Eat Peter to Feed Paul: Art Reception

Drawings and Installation Works by John Felix Arnold III & Christopher Burch - Aftershow Featuring an Evening of Musical Performances by Ninjasonik & Ken South Rock.

Littlefield NYC is pleased to present Eat Peter to Feed Paul, an interactive art experience that melds fine art, installation, sound, and performances in a collaborative presentation conducted by John Felix Arnold III and Christopher Burch, backed by a DJ set from the Reverend McFly and Charles Faxton, and featuring opening night performances by Ninjasonik and Ken South Rock. Eat Peter to Feed Paul examines the idea that a large section of society have become and are becoming “self sacrificing parasites”, and that there are those who are able to be conscious of this existence and look at it from outside of the cycle. Through a new body of drawings and installation Bay Area based artists John Felix Arnold III and Christopher Burch ironically explore the violent complex series of relationships between hyper consumerism and the inevitable consumption of self. This will be the first time the two artists have shown together in New York City.
Eat Peter to Feed Paul will be exhibited at Littlefield, located at 622 Degraw St. in Brooklyn, NY. The artist’s reception will be held on Thursday, March 1, 2012 from 6-9pm, with free hordourves,

refreshments, and a DJ set from the Reverend McFly and Charles Faxton, followed by performances from the Ninjasonik and Ken South Rock accompanied by live painting from the two visual artists. The exhibit runs from March 1, 2012 through March 31, 2012.
John Felix Arnold’s drawings and mixed media pieces combine a fine art aesthetic with a stylistic execution that’s intentionally derivative of graphic novels and comics. Equally influenced by this subversive genre of literature, modern dance, and his father’s collection of modern and abstract art, Arnold layers imagery with commentary to create a hybrid reality that references his synthesized human experience and aims to inform people of an ever hurtling machine that they are being wrapped inside of that is eating away at their humanity, yet seemingly cannot live without.
Christopher Burch's drawings and paintings are a beautiful amalgamation of traditional, classical drawing techniques, fused with early 20th century era cartoon images, references, and subjects that deal with intense issues of race, self, class, and the human experience as a tool to retell stories of old in a contemporary context in order to see new ways of thinking and moving through time from the the past in the present into the future. His drawings are masterful and hark on the feelings dredged up by greats such as Goya , while re-synthesizing their classical nature into a modern story telling and analytical context. His work is chock full of movement, struggle, intensity, history, resistance, movement, and contemplation.
For Eat Peter to Feed Paul, the two will present graphic narratives of drawings and mixed media work in their signature styles. Figurative, sometimes human forms anchor the narrative of the works while undulating forms writhe and contort around, towards and through, at moments engulfing them. In some works these creations symbolize a visualization of the idea of “self sacrificing parasites” as the subject, while in others the figures in the images are being mindful and observant of these abstract, chaotic, organisms and energies which are attempting to pull them in and intertwine them into this world of parasitic sacrifice.
The installation work for this show will be a collaborative creation of the two artists embracing the same conceptual framework as the drawings, but executed in a three dimensional manner with found objects from the New York City streets. The installation will also act as a guide to move the viewer through the space to view the drawing works while creating a sense of being boxed in at moments, and then a feeling of open free flowing energy at others.
The two artists will then paint these amoebic creations live while the performances commence.
Eat Peter to Feed Paul invites viewers to understand the situations that determine the future of humanity and our ability to claim and nurture our own souls so as to break away from the trend of humanity becoming “self sacrificing parasites”.