From the outset, the goal of "The Sleep of Reason: The Fragmented Figure" has been to find and exhibit artists within the city and state who are representative of a “new” figuration. Every time and period has its own special image of the human figure, one that responds to its social and cultural mantras. Cubism radically changed the prevailing classical notion of the figure and introduced the “Fragmented Figure,” a body image that is first de-constructed and fragmented and subsequently re-constructed.

The participating artists in this exhibition will provide the viewer with a wide spectrum of viewpoints and installations that are innovative and often surprising. They may refer to and symbolize the anguish, instability, and complexity of twenty-first century life and the rise of “disquiet man”, as some authors have named it.

Participating artists include Frances Bagley, Rabea Ballin, Jimmy Canales, Elizabeth Chapin, Colette Copeland, Jeff Gibbons, Suguru Hiraide, Allison Hunter, Jessica Kreutter, Yuliya Lanina, Nadin Nassar, Steve Parker, Kris Pierce, Hugo Santana, Sarah Sudhoff, Jay Sullivan, and Jesse Lott.

The title "The Sleep of Reason" pays tribute to Francisco Goya, the 18th/19th century Spanish painter and printmaker who in his visionary etchings like the "Caprichos" and the "Disasters of the War", depicted the social upheaval of the ordinary people, their anguish and despair. Goya, often referred to as an "Early Modernist", castigates the corrupt society he lived in by creating the "fragmented" figures that were subject to violent deformations and humiliating mocking.

Following the opening reception, the exhibit will be on display until December 2.