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The California Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition entitled, Pete Driessen: ExtraOrdinary PanCapitalist Renditions/ The Triptychs, featuring the stimulating paintings of Minneapolis based visual artist Pete Driessen. Created over a period of over seven years, this small selection of eight rarely seen triptychs blends allegorical history painting, color theory, and critical theory into a polemic narrative. The compelling paintings, both large and small scale, develop ideas of pancapitalism and empire, human rights and injustice, and power and powerlessness. The sociopolitical paintings utilize both symbol and metaphor and refer to foreign policy and current events, art history and iconography, color symbolism and optical illusion for structure and content.

Grounded in the living web of wholeness and balance, Driessens rhythmic artwork reflects a seamless array of scientific, philosophical, and sociopolitical themes such as animism, synchronicity, torture, genocide, and corporate responsibility. The paintings question authoritarian dominance and repressive power structures, and they seek dissident political alternatives that empower and engage both the mind and the eye of a spectrum of audiences.

In the past fifteen years, Driessen has presented and installed his paintings in large-scale panorama triptychs and modular formats. The triptych format triangulates the narrative and creates an environment of visual dialogue between content and context. Questions of color gradation and space, language and pattern, and texture and scale all contribute to the meaning of the work. Through formal illusions, juxtapositions of luminance, complimentary contrasts, and saturation shifts, the work reflects our inner detachment with the human condition.

The California Gallery is located in the heart of the North East Minneapolis Arts District at 2205 California Street Northeast, Suite 103, Minnesota. The exhibition runs from September 28th to November 4th, 2006. Hours are Thursday thru Saturday from 1-5pm and by appointment. An artist talk will take place on October 21st at 3pm. For further information on the exhibit you may call 612-782-9185, email the artist at pete@petedriessen.com, or visit the artists website at www.mnartists.org/pete_driessen.

Read the full exhibition list, the exhibition artist statement, or the artist Limited Edition Triangulation Statement.

access + ENGAGE, Landscapes, Mixed Media, Regional, Unclassified

• Pancapitalism Devours Empire(Triptych), pete driessen
• Pancapitalism Devours Empire(Ketchup), pete driessen
• Pancapitalism Devours Empire(Hotdog), pete driessen
• Pancapitalism Devours Empire(Mustard), pete driessen
• Pancapitalism Devours Empire(Ketchup)-Detail(Face), pete driessen
• Pancapitalism Devours Empire(Hotdog)-Detail (Face/Pancapitalism), pete driessen
• Pancapitalism Devours Empire(Hotdog)-Detail (Child/Hotdog), pete driessen
• Visit Lovely Crawford, pete driessen
• Bush Medusa, pete driessen
• Mine/My Gun(Bush with Saddam’s Gun), pete driessen
• Visit Lovely Crawford(Bush/Hitler)-Detail(Face), pete driessen
• Bush Medusa(Detail/Face), pete driessen
• Mine/My Gun(Bush with Saddam’s Gun)-Detail(Face), pete driessen
• Untitled(War Bouquet Study #1), pete driessen
• Untitled(War Bouquet Study #2), pete driessen
• Untitled(War Bouquet Study #3), pete driessen
• The Most Favored Nation Overruns Tibet with Impunity, pete driessen
• The Most Favored Nation Overruns Tibet with Impunity-Detail(Face/Serpent), pete driessen
• Mahakala & Tibet Giving China the One Hundred Pieces (See Bataille), pete driessen
• Mahakala & Tibet Giving China the One Hundred Pieces (See Bataille)-Detail(Mahakala), pete driessen
• The Cultural Genocide of 6,000, 000 Tibetans & Destruction of 6000 Tibetan Monasteries, pete driessen
• Cultural Genocide of 6,000,000 Tibetans & Destruction of 6000 Tibetan Monasteries-Detail(Rape/Exodus), pete driessen
• California Gallery View #1, pete driessen
• California Gallery View #2, pete driessen
• California Gallery View #3, pete driessen
• California Gallery View #4, pete driessen
• California Gallery View #4, pete driessen
• California Gallery View #5, pete driessen
• Hummingbird: Extraordinary Renditions Triptych, pete driessen
• Vagina Dentata Triptych, pete driessen
• The Triumph of Priapus Triptych, pete driessen
• Severed Power Triptych, pete driessen
• American Commemoratives Triptych, pete driessen