Jason Peters’ glowing alien guts — photo by Lolo Rodríguez
See a couple more photos from this installation>>

Held at English Kills, a Bushwick gallery that makes the claim of featuring “Brooklyn’s best artists,” a two man show entitled “In the Way” opened on Saturday.

The main room is occupied by the work of David Button, an artist whose other interests include fabrication, design, architecture and animatronics. His installation, comprised of a seemingly chaotic jumble of melted plastic sheeting held together by aluminum rods, recalls a microscopic view of an aggregate of fibers and cells forming a sort of pseudo-organic tissue.

I wandered into a back room, which may or may not have been a part of the show, where a smaller version of the same piece shared the space with a series of photographs of a neighborhood ravaged by a hurricane or tornado. This juxtaposition worked well as it offered a sharper insight into the ostensible sense of chaos within a structure.

The main treat, though, was the work of Jason Peters, who similarly uses inorganic materials to fashion an organic composition and atmosphere.

Peters, whose previous work has incorporated such ready-mades as chairs and car tires, built a cleverly conceived and deftly executed house of mirrors that truly felt like walking into the belly of a psychedelic, Matrix-like, futuristic beast.

As you enter what in actuality is a tiny room, you are warned not to step on the mirrors — which seems like a scary proposition when you are walking in extreme darkness. The installation itself consists of dozens of 1 gallon buckets strung together and configured in a way that they form a series of gorgeously twisting orange tubes illuminated from inside. The mirrors reproduce the image in different directions, transforming the small space into an infinitely huge tangle of alien bowels and guts.

Peters’ astute functional reinterpretation of the materials as well as space and spatial concerns remindful of Black Light Theatre techniques, add on to create a visually striking construct, with a dystopic, futuristic vibe that veritably challenges the viewers preconceptions.

“In the Way” will be at English Kills until November 30th.

English Kills Art Gallery
114 Forrest Street