FIERCE

FIERCE comments on the horror of the AIDS pandemic by two important artists whose lives were cut short by AIDS.

Visual Aid is pleased to present some of the last works made by John B. Davis (1964-1992) and Sylvain Klaus (1959-1996). They each wanted to create something out of the tragedy. Both artists works are self portraits and tell a horrific story- the end of their own individual lives. Davis' work is more graceful, Klaus' work is more raw. We are left with the legacy of beauty and reality.

Davis' photographs are based on images of his own body, and yet they become objects of transcendent beauty--abstracted, almost calligraphic. The work is unsentimental and embodies a stark presence of being. These eight C-prints are from his last show and body of work which he titled "Fearless Gaze".

Some of Davis' images are used in the new film, We Were Here: Voices from the AIDS Years in San Francisco, directed by David Weissman which previewed at the 2010 Frameline Film Festival at the Castro Theatre. Davis's work was an inspiration to Visual Aid founder Daniel Goldstein, who was interviewed at length in the film.

Klaus' work is mixed media bas relief. Materials include plywood, paint and human teeth, collected from dentists, denturists and friends, and embedded in plaster. His work expresses his anger and pain in a universal, primal and raw manifestation. Klaus' assemblage paintings have strong connections to outsider or tramp art, and German Expressionism. The two pieces shown in the gallery were originally part of a row of screaming heads that made up "Mourning Wall". It was shown as his final show in November 1995. At the end of his life, Klaus lived in Seattle and was known for his melancholic, abstracted seascapes and became recognized as one of the younger generation of Northwest Mystic Painters.

...it is my intent to impact the virus with a soulful experience.
An emotional, not a cerebral, entrance into my world - our world . . . -Sylvain Klaus