Soft Sugars Opening in Pittsburgh

Although the opening happened a while ago, I thought I would recap my solo show with BoxHeart Gallery called “Soft Sugars” of all my little goopy colorful paintings. It was a steady stream of people throughout the run of the show even up until the last day, and it was really cool to field so many questions people had — which frankly, I’m not very used to.

The last time I had a solo show with the gallery it was a good 10 years ago, almost to the day, and it was of my portraits and figurative work. This time was a little bit different, and I got to take advantage of the wonderful upstairs space in a gorgeous old building. This was my first trip where I visited the Warhol Museum, too!

You can purchase several of the works still from the gallery. From the release:

At times, Proffer’s paintings mirror personal metaphysical occurrences, and, at times, contain a slight node to art history, such as hints of a baroque landscape or decadent still lives through distorted lenses. Shaping aesthetic outcomes of these paintings doesn’t come from research or re-creating what already exists; Proffer creates her own nature within these little worlds. Insects, flowers, human organs all come from the same process at the core, but within her paintings she is instinctually visualizing their fictional evolution at any given stage. Proffer creates her own fragile beings within these little worlds: alien forms mesh with what might be seen under a microscope or through a telescope. They are an artificial nature or a nature that is simply unknown to us, scientized and made more delectable. They are more virtual reality than actuality.

Cool! Got a featured image in the Pittsburgh City Paper. It is eye catching, after all.

My friends Denise and John drove all the way from Buffalo!

Mr. Ben Vendetta and Moi. It was very hot on this day and I am glad I brought my fan accessory.

The hottest of the summer as matter of fact….

Our hotel had these cool elevator waiting areas.

I’d been following Andrew Ooi on Instagram and was happy he was in the main gallery show at BoxHeart. I can’t even wrap a giftbox properly let alone cut paper straight!

It was then off to The Andy Warhol Museum. I had never been! Here is John doing a screen test….

Here’s my screen test. It was kind of long and I didn’t know wtf to do.

As it happened, our old friend Blake was in town and saw the feature in the paper about my show. He was visiting from Napa with his wife and they met us at the museum. We hadn’t seen him in a good 16 years or more! We met Blake when he played keyboard in a band in Los Angeles called Sunstorm and we loved them so much, we even had them play our wedding.

I didn’t take a photo, but in an odd coincidence, actress Carla Gugino happened to be walking around with our group that day. I say it was odd because I have been in her orbit by chance three times now in three different cities in the most random-ass places. I don’t know what it means, but there she was! Anyway.

Ben is currently in his Velvet Underground phase. Well, he always has been a little bit.

Denise is a graphic designer so I think she was geeked on this piece of Americana. I’m old enough to remember learned the computer on an Apple II Plus.

I was never really a Warhol fan and I always liked his fashion illustrations the best. I will say though, the museum is pretty fantastic and it gives a lot for you to go on. Sure I find some of his work obnoxious or just painful (the films are what they are), but there are bits here and there that show just how ahead of the times he was. I’ve been to the neighborhood where he grew up, and you see exactly why he ran off to New York City in those early days!