MADE HERE: Winter 2015 Group Show Press Release

MADE HERE Winter 2015 Kirsten Flaherty, Susan Graham, Johanna Winters

April 2, 2014 - May 3, 2015, Opening reception: April 2, 7-9pm

Artists In Residence Winter 2015

Guttenberg Arts Gallery is pleased to present “MADE HERE Winter 2015” a group exhibition of the current Artists in Residence; Kirsten Flaherty, Susan Graham and Johanna Winters. On view April 2 2015 through May 3 2015.

The works included in MADE HERE Winter 2015 were created during the artists’ residences and address issues and concepts that revolve around humanity, built urban environments and their relationships with nature.

Kirsten Flaherty’s newest etchings use the intimacy and tactility of detailed mezzotints and hand stitching to evoke a deeper sense of empathy for her subjects. These subjects or innocents, such as pit bulls and seals, are deeply affected by our systematic urbanization and our negative impact on our natural environment, as well as how our relationships to the animals themselves. The prints also depict serene landscapes that are abruptly disrupted by a trapped seal bound by wire, which is heightened by Flaherty’s use of thick thread and the piercing of the paper causing the viewer to realize the fragility of life and the fallacies in human nature that come with even more devastating repercussions.

Similar themes of human encroachment on nature are also found in Susan Graham’s newest works. These technically complicated, freestanding porcelain sculptures entitled “Flower Towers” are linear in nature and replicate electrical towers seen to be placed in every landscape heedless of the needs of the environment at hand. Graham’s use of decoration and simple black and white color palettes poetically depict the eternal struggle between nature and technology. Graham’s pieces also reference the sense of humor and clumsiness of cell phone towers disguised as pine trees and their rapidly changing landscapes.

In Johanna Winters’ recent exhibition,Culling the Herd, the works were installed in such a way that evoked the comfortable space of a backyard clothing line where the prints are hung with clips and seemingly cheerful in color, drawing in the viewer. But the illusion is only temporary, upon closer look these intimately scaled prints show characters that are confined or restrained within ambiguous and absurd environments on stages that produce an uncanny sense of empathy from their viewers. For MADE HERE, Winters continues to create a cast of impish characters that both mock and celebrate the gluttony and banality of Middle America and linger in the emotional emptiness that seems to manifest itself in their physical situations.

Exhibition: April 2, 2015 - May 3, 2015; Opening Reception: April 2, 7-9pm.

For more information please contact studio@guttenbergarts.org or 201-868-8585.

Guttenberg Art Gallery is free and open to the public by appointment.

Visiting Critic: Elvis Fuentes!

We are really excited to welcome local resident of Guttenberg, curator and friend Elvis Fuentes to G.A.!

Elvis Fuentes as Lenin, 2014  by Jairo Alfonso

Born in Cuba, Elvis Fuentes studied Art History at University of Havana, and worked as a curator at The Ludwig Foundation of Cuba. Also living and working in Puerto Rico for two and a half years before moving to New York in 2006. Mr. Fuentes served as curator at El Museo del Barrio between June 2006 and January 2013, where he organized shows on the Caribbean, the permanent collection and two biennials of contemporary Latino art. Recently returning to school to complete a PhD student in Art History at Rutgers University, Mr. Fuentes will be on panel talk at Volta March 7, 2015.

Johanna Winters: Culling the Herd Press Release

Guttenberg Arts Gallery is pleased to present Culling the Herd, a solo exhibition of works by Johanna Winters, currently an Artist in Residence. On view March 6 through March 31, 2015.

The works included in Culling the Herd, dwell upon Johanna Winters’ childhood in the suburban Upper Midwest where over-­indulgence and herd mentality gives way to characterless freeways and strip mall wastelands. Departing from this landscape, she has created a cast of impish characters that both mock and celebrate the gluttony and banality of Middle America and linger in the emotional emptiness that seems to manifest itself in their physical situations. The prints are intimately scaled, framed as an old polaroid would be, showing a happy moment, but these characters are boxed into oddly delicate intaglio prints with precise line work and muted colors that poise their mammalian creatures, confined or restrained within ambiguous and absurd environments on stages that produce an uncanny sense of empathy from their viewers.

