“Ten Shades of White” Exhibition

frosch & portmann

poster for “Ten Shades of White” Exhibition

This event has ended.

As the winter solstice approaches, frosch&portmann presents Ten Shades of White, a group exhibition combining recent work by all 8 gallery artists as well as 2 artists showing with us for the first time.

“The first of all single colors is white…We shall set down white for the representative of light, without which no color can be seen.”
—Leonardo da Vinci

White, the color of fresh snow, milk, or even Christmas, is the reflection of all visible rays of light. A counterbalance to darkness, white projects purity, goodness, honor, and integrity. Whiteness, at it’s extreme, can also be utilized as a symbol of hate, as is evidenced by the flare of stormy weather on the radar contained in the exhibition. There are many shades of white between redemption and deterioration, hope and fear, all of which blaze brightly in the current American landscape.

Ken Brown is an American artist who lives and works in Munich, Germany. Since 2002, the artist has sent letters, sketches, and collages to his colleagues and circle of friends. Brown draws and adds text to postcards and calendar pages, playfully transforming his personal correspondence into a public dialogue. On view are messages from the artist to the gallery.

Guy C. Corriero (New York) employs many layers of handmade gesso in his work. Gesso has traditionally been used to prime canvases and panels before applying paint, however the artist mostly uses gesso without paint, rendering the invisible visible. The hand of the artist is clearly evident in the luminous, uneven surfaces of the three dimensional work shown here.

Seth Michael Forman’s (New York) drawings evoke winter dreams whose detailed events blur and meanings slip away upon waking. Snow Shower portrays a nude figure who bathes and luxuriates in an icy and white snowy isolation. The whiteness of the snow is pure and cold, and clean as soap. While snow can sometimes whitewash and obscure, here it appears to act as a tonic, and of a rejuvenation of spirit.

Using a richly textured backdrop for his drawings and collages, New York based Steve Greene illustrates the imagery of sound. Green’s works derive from his interest in recording and listening to the language of music and everyday noise. As white noise contains many frequencies with equal intensities, the artist’s intricately detailed work resonates on many levels, deftly translating visually what the mind’s eye hears.

Julia Kuhl’s (Munich, Germany) drawing is part of her most recent “Unoriginal Sin” series. In repetition, the word ‘Sorry’ crosses the surface from left to right, accompanied by red amorphous shapes that could be interpreted as upwards pointing drops or tears. The red peaks playfully meander with the expression of regret and add a touch of lightness.

Portland, Oregon based Eva Lake’s inimitable and masterful collages boldly place women against pure typography backgrounds. The hyper glamorous women gaze forcefully, challenging the viewer’s predilection of typifying and categorizing them. The artist is inspired by the power of the symbolism of white throughout all visual mediums, such as the white ensembles worn in film noirs by Kathleen Turner in Body Heat and Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, in which the women are swathed in white to telegraph their supposed morality and saintliness to the audience.

Magnolia Laurie’s (Baltimore, MD) painting, “there was no circumventing the weather,” portrays a landscape with a dense fog and flurrying snow looming, and conditions where the horizon lines and reference points vanish. The enveloping and encroaching whiteout invites the viewer into a world in which the weather renders them blind. The tempestuous conditions are exquisitely rendered in many layers, simultaneously beautiful, transformative, disorienting, and terrifying.

Vicky Sher lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. In her drawings, shapes and lines float in airy space, relying on balance and gravity to hold them together. The work shown here, Untitled (Horse) is the result of the achievement of working with a new material, drafting film. The delicacy of the lines on the translucent surface add a sense of fragility and transience to the artist’s recent work.

The captions of New York based Hooper Turner’s monochrome paintings for 10 Shades of White read ‘latex enamel, salt, bottle caps, dirt, cigarette butts, glass, shredded tea leaves, oil, body fluids and paper on canvas with vintage framing strips’ or ‘latex enamel, pumice, concrete, body fluids, salt and polymer on canvas with wood strips’. Enough said.

Robert Yoder lives and works in Seattle, Washington. Yoder’s recent work is graphic and minimal; collages, lettering or formal elements are applied directly onto large scale found supports such as tee shirts, tablecloths or cotton bandanas. Set against an abundant negative white space, the symbols in his paintings deal with detecting and identifying the codes of outward appearances, the urges and needs to assess others views, beliefs or sexual orientation based on the signs they choose to put out on a daily basis.

Media

Schedule

from December 01, 2016 to January 15, 2017

Opening Reception on 2016-12-01 from 18:00 to 20:00

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