12 July 2007

re-title.com newsletter - Painting July 2007

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Motel, Portland, OR Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles Agency Contemporary, London Zach Feuer Gallery, New York ROKEBY, London Art Scene Warehouse, Shanghai Next from re-title.com         sign up!

Motel, Portland, OR KIME BUZZELLI : INITIALS IN APPLES AND OTHER FUTILE SPELLS 5 July - 28 July 2007 Motel is pleased to present the solo exhibition of Kime Buzzelli (Los Angeles). In Initials in Apples and Other Futile Spells, Buzzelli introduces a new series of paintings featuring dreamy and disturbed portraits of girls in delicate and exotic fashions. At once haunting and sublime, these works explore notions of magic, the occult and the mysteries of the woods. The title of the exhibition refers to superstitions and magical spells, like carving initials of the one you love in an apple to divine true romance. Invested in a vocabulary of desire, nature, witchcraft and superstition, Buzzelli's paintings are essentially dark love poems inhabited by wicked women, wild animals, secret societies, and places of wonder and fear. With a fascination with the lives of others, Buzzelli's narrative vignettes both obscure and reveal. Inserting brief poetic text into the compositions, Buzzelli creates juxtapositions which cloud an immediate reading of the work; it is unclear if the words serve as the thoughts of her subjects, or an omniscient proposition. These bits become suggestions or clues to the fictive lives of her subjects which the viewer is left to unravel. Informed and inspired by the cult of fashion, Buzzelli's paintings invite voyeurism, seducing the viewer with a fantasy that enchants and unsettles. With a loose, easy painterly style, Buzzelli captures a womanhood that is youthful, mischievous, elusive, demure, alienated and at times, grotesque. Exploring the ambiguity of fashion in the feminine psyche, Buzzelli deftly navigates the contradictions and conflicts of an idealized femininity. In as much as the compositions indulge in aesthetic decadence, they are tempered by atrophy, disintegration, and subversion as suggested by trailing brushstrokes, haunting shadows and use of negative space. Ultimately, Buzzelli's world of ghostly women flirts with the mystical and mysterious powers of femininity, conveying both its beauty and its contested, conflicted nature. Kime Buzzelli lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Buzzelli studied Fashion Illustration at the Parson's School of Design before receiving a dual degree in Painting and Art Education at Ohio State University. In addition to Buzzelli's fine art pursuits, she is the proprietress of Show Pony, a performance space and boutique featuring handmade clothing by Buzzelli and a roster of independent designers (opened in 2000). Her fine artwork has been shown at New Image (LA), Rocket Gallery (Tokyo), and Deitch Projects (NY), among others. Her fashion illustration has been published in I-D, Elle, W, Cosmopolitan, Paper, Italian Fashion News and Fashion Illustration Next by Laird Borrelli, among others. Her one-of-a-kind hand-crafted clothing has been featured in photo shoots, films and music videos and worn by celebrities including Lindsay Lohan, Shakira, Jane's Addiction, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Nelly Furtado and Jennifer Lopez. Image: Kime Buzzelli You Have Nothing, 2007 Watercolor, Ink, China Marker, Acrylic on Paper 20" x 24" Image courtesy of the artist and Motel, Portland, OR. Motel, Portland, OR Read on... Motel, Portland, OR

Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles Renée Petropoulos - Social Arrangements 3 July - 1 Sept 2007 Petropoulos has for ten years exhibited single projects. In this exhibition, Social Arrangements, she is bringing together components of five ongoing projects each defined by particular aesthetics and conceptual choices with each informed by the other. Painting, sculpture and audio are presented to question perceptions of the world and create a direct interaction with the viewer. Through various objects and extensive sound recordings and transmissions; Petropoulos creates an environment that weaves together history and physical experience. She poses questions regarding the representation of ideas and the repetition of historical practice and narrative. Cinema, fables and reportage contribute to her narrative constructions. Abstaction is employed in several manifestations including the use of cartography and mass produced building materials. Displacement as an idea underlies much of this work. Entering the gallery two large "plaid" flags and a grouping of black and white paintings line the walls. The paintings are in fact portraits or representations of countries in two states - one at the present time and one within conversational memory. The flags refer to a journey through several countries that is continued in the large paintings in the next gallery. They also flank the office of the gallery . In the next gallery, a fixed object such as a painting is catapulted into the position of a time-based work through the precise construction of a 'soundtrack'. In the two large paintings, "Trip Through the Gulf States (by air)" and "Trip From Sri Lanka to Zanzibar (by boat)", soundtracks recall a particular journey as the viewer physically moves from speaker to speaker (hanging above the painting) forming a new narrative via the movement and choice of the viewer. Sounds of the Arabian Nights, Tales of Zanzibar, The History of Tipu Tip and the song Mustapha are among the accounts of travels and living that move through the gallery. Accompanying the paintings are seating/reclining arrangements placed in the center of the room with headsets creating an opportunity for a prolonged viewing and audio experience that is pronounced from the live audio filing the room. In the adjacent gallery two woven sculptures lie flat just off the floor spanning the length of the room. These works resembling rugs create a perceptual shift in the physical act of walking by altering the viewers spatial relationship to that simple act. These works are based on a 'walking path" in a city. One is referring to a pastoral waking path in the central park of Berlin and the other to an urban interior walkway in central London. In the final gallery space, 19 watercolors painted on water resistant paper feature the artists pre- occupation with mass-produced architectural details (such as cinderblocks, iron work, bricks, etc.). These tiny works take up the 19th century convention of "tourist" watercolors, which currently takes the form of the "snap shot" photograph. Observation via photography of visited locations and film are observed through the course of the artists' routine activity. Selection, comparison and routine suggested through the close scrutiny of overlooked details brings to mind the conflicted efforts of colonialism and personalization. The questions Petropoulos poses take us through history and contemporary action: through systems of belief and their representations. The similarities and difference are set in a relief in which form can never be separate from content. Labor can never depart from action. Although there might be an appearance of something official on the surface, it is quickly understood that each project questions the position and authority of the situation. Petropoulos has recently completed projects in several areas and cities of the world including El Salvador, London, Berlin and Oaxaca. Her publication Nearly Ten Months has just been released 9 with an essay by Annetta Kapon. For release this fall the publication Is It Possible with text by Chris Kraus. Image: Renée Petropoulos Social Arrangements Installation at Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles Courtesy of the artist and Studio 1.1 Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles Read on...Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles

