Revive Group Art Show Installation Build at the Gear Factory in Syracuse, NY

One of my favorite art shows on the east coast, over 100 artists all given space to build and display their artwork throughout 20,000 sq. ft. however they would like! For this years show I stuck to my past formula and built a entire installation out of found material and scrap wood

If you would like to know how I built this

Then keep on reading!

First up the show producers gave me a space

Now that I have an idea of how big I can build the objective is gather useful materials.

The top floors of the Gear Factory building are currently under construction and with that comes a mass cleanup (picture 5 floors, 10,000 sq. ft. a floor, and each floor filled with random material) A couple days prior the building owner, Rick, was throwing out all the useless stuff and asked if there was anything I would like to salvage. While walking around Rick pointed out a large dresser that he was going to break down and throw out. He saw trash, I saw a giant frame We moved the dresser down to the 2nd floor and i got to work.

Keep in mind I still have no idea what Im going to build. All I know is that this dresser is my foundation. All those blue and green faces/boxes are remnants of the last installation I built here.

I gave the dresser a new paint job and mounted a 4x8' piece of scrap plywood to the inside. Maybe I can make a giant shadow box?

Using scrap wood I began to cut and paint waves (seen on the bottom left of image). For my last installation here I went with a nautical theme and wanted to play off that

At this point I realized that I need to scrap the nautical theme. Instead of nautical lets change the theme to BRIGHT, COLORFUL, and LARGER THAN LIFE Still with no solid idea in mind I began to paint some abstraction to get the creative juices flowing

I cut some circles from scrap wood and painted them to look like eyes after laying a couple of the wave layers into the dresser.

From this point the idea began to take shape. I know what Im going to build, a giant fun monster !

More wave mounting and cuts. The whole dresser will be the monsters mouth, the waves will act as the rainbow gums

:)

Now that the rainbow gums are installed this monster needs some teeth

Whats a monster without arms and hands?

Eyeballs, teeth, and eyebrows are now mounted to the dresser frame

ITS COMING ALIVE!!!!

Attach arms and hands...

WE HAVE LIFE! However this was the most difficult part. With the monster fully built the objective is to raise its legs up at least 4 cinder blocks. This monster is not light. There's a lot of heavy wood within the build and we need the assistance of a fork lift and 4 other people. After some careful lifting and cinder block placement we manage to raise our monster to nearly 10 ft. in the air

Now that the monster is up I need to build a merchandise table and space to display artwork.

Upstairs there are an abundance of old ammo crates that could act as my table. A couple slices of wood and we have a clean smooth surface to lay merchandise out on and a mini wall to mount some fun paintings (as an added bonus, plenty of storage space behind the counter within the ammo crates)

Thanks to the Gear Factory team they gave me full creative freedoms to utilize every inch of the space. From hanging paintings from the ceiling to displaying canvas' in the windows. If I had enough time the ceiling would have been painted as well.

Using all scrap material I created some fun and funky cutout faces for art show attendees to pose with and purchase

After 2 or 3 days work the installation is fully operational and ready for the show!! :)

The art showing featured the works of over 130 artists. It was (as always) a ton of fun and hugely inspirational to gather that many creative minds in one space. Open viewing hours are posted on the Revive Gear Factory website/Facebook Unfortunately I had to return home and break down the entire installation the next day leaving only our funky monster standing tall

Hope you enjoyed this write up and installation breakdown

Be sure to check out the future Gear Factory art shows! They host 2 massive shows a year, you wont be disappointed!!