Gallery CA Touched with Fire

I attended a show dealing with similar themes to my own artwork, those of addiction and mental illness. Jeffery Kent showed a series of rather simple but very polished paintings which were meant to show his journey from crack addiction to art creation...

These works are simple but they are also very laborious in nature. The other half of this show featured the works of Michelle Labonte. Her paintings were a little on the nose for my tastes but they dealt very directly with her lifelong struggle with mental illness. It is clear from the works that she has had to deal with many dark times in her life. I appreciate the use of split imagery in her work to show that depression is not there all the time, but instead the light is used to show by contrast how dark things can be. My only problem with these works is the use of text. I guess my personal opinion is that using text in visual art is like using a voice over in a film, it is not needed if the other elements are used to their fullest ability to convey message.