“To witness genocide is to feel not only the chill of your mortality, but the degradation of humanity. Even the most brilliant photography cannot capture the landscape of genocide...This room is empty, though it is full of people. It has been emptied not by disease or disaster, but by hatred of other people.” Fergal Kean

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This exhibition will showcase the works of both artists who met nearly twenty years ago while they were attending art school in Boston. Although very different in approach and technique, both artists draw upon similar themes and narratives for the exhibition, particularly their feelings and associations with youth:

“This series was originally conceived as illustrations for a xeroxed zine, as part of my middle aged nostalgia for my youth in the eighties. Not the Duran Duran eighties, but the way I spent it: wasted, suicidal, making collages of medical atrocities, and trying unsuccessfully to figure out structuralism.” -Harrison

Burns contemplates the nature of free will in the context of youth and uses a generic Manson girl as the visual metaphor:

With a recurring vocabulary of symbols I've asked questions about the nature of free will: Is choosing to surrender your free will in itself, an act of free will? Or is it simply an excuse to absolve yourself of personal responsibility? …..the power and magic of children's books has maintained a great sway over me. In an attempt to cloak these questions of free will in the guise of children's book illustrations, I hope to elicit a subconscious response from the viewer's childhood memories.’

Both artists share a similar underground pop aesthetic yet there is a strange, mysterious and dark quality that lingers in each of their works, engaging the viewer in a journey towards uncovering a truth.

Scott Harrison was born in 1965, in Oklahoma and later earned a Master's degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He has had recent exhibitions at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles and at Portland Art Center in Portland,Oregon. He is an internationally known tattoo artist and proprietor of the inexplicably popular underground art website headbandbrothers.com.

Colin Burns was born in 1966. He attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC, then transferred and graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA. In 2003, Burns, David Hochbaum, and Museum School alumnus Travis Lindquist formed the Goldmine Shithouse, a visual arts collaborative who have had exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. Colin Burns had a recent solo exhibition at Metal Stone Gallery, in NYC.

McCaig-Welles, Gallery 129 Roebling Street, Suite B (between Metropolitan Ave. and N. 5th St.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn 11211 Tuesday – Friday 11-7pm Saturday-Sunday 12-7

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Tonight's host Jedi welcomes live performances from Creatures With Preacher Mann, Junk Science, Groove Bros, Slow Suicide Stimulus and Lodeck, DJs Elle, IXL, Gravy, Rob Flow, and Synapse. Check out art from Frost 215, Wrona, Filth and Chrick. Plus free beer from Brooklyn Brewery from 11 to 12.

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