Agency Contemporary, London HIDEKO INOUE 29 June -28 July 2007 The Agency is pleased to present a solo exhibition of paintings by the Japanese artist Hideko Inoue, who lives between Osaka and Glasgow. Hideko Inoue's paintings are conceptually derived from amateur photographic sources, largely family snaps which are both Japanese and European in origin. She paints them in oils, literally and dispassionate. Staying true to her original source results in odd lighting in her work, as the photographs are often mistakenly taken against the sun therefore leaving the faces in the dark. These ideosyncracies add an interesting dimension to her works, which also takes them beyond realism. Inoue's approach reflects her position of being both within and without European and Japanese society. She approaches her motives from an almost voyeuristic point of view, yet exposes a level of intimacy with her subjects a tourist would never reach. Often in reproducing snapshots of themepark landscapes her work will feature a naturalistic reproduction of scenes of overwhelming beauty coupled with the insertion of smiling and chattering groups of Japanese tourists. In Waterfall II where at the bottom of a large natural waterfall, a small group of people is nestled admiring the view, so that we as viewers of the work become the voyeurs observing others observing nature. This double distancing procedure creates a startling result. Is Inoue representing nature or observing social behaviour? When reproducing European family snaps, which often seem to be from another era, a similar treatment of motives is applied. Taxi, features a group of young people posing on and in front of a black cab in Fifties clothing. The scene achieves the same level of curiosity as the Japanese tourist snaps as we are equally removed from ordinary life in the Fifties as we are from what tourists may choose to view as representative of our environment. Rather than remaining an examination of behaviourisms, the works' timelessness and seeming randomness which is painted with technically astounding detail elevates them to an iconic status. On the other hand the banality of images chosen render them an astute representation of the mundane. Inoue surprises by recognizing that at the level of collective memory there is no gap between different cultural worlds but just degrees of separation. The 28th June sees the launch of S.T.O.R.A.G.E, a small concept space adjacent to the main exhibition area which will highlight the work of newly discovered artists as well as experimental projects or film by established artists. The first artist in the spotlight at S.T.O.R.A.G.E is photographer and installation artist Caron Geary. "Catch me before I Fall " is a series of portraits which make the portrayed appear as if they are in a wind tunnel. Actually the artist encouraged her subjects to hang from the ceiling, therefore achieving the strange distortion of face hair and clothing rendering the work almost sculptural in appeal. "Written All Over My Face" witnesses the emotive reactions of people whilst watching films containing extreme violence pain or tension. Geary focuses on their eyes as they are focussed on the small screen. It is clear again that Geary has made her subjects complicit in the process, as they have fake blood painted on their faces like wounds inflicted from getting too close to the action on the screen. Geary fuses her own desire with that of her subjects in the wish to extract powerful reactions like a film or theatrical director. Even objects are dramatized in a theatrical fashion, such as her wooden crosses with bloodied tampons on them [a welcome nod to Karen Finlay]. Geary stretches photography to a performative level, at once realist and passionate. Image: Hideko Inoue Horse-trader, 2007 oil on canvas 76.8 x 45.8 cm Courtesy of Agency Contemporary, London Agency Contemporary, London Read on...Agency Contemporary, London

Zach Feuer Gallery, New York Joe Bradley, Ann Craven, Dana Frankfort, Keith Mayerson 10 July - 24 Aug 2007 Zach Feuer Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition of new paintings by New York based artists Joe Bradley, Ann Craven, Dana Frankfort, and Keith Mayerson. Bradley's bright canvas panels take Minimalist references and create imposing installations of color and scale, while his casual application of paint forgoes ideas of pictorial illusion. Rather than use the monumental size to suggest a certain grandeur, his paintings reveal an utterly human, necessarily imperfect quality, which is magnified in his version of figuration. Craven adeptly uses repetition in her serial paintings, which depict familiar imagery often culled from mediated and natural sources, revealing a reinterpretation of the painter's traditional aims of singularity and original composition. She adopts these images of nature from generic representation, as well as the outside world, aware that both have become equally familiar to her viewer. Frankfort's paintings use text and, more recently, symbols to challenge ideas of reading and communication. Obscuring the text as image with brushwork and disorienting color, Frankfort blocks the viewer's facility of interpretation and forges a new relationship between language and audience. Mayerson's lushly painted portraits based on familiar media imagery reduce the iconic to the intimate, and are exhibited in deliberate sequences that suggest larger narrative themes. In the group of paintings for this exhibition, he concentrates on the power of iconic images to portray human agency, spirit, and transcendence in times of crisis and war. In the project room, Brian Bress will show a selection of videos, photographs and collages. Bress's videos use his constructed sets and props and star Bress as a rotating cast of improvised and often odd characters. The scenes reference, employ and alter traditional tropes of film and television and engage the viewer in absurd performative exploration. Bress's photographs and collages continue and extend themes of the videos through documentation of the sets and props. Bress's work uses everyday and ordinary objects and their seemly chance combinations and chaotic arrangements lend an uncanny quality to the images, asking to be decoded and simultaneously resisting interpretation. Image: ANN CRAVEN Untitled (abstract painting), 2006 oil on canvas 24" x 18" Courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery, New York Zach Feuer Gallery, New York Read on... Zach Feuer Gallery, New York

