CAROLE CURTIS: METROPOLIS IN ABSTRACTION
Carole Curtis: Metropolis in Abstraction runs from Nov 16th through Dec 20th.
A reception and gallery talk is scheduled for Wed, Nov 18 from 4:30 – 6:30 pm.
Geometric shapes abutting and overlapping, strong color against large planes of gray and black, Carole Curtis’ painting pay homage to both the architecture of New York City and to her background as a graphic artist. Each large acrylic on canvas presents a collage of urban structure, hints of sky barely visible in the negative space between buildings. Reminiscent of the work of the early modern painters such as Charles Sheeler and Charles Demuth, Curtis presents the city as a puzzle of cleanly rendered forms.
Though shown from the perspective of the man-on-the-street, the compositions are devoid of human presence, focusing instead on the, “industrialized, commercial, mercantile metropolis,” that is New York. Seen as a group, this work both illuminates the beauty of the architecture and removes the presence of the teeming masses below, moving along the sidewalks from place to place, mostly ignoring the canopy of buildings above them.
Born and raised in New York City, Carole has worked as a graphic designer throughout her career. She now paints in her studio at the ArtsWestchester landmark building in White Plains, NY. Her work as been exhibited in New York and Connecticut and she received a Residency Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center in 2013.
Download tips for bringing your class
SEUNGHWUI KOO: PIGPLE
Seunghwui Koo: Pigple runs from Oct 12th through Nov 8th.
A reception and gallery talk is scheduled for Wed, Oct 14 from 4:30 – 6:30 pm.
When Seunghwui Koo moved to New York from South Korea the only America she knew was the one she saw on television and in advertisements. Her sculptures, anthropomorphic pigs lounging, loving and exercising, reflect elements of this pop culture in full and often fully saturated color. The pig, for Koreans, is seen as a precursor to wealth and happiness but also as a warning away from greed. These pigs, piled like gum balls or hung like trophies reflect both the pleasure and peril of material greed. Table-top figures are both strange and funny, pig/human hybrids living their 21st century lives.
Seunghwui Koo was educated in Korea and today makes her artwork in New York. She has shown mixed media pieces, primarily resin and acrylic, in both South Korea and the US and is supported by the Chashama art collective.
Download tips for bringing your class
UNIT 2 VOICES: ARTWORK FROM DEATH ROW
Unit 2 Voices: Artwork from Death Row runs from Sept 7th through Oct 4th.
A reception and gallery talk is scheduled for Wed, Sept 16 from 4:30 – 6:30 pm.
This exhibition is a result of three years work with a group of men living on Death Row at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Located in Nashville, Tennessee, Riverbend is billed as one of the state’s most high-tech facilities with a designated capacity of 714 offenders of which 480 are classified as high risk. In addition the majority of the state’s male death row inmates, currently published at 67, are there.
The works in this show are a result of three years of sustained collaboration among four faculty mentors, Barbara Yontz, Kristi Hargrove, Robin Paris and Tom Williams, and the men in Unit 2A with volunteer student participants. Through weekly class meetings at the prison and distance mailings between Nashville and New York, artworks and relationships developed as the voices of those inside the prison merged with those outside. The intention for this project is at least twofold—political and personal.
Prisoners involved in this project include Abu Ali Abdur’Rahman, Gdongalay Berry, Ron Cauthern, Tyrone Chalmers, Gary Cone, Lemaricus Davidson, David Duncan, John Freeland, Kennath Artez Henderson, Billy Irick, Akil Jahi, Nikolus Johnson, Donald Middlebrooks, Harold Wayne Nichols, Richard Odom and Derrick Quintero.
Curated by Barbara Yontz
Spring 2015
Art & Design Senior Exhibition
The 2015 Art and Design Senior Exhibition runs from April 27th through May 8th.
A reception for the artists is scheduled for Wed, April 29 from 4:30 – 6:30 pm.
Art, Art Therapy, Graphic Design and Art Education students present their final portfolios and thesis projects.
Contributing artists include Joseph Chegwidden, Angelica Covino, Travis Decotiis, Kelly Dell'Aera, Shelby Coyle, Michelle Jones, Alexa Nicolosi, Wilfredo Ortiz, Sandra Perez, Mayra Petrovich, Mairead Senk, Catherine Sandkuhl and Elizabeth Harper.
Curated by Matthew Finn and Barbara Yontz
The Storied Stitch
The Storied Stitch runs from March 31 through April 19.
Receptions are scheduled for Wednesday, April 8, from 4:30 – 6:30 pm and Sunday, April 19 from 2-4. Artist talks will be given both days.
Featuring the work of Megan Canning, Orly Cogan, Michelle Kingdom, Katrina Majkut and Tamar Stone. Curated by Carla Bellisio.
Needlework has a rich history in America. From early native Americans to the first European colonists, needlework has been used both as a record and as a means of communication. Family history and traditions are remembered in needlecraft, embroidered details communicate messages of status, wealth, and beauty.
Modern needlework may utilize the same techniques, but the message has been broadened. The Storied Stitch provides a space for that message. Here we see traditional techniques in uncommon contexts, reminding us of our past while exploring current issues. We also see the stitch pushed beyond the familiar shape, stretching and sketching and living in a new form. What begins as an intimate craft results in work that reveals a narrative both personal and universal.
Yotam Zohar
Yotam Zohar: The Underground Series runs from February 23 through March 22.
A reception for the artist is scheduled for Wednesday, March 4, from 4:30 – 6:30 pm. An artist talk will be given at 5:30 that evening.
