NYAB Event - “The Weight We Hold” Exhibition

“The Weight We Hold” Exhibition

Causey Contemporary

This event has ended.

The Weight We Hold is a group show featuring the work of Fanny Allié, Jessica Bottalico, Melissa Murray, Rose Nestler, Anna Shukeylo, and Jane Swavely, curated by Melissa Murray.

The exhibition is an investigation into the artists’ need to amass, deconstruct and reassemble a collection of experiences through a stationary means of expression. In the act of remembrance they respectively compile elements of once living presences, past dwellings, objects, textiles and moments in abstract thought. Allié, Bottalico, Murray, Nestler, Shukeylo, and Swavely all currently working in New York City, bring their diverse backgrounds together to create a menagerie of varied past experiences.

In Fanny Allié’s work, she uses fragments of images taken from the daily news, snippets of persistent personal memories or simple observations of her surroundings. Using paper, cardboard, plastic and wood she presents a narrative that solidly connects humans to each other. Jessica Bottalico’s paintings are a collision of pattern and light inspired by her own domestic space. Extracted from memory and reimagined on canvas, these paintings aim to examine the tensions that make up these interiors. Melissa Murray’s work focuses on the abstract re- membrance of moments past. In her large paintings on paper she collages multiple environments, collected items of sentimental significance and bold colors highlighting moments of heightened importance. Through the use of draped fabric paper or clay, Rose Nestler creates sculptures that explore time, gravity, motion and narra- tive. The formal qualities of each of these mediums enables her to illustrate gravity and motion; firing the clay and hardening the fabric fixes the movement and suspends gravity in each piece. Anna Shukeylo’s paintings represent a deconstructed space dealing with pattern and the human presence in remembered interiors. The subject represents a moment in time where a familiar domestic space and it’s inhabitants are in the process of being forgotten, enlaced with information based on patterns, contours and exaggerated colors. Jane Swavely’s paintings are intensely personal interpretations of landscape and memory. The paintings use formal abstraction to deconstruct the landscape through light and vivid color.

Fanny Allié was born in 1981 in Montpellier, South of France. She graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (The National School of Photography) in Arles, France in 2005 and moved to New York City shortly after graduating.
She was a selected artist for the program, Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) at the Bronx Museum of the Arts during 2006-07. A.I.R Gallery, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, Roger Smith Arts Space, Chashama, Eye Level BQE and St Eustache Church in Paris, France have organized solo exhibitions of her work. Freight + Volume Gallery, BRIC Rotunda Gallery, FIGMENT, Dekalb Gallery/Pratt Institute, The Bronx Museum and Snug Harbor among others have featured her work in group exhibitions.Her work has appeared in the New York Times, NY Magazine, Brooklyn Magazine, Hyperallergic, Le Monde Diplomatique, DNA Info, Marie Claire Italy and Arts in Bushwick.Her public bench “A Bench for the night”, both a sculpture and a functional bench, is
currently on view in front of MOMA PS1 until May 1st, 2016. Fanny has been awarded the 2015-16 AIR Gallery fellowship. Fanny lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Jessica Bottalico is a painter living in Queens and working in Brooklyn, NY. Jessica Bottalico completed her BFA at Maryland Institute College of Art and MFA in Painting at Rutgers University. Recent exhibitions include Bronx Community College, Zurcher Gallery, Vanity Projects, Proto Gallery, Projekt722, Abrons Arts Center, and Leidy and Riggs Gallery. She has completed Residencies with the Vermont Studio Center, and the Alfred and Trafford Klots International Program for Artists in Lehon, France. When she’s not painting in her studio, she teaches art to NYC kids.

Melissa Murray is an artist living and working in Brooklyn. Selected group exhibitions at the MOSI Museum in Tampa, Flori- da, the Target Gallery in Alexandria, VA, A.I.R. Gallery, Lesley Heller Workspace, Chashama, Causey Contemporary and 3rd Ward in NY, NY. Solo NY exhibitions at Fuse Gallery, AdHoc Art, Causey Contem- porary, A.I.R. Gallery and Gallery SAS in Montreal. Her work has been published and or reviewed in L magazine, The Village Voice, The Montreal Gazette, Juxtapoz Magazine, Beautiful Decay Magazine, Muse Magazine, Big, Red and Shiny, The Wild Magazine, Architectural Digest and the NY Arts Magazine. Selected Fairs include Pulse, NY, NY, The Spring Break Show in NY, NY The Unseen Art fair in Miami, FL and Art Prize in Grand Rapids, MI.

Originally from Seattle, Washington, Rose Nestler currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York where she is a candidate for a Master of Fine Arts degree at Brooklyn College. Nestler received a BA in Studio Art and Art History from Mt. Holyoke College in 2005 and works as a Teaching Artist for The Joan Mitchell Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Her work has been exhibited in the New York area at a variety of galleries and community organizations including, CUCHIFRITOS Gallery and Project Space, NY Studio Gallery, Arts @ Renaissance, International Studio and Curatorial Program, Proteus Gowanus and the NARS Foundation. Nestler has been an artist-in-residence at Chashama Workspace Program, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center and Byrdcliffe Artists Colony.

Anna Shukeylo is a visual artist, born in St. Petersburg, Russia, currently working and living in New York City. She graduated from Pratt Institute with her MFA in Painting. She received classical training from the Pennsyl- vania Academy of the Fine Arts where she received her BFA/Certificate in painting. Her work has been exhibit- ed throughout New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and New Jersey.
Jane Swavely is a painter currently working on the Bowery. She studied at Boston University and The School of Visual Arts, in New York. Chosen by Brice Marden to be a part of an exhibition curated by Jack Flam at CDS Gallery in New York, she went on to be represented by the gallery until 2005. She is currently represented by A.I.R. Gallery in New York and has had exhibitions in New York, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, and has exhibited in shows in Los Angeles and Brussels. She recently returned from a fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center.