The concurrent solo exhibitions at Catharine Clark Gallery presenting Packard Jennings and Felipe Dulzaides made use of the unexamined life under scrutiny tying in several cases of suspect: suggestive advertising, target marketing, rediscovered perspective of the everyday, and the challenge of office culture on the human instinct.

Jennings and Dulzaides both utilize an invisible hand approach to guide the viewer toward seemingly clear stated conclusions on topics of universal concern while never insisting on any viable outcome. Minus any clear case in point methods and refusing any hard line tactics of a personal nature grants Jennings and Dulzaides a chance at producing interpretations from the jovial to the deeper inflective.

Jennings series of illustrations titled "Business Reply Pamphlets" uses ‘You’ (general) by example illuminating a track of reliance on the suggestibility of the viewer. Whereas one could view the "Business Reply Pamphlets" illustrations as light wry humor, the work could also be seen as scratching just below the surface of social innuendos employing a fleeting cynical overtone in an attempt to evade too brash of a judgment. Hosting a brand of counter cause usability, Jennings proposed reverse office culture seeks the vein of the transient and impermanence that underlies contemporary social structures. Is the extreme alternative too simple a line to cross without an explicit destination- such that the risk becomes Jennings cultural criticisms lost in an aesthetic façade catering more to allaying any point too critical or (possibly) alienating while leaving any deeper commentary untouched?

Jennings strength lies within the green interpretation of his statements: the mixture of jest and cynicism coupled with illustration and grass root efforts captures a side of the artist that comes across as honest and thoughtful. Also to Jennings benefit is his taste for experimentation in social cause, new realizations on exhausted cultural criticisms that have depreciated or gone underground due to current political climates coupled with his quiet removal from the front lines of the cause. Jennings is not championing on the side of chaos or anarchy but is paying homage to its historical merit by chipping away at framework that holds such values in place.

Jennings and Dulzaides both utilize a personal value in their work on very different levels. Jennings personal appearance in the Bus Stop Advertising project documentation, (though not of his personal choosing) connects the artist with the message in a personal manner, which elevates the message to a direct statement pushing a borderline activist sentiment. Stronger than that of Jennings personal image included next to one of the retooled bus bench advertisements reading “You don’t need it”, is Jennings name carved into the seat of the constructed bus bench located in the gallery. These actions take Jennings from the universal and insert him directly and intimately into his work, almost like a stamp of personal approval. As a social comment on the suspicious quality of corporate culture Jennings work is better served outside of a traditional gallery space and in the public arena where direct interaction can be made and received. This was envisioned with the bus tour organized by gallery, making Jennings work on display a full documentary of the realized projects co-directed with artist Steve Lambert.

The bus bench project organized by Steve Lambert, the Anti Advertising Agency and Jennings targeted Oakland bench back advertising space and a cross sectional survey of the neighborhoods they exist in. The statement available in the gallery for visitors explains what they are viewing as documentation of the bench project and presents visual artifacts of public view space revised by artist vision over typical advertisement. Jennings bench back illustrations installed on Oakland bus benches hits deep within the tradition of Oakland’s covertly installed and removed public art projects such as Justin Artifice’s wall murals and bus bench facades and Erik Groff’s disputed territories. The available literature in the gallery made Jennings message most direct within this instance, using referenced statements and flawlessly mastered illustrations depicting the characters of the rampant stereotyping in far less hostile like actions and environments. What may not be as understandable is the clear intention of images, at times found thick in interpretation, to the general public outside the gallery and beyond the one-block radius of the targeted bench.

Dulzaides photographic series, "Series: One-minute Installation in Havana", featured the phenomenon of perspective trading: what we view daily redefined by the help of Dulzaides impromptu drawings on scraps of white paper. Lampposts, clothes lines, flags, and city statues all received a simple translation. Dulzaides is the invisible guide in each print, as the focal point is such that the viewer is right next to Dulzaides while he reconstructs on site via momentary reconsideration.

Dulzaides C-Print series of his recent site specific billboard project in San Francisco titled "Double Take" are beautiful billboard size replicas of city landscape articles. The emblematic billboard reproductions offer little to interject beyond the reproductions of the immediately recognizable. "Double Take" is fulfilled by occupying billboard space otherwise leased by advertisers, such as one of the projects sponsors, Clear Channel. With its rank and merit in urban art, Dulzaides personal intuition seems absent with the "Double Take" series (unlike "Series: One-minute Installation in Havana"), instead present is a place holder in the ever current San Francisco tradition of flighty urban discourse: messages that read more as ‘non-messages’ that are vaguely linked to personal perception more than that of any one true defining point or cause. The sterile and empty feel of "Double Take" is depressing when viewed against Dulzaides more personally involved work on display.

Jennings and Dulzaides work within the public realm are incredibly plotted and designed pieces that can be described as public art. This is the inherent beauty and similarity within their work. The heavy reliance on translation, intent and speculative investment on the part of the viewer at times produces a questionable fit for the benefit of the general populous or the average public viewer. Some of the social comments risk ending up entrenched in detail and laden causes that resist simplicity and end up woven in personal philosophies such that a surface glance may be all that is left for the average bystander.