Innocence Found leaves these questions open to the viewer’s interpretation. Is it possible to be genuine without being saccharine? Can art be caustic and positive at the same time? Can we come full circle from lost innocence to arrive at a place where sentiment is no longer either unexamined or ironic but is instead informed affirmation?

LC Armstrong
Bo Bartlett
Tom Birkner
Alfonse Borysewicz
Colin Brant
Squeak Carnwath
The Clayton Brothers
Orly Cogan
Peter Drake
Jana Duda
Tapp Francke
Madora Frey
Kojo Griffin
Susan Grossman
Julie Heffernan
Nicky Hoberman
Werner Hoeflich
David Humphrey
Lisa Krivacka
Adela Leibowitz
Andrew Lenaghan
Loretta Lux
David Mahler
Ruth Marten
Gaines Peyton
Mark Ryden
Jenny Scobel
Yuko Shimizu
Jock Sturges
Jimmy Lee Sudduth
Judit Villager
Eric White
Dan Witz

For Reviews of this exhibition, click here.
For Images of this exhibition, click here.