Underdonk

Cavity of Ambrosia is a phantasmagoric homage to the rotting cornucopia of eternal summer. In summertime, sweaty hot days blend into saccharine humid nights. A quiet decay enters with the greener leaves as we live like demented gods reaching out to the seemingly immutable sun.

The beauty of summer does not cease with the decay, it only becomes more fantastic as they mix together to create the most fertile season of the year. A similar ambitious mix can be found in the nostalgic American desert dish, Ambrosia, which is usually made in the summertime for cookouts and family parties – but whose fluffy sweetness may sometimes be confused for the whiff of rot.

Ambrosia attempts to imitate God with its strange mixture of ingredients and cultural ideals. It is like a culinary stairway to heaven, only made of tinned fruit instead of clay bricks. Out of the nauseating combination a new thing is made, Ambrosia.

There are two forms of Ambrosia. To us humans, it is a peculiar form of fruit pudding commonly made up of berries, oranges, pineapples, maraschino cherries, coconut shreds and marshmallows all held together by a thick, sumptuous white cream. But the original Ambrosia has a flavor only known to the Gods of old. Ambrosia, food of the immortals, was said to bolster the divine essence of Greek Gods as they created heavenly mischief on Mount Olympus.

Ben Galaday’s playful soft sculptural wall pieces are scattered about the space, some paced more centrally than others – their referential forms pop with color and pattern. The fruit-like objects become ingredients while the white gallery walls act as the divine cream. Galaday’s quilted wall piece DEMENTIA GARBAGE AMBROSIA QUILT shows printed fabric sewn into a lumpy soft quilt, a mixed mashup of food with another shape attached, off center. The mix of food recalls the consequences experienced on a

summer day of overeating, and the embryonic shape suggests that there is a new life that emerges out of the massive nausea of death.

Anthony Record’s paintings are darker abstractions. While referencing Chinese shuǐ-mò 水墨, “water and ink” paintings, Record distorts recognizable space and transforms shapes into a delicate unfamiliar landscape. His paper works are mounted with deep floral fabrics to contrast the visceral content, which innovates on more traditional scroll mounting techniques used by Masters. The compositions present a multitude of oblong, elbow-like shapes that undulate in and out of one another, as if depicting the live transformation process of matter. The value of the shapes simultaneously builds mountainous peaks that then dip into the mysterious abysmal caverns.

Anthony Record is an artist, curator, and educator, and he has been the Curator of the Museum of Florida Art and Culture since 2022. From 2018-2022 he was the Studio Programs Coordinator at the Tampa Museum of Art. From 2009-2018 he was a professor of art and art history, and his art has been exhibited internationally at galleries and museums in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Kanazawa, Vancouver, and elsewhere. He is the Co-Founder and Director of the artist cooperative gallery QUAID, located in the Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa, FL since 2014. anthonyrecord.com

Ben Galaday is an artist and educator teaching in residence at Red Lodge Clay Center in Brooklyn NY. . Galaday holds an MFA in Sculpture from University of South Florida and a BFA in Ceramics from Oregon College of Art and Craft. His recent exhibitions include Jonald Dudd, an annual NYC Design Week exhibition, a two person show at Proto Gomez & a window installation at Desert Island Comics. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. bengaladay.com