As a nod to her influences, which range from tv cartoons and newspaper comics to the sinister works of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder, even extending to contemporary artists such as Barry McGee and Kurt Kemp, Winters chooses to use printmaking’s “low­brow” or graphic nature and its history of conveying social commentary. And like these influential artists, Winters places the viewer with her characters in moments of awkwardness to illustrate the absurdity of human nature as a means of processing and deflecting her dismay at the antics and habits of her surroundings, thus inventing a modern day adage.

Johanna Winters is from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She received a B.A. in studio arts from the University of Wisconsin ­Green Bay. She has worked as the Education Manager at Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis where she taught printmaking to students of all ages and abilities. Most recently she has taught printmaking as an Associate Lecturer at UW­ Green Bay. Johanna’s prints have been included in national juried exhibitions and portfolios, as well as exhibitions in Montreal and Germany. Her work will be part of an upcoming two person show at Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri in 2015.

Exhibition: March 6 through March 31, 2015; Opening reception: March 6, 7­9pm, Artist talk 8:30pm. For more information please contact studio@guttenbergarts.org or (201) ­868­8585. Guttenberg Arts Gallery is free and open to the public by appointment, www.guttenbergarts.org.

Visiting Critics: Robert Walden / Henry Chung

We are super excited to welcome visiting critics Robert Walden and Henry Chung co-owners of Robert Henry Contemporary today!

Robert Henry Contemporary seeks to present work that is both visually engaging and conceptually compelling. The work we show is a reflection of our personal tastes with a penchant for the minimal, abstract and conceptual. We visualize our curatorial interests as orbiting around a central core of ideas that include, but are not limited to ontology, time, ephemerality, landscape, space and beauty. This orbit is not circular but elliptical with some exhibitions exploring these ideas more than others and in varying degrees. We seek consistency over grandiose statement and consider the evolution of the gallery a process similar to the working lives of the artists we represent. To that end we seek to provide our clients artwork that engages their eyes as much as their brains.

Robert Henry Contemporary

56 Bogart St

Brooklyn, NY 11237

Robert Walden / Co-Director / www.robertjwalden.com

Robert Walden grew up in Mississippi and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.  He received his BFA from The Atlanta College of Art. He is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Grant and was a fellow at the Edward Albee Foundation. Walden’s work is exhibited throughout the United States and Europe, including: The Berardo Collection Museum in Lisbon and The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. His work is in the collections of The Carter Presidential Center, Atlanta; New York Univerity Hospital, Fidelity Insurance, Trammell Crow and The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, among others.

Henry Chung Co-Director www.henrychung.com

Born and raised in New York City, Henry Chung studied engineering at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science and photography at New York University's Tish School of the Arts. In 1992 Henry established his first photography studio in Brooklyn which he has maintained at various locations since. The years during and after his education Henry worked as a typesetter and computer programmer. Henry lives in Brooklyn, NY and his current studio is in Red Hook, Brooklyn. His work has most recently been seen at Lesley Heller Workspace (2014), HERE Art Space, New York City (2013), Harbor Gallery, Bushwick (2013), Governor’s Island Art Fair (2012), Aqua Art Miami (Miami, FL, Fall 2011), The Affordable Art Fair (NYC Spring, 2011), Old Stone House (Brooklyn, 2011), Storefront Gallery (Brooklyn, 2011), The London Art Fair (London, UK, 2011), The Affordable Art Fair (NYC, Fall 2010), Sweet Lorraine Gallery (Brooklyn, 2010), The Red Horse Cafe (Brooklyn, 2010), RHV Fine Art (Brooklyn, 2009), The Micro Museum (Brooklyn, 2006), The Rider Project at the DUMBO Arts Festival (Brooklyn, 2006) and Gallery RFD (Georgia, US, 2007) and in numerous private collections.

OPEN CALL at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop

Did you miss our Space and Time Summer Residency call for artists?  Don't worry!  Our friends at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking studio have a great summer fellowship:
Find out more here: The Studio Immersion Project

“The Studio Immersion Project (SIP) is an intensive 3 month studio fellowship designed to immerse artists in the world of printmaking. No prior printmaking experience is required. We encourage artists with a developed practice in ANY media to apply.

Fellowships include 1 year RBPMW membership, 3 months unlimited studio access, monthly artist stipends, a materials stipend, 3 Summer classes, 6 session in-depth studio introduction class, and a final exhibition in RBPMW’s Blackburn 20|20 gallery.

