Jim Arendt Artist Reception
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Upstate Gallery on Main 172 E. Main St., Spartanburg, South Carolina 29306
Upstate Gallery on Main presents “Frayed,” a selection of denim drawings by prominent Conway multidisciplinary artist Jim Arendt. The exhibition, which opens Nov. 8 and runs through Dec. 30, features approximately a dozen of Arendt’s recent works. An artist’s reception will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Nov. 17. This event is free and open to the public.
Arendt, who grew up just outside the industrial city of Flint, Michigan, explores the effects of the changing industrial landscape on the working class while shattering romanticized ideals and stereotypes. In his work, he portrays both individual struggles and larger economic and sociological issues through a variety of materials, perhaps most strikingly with the ubiquitous fabric of denim. For the works included in “Frayed,” Arendt cut, sewed and glued pieces of reclaimed denim, often donated by his subjects, into strongly emotive, life-sized portraits of his friends and family members.
“Art making is a way for me to explore our changing relationship with labor,” Arendt said. “My research focuses on transitions in macroeconomic structures through the lens of their effects on individual lives, communities and workers' relationships to the structures of labor itself. Casting the people I know best into the center of my work, I explore how the changing landscape of labor has defined them, not as they were or are, but as I know them to be.”