ROKEBY, London ALLISON SCHULNIK No Luck 26 June - 31 July 2007 Rokeby will present LA based painter, Allison Schulnik's first solo exhibition in the UK. Within thickly sculpted oil paint Allison Schulnik presents moments that mix historical fact with blatant fiction. Majestic dramas and compositions embody the spirit of the macabre in a Shakespearian brand of love, death and farce providing the viewer with a haunting sense of foreboding combined with compassion and expectation. Frequently there is no recognisable central compositional focal point in Schulnik's largest paintings; in Wrestling, 2007 fantastical figures twist and turn across the canvas mutating into and alongside the paint. However as was the case in historical portraiture when painting solitary figures or beings the artist does focus on the subject's gaze. In so doing Schulnik creates an unforgettable sense of apprehension on a fundamental level, but aims also to reveal a more deep-seated sense of understanding and compassion for her troupe of cast-off's. In many instances Schulnik appears to draw from literature and a contemporary sense of the gothic, however her hero's are culled from the imagination and subsequently elevated into the realm of painting. Engulfed in layers of gloopy paint each of Schulnik's characters, whether misshapen animals or alien beast, are however built upon a human frame, which results in an awkward and surprising earthliness. As with our contemporary understanding of tragedy the protagonists appear both admirable and flawed, so that we are at once able to understand and sympathize with them whether they are occupied with otherworld buffoonery or presented in a simple, dignified moment. Schulnik even dedicates whole canvases to painted bouquets in their honor. Further references to art history include Schulnik's romantic landscapes; here her palette lightens and there is a greater sense of space within the compositions. This is evident in two new works for the exhibition; Empty Stubbs Landscape 1 and 2, where the landscapes are devoid of the central characters of the original paintings, it is here that the artist hopes the viewer's own unique experiences can be played out. It may appear that Schulnik has a love hate relationship with her subjects but the true dichotomy exists with the paint itself. By using old, worn brushes, and thick concoctions of paint scraped from failed experiments the artist does not allow herself the flexibility and time to concentrate on any one area of a composition. Despite what could be mistaken for excess in her use of paint, the artist achieves a measure of control in the apparent chaos to form coherent scenes, which emerge from the paint. Schulnik received her BFA in Experimental Animation at the California Institute of Arts in 2000. Her paintings have been exhibited internationally at venues including Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles, Black Dragon Society, Los Angeles, Bellwether Gallery, New York, Groeflin Maag Galerie, Basel, The Armory Show, New York, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Santa Monica Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Schulnik's work is included in a number of public and private collections worldwide. Image: Allison Schulnik Green Man, 2006 Courtesy of ROKEBY, London ROKEBY, London Read on... ROKEBY, London

Art Scene Warehouse, Shanghai Wang Ai Ying 14 July - 28 July 2007 The artistic expression of Wang Ai Ying is wonderfully vibrant and imaginative. It is almost impossible not to notice the rainbow of ink that flows in rivers on rice paper. Her work is so lively and abstract that one might swear her subjects were moving. Her illustrations possess a psychedelic edge and strange beauty, yet they are also very natural. Compared to bold outlines of fuchsia, she also blends her colors with earth tones and sensitivity. She employs a contemporary and remarkable technique when mixing her ink: she uses water and other ingredients to bleed together layers of color to obtain an ethereal effect. It is no surprise that Wang Aiying has even used soy sauce in her medium considering how quirky and avant guarde her expression is. She depicts oddly grotesque characters whose appearances bare a likeness to brilliantly colored wax sculptures melting away to insignificance. In juxtaposition, she often pairs these peculiar people with traditional Chinese motifs such as birds, insects, flowers and fish. By contrast, the ornate and intricate details of these images are gentle and offer the viewer a sense of calm. In this way, her work is also transcendent. Wang Ai Ying's creative process is based on "intuition" and she feels that art should have the "spirit of the era". Of certainty, the work of Wang Ai Ying is exquisite and raw - it is not to be missed. Image: Wang Ai Ying Courtesy of Art Scene Warehouse, Shanghai Art Scene Warehouse, Shanghai Read on...Art Scene Warehouse, Shanghai

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