NYAB Event - “Verge” Exhibition

“Verge” Exhibition

Munch Gallery

This event has ended.

Munch Gallery presents ‘Verge’ - a group exhibition curated by Mie Olise.

To be ”on the verge” is to approach something closely, without quite giving over. It’s an ambigous state. Such states are difficult to navigate, they don’t give us easy answers. This is particularly true in painting. ‘Verge’ at Munch Gallery brings together a group of painters who span generations and contintents. The connecting thread woven here is a marked interest in paint handling that marks the boundary between represetnation and abstraction. New York painting has a long history. In its current form, long held distinctions between abstraction and figuration are crumbling and reinventing themselves. Painters are forming mini-subcultures. The new work coming out of this tradition is refined, playful, unrestrained. For this show, Mie Olise has brought together a group of artists whose work celebrates honesty in the informal. ”Verge” is comprised of Amy Feldman, Katherine Bradford, Emily Noelle Lambert, Anna Kunz, Florian Meisenberg, Mie Olise and Jason Stopa.

Amy Feldman’s works are typically rendered in light and dark variations of gray. Her abastract paintings of soft, dripping shapes bear a cartoonish quality that complicates figure and ground. Feldman’s work is serious and witty all at once.

Katherine Bradford’s recent paintings of maritime life – ships, divers and the vast ocean - come together in a poetic, metaphorical narrative. Her color is romantic as she renders waves or the night sky. Bradford’s work reclaims abstract tropes – the gesture, the drip – and folds them into her own figurative idiom.

Emily Noelle Lambert’s art lies in extrodinary balance between wild, scrap sculptures and colorful, vibrant paintings. The occasoinal figure or landscape in her work act as another motif in a bold, sprawling personal narrative. Whatever the surface, her pieces are worked, layered and disparate.

Anna Kunz is an artist based out of Chicago. Her geometic paintings, sculptures, installations often employ dyed fabrics that function like nets. These visual screens force the viewer to consider conditions of materiality and color as they capture and manipulate light.

Jason Stopa uses iconic imagery like basketball nets, diamonds, watermelons, and even the Rastafarian flag as abstract platforms for the possibilities of paint. His surfaces alternate between thinly brushed oil paint, to dripping enamel to flickering fields of glitter. Many of his works explore deep blacks or creamy pastels.

Florian Meisenberg works in Dusseldorf and New York. Meisenberg’s quasi-abstract works use a paired down color of earthy hues and greys while exploring the textural qualities of oil paint. There are elements of theatricality as Meisenberg daubs, drips, smears and stains surfaces into amorphous shapes. At times, simplistic figures appear, window-like openings create views, and squiggles anchor otherwise idiosyncratic paintings.

Mie Olise’s works have developed into a particular blend of architecture, art and psychology. Recurring motifs of private and public spaces abound - abandoned places and desolate structures. For source material, the artist travels to places in different states of disrepair, like a Russian abandoned ghost town by the Arctic Circle. Such sites embody a state of mind that carries over into the raucous, expressive handling that makes up her paintings.

Mie Olise works as a painter, sculptor and film/soundmaker. She holds a MFA (distinction),from Central St. Martin’s Shool of Art, London, UK, and a MA in Architecture, Aarhus School of Architecture, DK/The Bartlett, UCL, London, UK. Olise was awarded residencies at Skowhegan and The ISCP in New York. Solo shows include Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Centre, Honor Fraser Gallery, LA; SNYK, Skive New Museum of Art, DK, Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX and Duve Berlin.

[Image: Emily Noelle Labert “Spill Over” (2013) acrylic and collage on wood, 22x23 in.]