Carl D’Alvia “Glyphadelphia”

Hesse Flatow

This event has ended.

HESSE FLATOW presents “Glyphadelphia,” an intergenerational group exhibition organized by sculptor Carl D’Alvia of artists who use different variations of a glyph—ancient hieroglyphics, a question mark, shapes, icons and symbols—as a departure for their work.

The exhibition features works by thirty-five artists spanning sculpture, painting, drawing, and collage. The works are loosely grouped into five categories, each representing different definitions of the glyph: the ancient glyph, the body, alphabet and code, geometric and minimalist, and abstracted landscape. Figures in Catherine Haggarty’s work recall Egyptian hieroglyphs of various birds, while Carolyn Salas, Drea Cofield and Amy Pleasant employ repetitive motifs of the human body in their works. Glendalys Medina and Mira Dayal explore the use of abstracted alphabetic characters; Chris Bogia, Matthew Fisher, and Kalina Winters distill compositions down to geometric “Utopian” shapes. Emily Kiacz and Beverly Fishman utilize shaped canvases, inevitably repurposing iconography seen throughout corporate marketing campaigns—and John Dilg’s post-apocalyptic landscape recalls Philip Guston’s glyph-inspired canvases.

The glyph has been a subject and inspiration for many artists over the years including Martin Wong, Ray Yoshida, Alina Szapocznikow, Judith Bernstein, Philip Guston, Elizabeth Murray and Deborah Kass. Glyphadelphia—which features artists aged 25 to 76—explores artists’ ongoing interest in using history as a playground, and bridging the gap between ancient and contemporary art. This show presents a catalogue of the different modalities of symbolic communication in use by contemporary artists and how this iconic mode of communication is constantly being adapted in innovative and diverse ways.

Carl D’Alvia (b. 1965, Sleepy Hollow, New York) is a sculptor living and working in Connecticut and New York. D’Alvia’s post-pop resin, bronze and marble sculptures range from the abstract and geometric to the figurative and anthropomorphic. The work often explores dichotomies such as minimal/ornate, industrial/handmade, and comic/tragic. D’Alvia won the Rome Prize in 2012. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally including American Academy in Rome, Italy and The Rhode Island School of Design Museum in Providence, Rhode Island.