Leslie Mutchler and Jason Urban

HEX Outpost / Post-HEX, December 2015

In the upcoming December/January exhibition, Grizzly Grizzly presents a new project by Austin-based artists Jason Urban and Leslie Mutchler. In “HEX Outpost/Post-HEX”, the artists will erect a retail outpost for a body of commercial goods based on hex symbology, signage and letterforms of Pennsylvania Dutch culture and history.

Utilizing the Pennsylvania Dutch Gift Haus as a jumping off point, the stand will feature hand-published zines, magazines, books, broadsides and posters along with decorative objects and tools, all exploring the graphic intensities of fraktur and Pennsylvania Dutch aesthetics filtered through a modern lens. All work will be for sale at roadside prices.

In homage to the ephemeral outpost, the exhibition will evolve in early January, with large-scale digital prints, relief prints, and sculptural objects. Stacks of archived materials will serve as plinths to new, overly-processed and intellectualized fragments of research based on Pennsylvania Dutch culture, magic and ritual.

Artist Bios

Jason Urban lives and works in Austin, TX. Urban earned his BFA from Kutztown University in Kutztown, PA and then his MA and MFA from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA. His prints, drawings, and installations have been featured in numerous venues both nationally and internationally. Urban is co-founder of printeresting. In 2011, Printeresting was awarded a Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.

Leslie Mutchler received her BFA from Kent State University and MFA from the Tyler School of Art.  Mutchler’s recent projects, TrendFACTORY and WorkLAB Satellites, are experiential and examine the functionality of the printed form through multi-participatory installations.