In The Underground Series, Yotam Zohar explores portraiture through the filter of social isolation. In the tradition of Rembrandt, each painting begins as a two- or three-tone underpainting, gradual layers of translucent color making the surface complex and resonant. Working at the intersection of old and new, Zohar surreptitiously photographs his subjects on the subway with his phone and manipulates the images digitally to create the basis for his canvases. This method retains both the separation of artist and subject and the intimacy of the voyeuristic portrait. Similar in theme to Walker Evans‘ photographs of train passengers from the 1930s, Zohar displays a cross-section of the city, unposed and unnamed.
Speaking of this work, Zohar says, “I am fascinated by the way the stories that are told in a face seem to become amplified and crystallized through painting, “ and invites the viewer to create their own narratives using these characters. Presented without judgement, these portraits live within the tradition of figurative painting while also depicting the shared experience of the urban traveller.
Born in Jerusalem, Zohar moved to the United States to complete a BFA at The Ohio University and an MA at Eastern Illinois University. Currently based in Brooklyn, he has also worked in galleries for a decade and teaches adults to engage actively in the act of seeing by learning to draw and paint.
Sun Young Kang
Sun Young Kang: Books Containing Yeo-Baek runs from January 20 through February 15.
A reception for the artist is scheduled for Wednesday, February 11, from 4:30 – 6:30 pm. A gallery talk will be given at 5:30 that evening.
Books Containing Yeo-Baek, the current exhibition of the work of Sun Young Kang, is an exploration of space, light and nothingness. Yeo-Baek, the Korean aesthetic of “emptiness” permeates this collection of sculptural books. Empty space creates a pull between positive and negative which, as the artist suggests,“conceptually stimulates the viewer’s imagination about what is not there and invites them into the artwork.“ Created out of handmade paper, some with characters burned into it, each piece is a layered story. Light and shadow pass through the pages, transforming flat paper into sculpture.
Life and death are clear themes in this work, but so is time. Both abstract in its relation to history, culture and the many generations of artists learning a craft and concretely in the time spent building each object. Most of these books are one of a series, painstakingly formed, bound, scored and printed. Time in creating, time in looking, time in learning, all of these concepts evidenced on the pages presented in this exhibition.
After receiving her BFA in Korean Painting from Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul, Korea in 2001, Kang moved to the United States to study Book Arts/Printmaking and earned her MFA from the University of the Arts in 2007. She has worked as a book conservation technician for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh from 2007 to 2010 and now is currently working for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. And she is the current artist fellow of the Center for Emerging Visual Arts.
Fall 2014
THE FUTURE
The Future: 2014 Bi-Annual Student Show runs from November 10 through December 7.
A reception is scheduled for Wednesday, November 12, from 4:30 – 6:30 pm.
St. Thomas Aquinas students submitted art, design and spoken word on the subject of The Future. Visual submissions were jurored by Hannah Rogge, Art Director and Author of Hardware: Jewelry from a Toolbox.
Contributing artists include Joy Alacar, James Brinkley, Joseph Chedwidden, Shelby Coyle, James Diamond, Angela Gallo, Elizabeth Harper, Lauren Hernandez, Katrina Kuan, Ashley Liporace, John Lorenzo, Erica Morgo, Alexa Nicolosi, Jessica Parker, Catherine Sandkuhl and Chris Silva.
Contributing writers include Elizabeth Hackett, James McLaughlin, Jessica Mizzi and Marcus Stewart.
RACHEL KOHN
Rachel Kohn: Ground Gradation runs from October 6 through November 2.
A reception for the artist is scheduled for Wednesday, October 8, from 4:30 – 6:30 pm. A gallery talk will be given at 5:30 that evening
Rachel Kohn creates physical, meditative landscapes that offer a space for the viewer to explore cycles of growth and decay. Her work focuses on nature, but is also inspired by human fragility and cycles of life and death. Her paintings investigate a shifting of energy, finding light from darkness, control from chaos, and balance from the unbalanced. These cavernous landscapes explore patterns within the natural world and are influenced by deterioration, fragility, devastation, and renewal.
Each piece hovers on the boundry between painting and sculpture. Kohn builds up a surface using wax, plaster and foam and then carves the materials back to reveal what has been covered. The work becomes both abstraction and landscape and references layers of earth or flesh as the surface is gouged away.
Kohn has a B.A. from Skidmore College in Art and Mathematics, and an M.F.A. from Hunter College in painting. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, and London. Currently she is an adjunct instructor at the College of New Rochelle, and an instructor at Brooklyn Art Space.
CHUCK VON SCHMIDT
Chuck von Schmidt: BAMIYAN silk to lava runs from September 2 through September 28.
A reception for the artist is scheduled for Tuesday, September 9, from 4:30 – 6:30 pm. A gallery talk will be given at 5:30 that evening
Chuck von Schmidt’s work seeks to explore the human condition through responses to culture and history. Whether collecting soil samples at historical flood sites for his series Antediluvian Memories or working with materials inspired by trade along the Silk Road, the rich history of humankind impresses itself upon each artwork.
Included in this exhibition are sculptures from von Schmidt’s Bamiyan series. These sculptures were created as a response to the Taliban’s 2001 destruction of two colossal statues of Buddha in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan. These symbolic replacement faces were created from a variety of materials which reflect the diversity of cultures which passed through the Bamiyan Valley including silk cocoons, lava, iron and beetle wings. Von Schmidt says of these works, “the diverse materials used to create essentially the same image repeatedly, refer to the universality of the human condition, hopefully to suggest tolerance to those who may have previously neglected it.“
Von Schmidt is an artist based in Long Island, NY. His work has been exhibited internationally for over 40 years. A graduate and former faculty member of the Cooper Union, he has also taught at Brooklyn College and the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2004, he was commissioned by the Pave The Way Foundation to create The Ideals of Aaron, a sculpture that he presented to Pope John Paul II, in recognition of the Pope’s milestone accomplishments in furthering relations between the various world religions.
