Experimental Skeleton (E.S.), led by artist Joe Griffith, is the Bay area's only not-for-profit media-savvy collective. It's composed of individual artists who exhibit their own work either individually or in cooperation with other members. When functioning as a group, they invite collaborative projects to be fabricated and fine-tuned with experimental materials. In spring, 2003, E.S. reared its creative heads and presented Toy W/ Us at Covivant Gallery, Tampa's first-rate alternative space. The exhibition was tailor-made for E.S.'s outside-the-box thinking, with art ranging from the whimsical to the conceptual. Securing work from The Art Guys, the famed Houston-based duo, was a coup. Their "Toy Tower," fabricated expressly for the toy show, featured drawers with various games and eye-popping, sexually explicit surprises. A virtual visual fun feast, the exhibition included ready-made and handmade toys like Liz McGrath's funky two-headed, two-bodied, Hawaiian dancers. Kenney Echezabel's mixed-media dolls and marionettes were bound in black tape, with one doll sporting a chastity-belt lock. Also noteworthy were Julie Raven Hernandez Dorsey's "Rocking Raven," and Jbot's stuffed "Leslie the Lion," a technologically deficient albeit charming robotic creature.
Covivant Gallery, 4906 N. Florida Ave., Tampa, 813-928-4661.
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2003.