Preparing to Lose

Heather Layton has an amazing exhibit at HallWalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo titled Preparing to Lose. Below is pictured the stupendous drawing that she created on the wall of the gallery. Next Saturday is the Small Press Book Fair in Buffalo - I am very sad I can't go this year but it would be a great day to go and see this exhibit too!

This it what Hallwalls director wrote about her work:

In a culture addicted to win/win, "we're No. 1" scenarios,Heather Layton's Preparing To Lose drawings are imagined as counter-narratives to the cultural norm. Her ambiguous and unidentified characters are fragile, but not fear-ridden. They are part of a team that is not going to win, but persist in trying. Their honest failures and awkward moments are intended as a refreshing alternative to the straight-faced assertions of power and perfection that permeate most part of american culture. Layton's characters have no grandiose proclamations to uphold, no aggressive assertions of certitude, no riches to declare. They inhabit stories that don’t lead to triumph and are not amongst those who rise to the glittering top of the glittering heap, but they exist as a self-propelling engine of pluck and persistence whose achievements (and identities) remain unclear but whose actions and efforts appear to demonstrate a communal, collective effort—trying regardless of the possibility of eventual failure.