Fellowship period: June 9 - September 6, 2015
Application Deadline: April 6, 2015”

Leah Oates, Visiting Critic

We are super excited to welcome Leah Oates as a visiting critic Feb. 10th, 2015!

Leah Oates is the founder of Station Independent Projects, a Lower East Side gallery in NYC that opened in September 2012.

Prior to open Station Independent Projects, Oates curated exhibitions in the New York City area with The Scope Art Fair, The Bridge Art Fair, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, Asya Geisberg Gallery, Chashama, Artists Space, Nurture Art and The Kauffman Arcade Gallery and in the Chicago area at Randolph Street Gallery, The Peace Museum and The Noyes Cultural Arts Center.

Projects organized by Station Independent Projects have been written about in Fanzine, WNYC, The Brooklyn Rail, Crain's NYC, The Village Voice, NY Arts Magazine, Artefuse, Chromogram, Heart as Arena, Tribeca Tribune, New Art Examiner, The Chicago Tribune, New City, Blouin Art Info, Artforum, Collector Daily, Bedford and Bowery, Lid Magazine, French Photo, I-Ref Magazine, Sleek Magazine, Musee Magazine, Slate, Photo District News, Women's Wear Daily, The Tory Burch Culture Blog and Le Journal de Photographie.

Oates received a B.F.A. from The Rhode Island School of Design and an M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for Post Graduate study at Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland.

http://www.leahoates.com/

http://www.stationindependent.com/

Installation in Progress

Everyone at Guttenberg Arts is excited for our next exhibition: Studio Wallpaper 2014 (work in progress) by Susan Graham.   Check out these installation pics!  

Studio Wallpaper 2014 (a work in progress) by Susan Graham

February 6 through March 2, 2015

Opening reception: February 6, 7-9pm

Artist In Residence Winter 2015

Guttenberg Arts Gallery is pleased to present Studio Wallpaper (a work in progress), a new site specific sugar and porcelain toile installation by Susan Graham, currently Artist in Residence, on view February 6 through March 2, 2015.

Susan Graham’s works are built upon a conceptual standpoint of her unbreakable link with her hometown, family, and childhood. Utilizing her memories, dreams, and personal stories as her topics, Graham ultimately broadens their focus and addresses larger social and political issues that affect us all. This is most evident in her ongoing series of wall installations. Her process, based on the layout of the toile patterned wallpaper from a childhood bedroom, pushes this method to encompass entire rooms with various sized sculptural elements made from both sugar and porcelain that creates patterns representing repetitive acts or actions. These often result in the making of a multitude of similar objects which are linked to a particular psychological state. These materials give the work a deceptive feeling of domesticity or sweetness while the subjects are challenging in their high-low contradictions. 

For Studio Wallpaper (a work in progress), Graham has created a gorgeous, spiral site-specific installation. Referencing to Guttenberg’s long history as the “Embroidery Capital of the United States”, she begins at a corner as the central central point and works outward into the gallery space. The patterns are drawn directly from the embroidered lacework produced by local businesses to form recurring narratives of complex pastoral scenes and the storytelling qualities found in traditional Toile de Jouy wallpaper using the same delicate look and a conceptually similar idea of preciousness, fragility, and intense process. Graham's works again takes these themes to a broader level and addresses human encroachment on nature using decoration that poetically depict the eternal struggle between nature and technology. 

Susan Graham attended Ohio State University and the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her work has been shown at galleries and museums including Neuberger Museum of Art, Musee International des Arts Modestes, Sete, France and the Tucson Museum of Art. Graham has received several fellowships and grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation,  Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Smack Mellon Artist Residency, Ruth Chenven Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Recently, she completed a commissioned public work for an elevator lobby in the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s new medical facility in Baltimore, Maryland.

Exhibition: February 6 - March 6, 2015; Opening reception: February 6, 6-8pm. 

For more information please contact studio@guttenbergarts.org or 201-868-8585.

Guttenberg Art Gallery is free and open to the public by appointment. www.guttenbergarts.org

Live Collage at SugarLift 1/31/15

We have always been in full support of everything that Sugarlift does, but we are super excited about their upcoming live collage with the Brooklyn Collage Collective!