William Powhida: Paper Beings

Dear Seattle,

I know you don’t know me, but I want to apologize in advance for my threats to “destroy” your fine city. I don’t actually want to destroy your city. I only want to see Microsoft, Adobe, Starbucks, the Space Needle, and Dale Chilhuly’s studio (and any galleries that show his glass work) crushed. Otherwise, I am coming to the emerald city for the opening of my brilliant GENIUS solo show, Paper Beings, at Platform Gallery. I encourage every one of you to attend my opening, get drunk, and stage an impromptu End the War rally with me. We could smoke some pot party and march on your mayor’s office demanding immediate secession from the rest of the Union. That would be GREAT or you could buy all of my art so that I can quit my job and make shit full-time. I might not really work ALL the time (I enjoy a beer now and then), but I would devote myself to my studio.

Perhaps you are a rich software developer. You could just write me a SIX FIGURE CHECK so that humans can buy COLLECT my work. You could become my patron and enjoy a position of power not often had since the Renaissance. I’m sure you could figure some way of writing it off your taxes, but that’s a matter for your accountant.

I hope you will all join me at the gallery on Thursday April 6th for a beer (or twenty) and spend hours looking at my amazing drawings including the awesome “Seattle Enemies List”, the breathtaking “Everyone I’ve Ever Met from Memory (that I can remember),” the unbelievable “James Drawings”, and the amazing “Top Ten (artforum)”. I know you will look at them and feel the same desperate longing for recognition and understanding that define my very existence. I also need you to find some critics and drag them along. I need the press! Seattle is really, really far from New York where the art world actually exists in all its’ rancid misery SPLENDOR!

Please, come out. I’ve never been to your city and am terrified of failure excited to meet everyone! I am a nice guy. The art is BRILLIANT and accessible. You don’t need to know much about theory or art history. I’ve done all the heavy lifting for you. I PROMISE you won’t be disappointed, unless you can’t read then you might want to stay home and watch the television. Still, there are pictures for everyone.

I really hope I like your city. I may have to move there after my career implodes spectacularly in New York. There are monsters here, seriously, and they run galleries.

Sincerely, William Powhida

Brooklyn's William Powhida returns to Platform Gallery for a solo show of his observations of the world and art criticism in graphic form. Through trompe l' oeil painting and drawings on paper that emulate notes, letters, enemies lists, rants, to-do lists, Powhida's multiple artistic personalities goad, cajole, critique, insult, complain, and articulate life as a contemporary artist in a market-driven economy. James Kalm, writing about Powhida's work in NY Arts Magazine observed, "In the psuedo anonymous state of his various persona, Powhida, as if wearing a mask, is free to address and critique anyone and anything without consequence, like the psycho killers who blame their crimes on a supressed alter ego; 'Bad Billy made me do it.'"

William Powhida holds an MFA from Hunter College and has exhibited at Dam Stuhltrager in New York, Artspace in New Haven and in the 2004 "Paperworks" group show at Platform. His work is currently on exhibit at the Schroeder Romero/Plus Ultra Project Space in New York.

William Powhida
Paper Beings