NYAB Event - “Interior Conversation” Exhibition

“Interior Conversation” Exhibition

Van Der Plas Gallery

This event has ended.

Van der Plas Gallery presents INTERIOR CONVERSATION, a group exhibition that brings together the paintings of Judith Simonian, KK Kozik, Nancy Grimes, Fedele Spadafora, and Vincent Zambrano. The artwork on view portrays distinctive spaces for memory and reflection. These interior spaces are emblematic in their representation, laden as they are with associations.

NANCY GRIMES lives and works in New York City. She teaches painting at
Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and has written numerous reviews and articles for
periodicals such as ARTnews and Art in America. Her current work is about
familial relationships.

JUDITH SIMONIAN lives and works in New York City. She was born in Los
Angeles and received her MA and BA from California State University,
Northridge. In 2014 she was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation
Fellowship. Simonian’s intuitive working method combines gestural paint
handling, masking, and collage, resulting in indeterminate panoramas that fully
envelop the viewer. These mercurial compositions incorporate images selected
from a variety of sources, including sketches made from direct observation, the
artist’s own travel photos, and found material such as vacation brochures and
magazines. Through her rich and vibrant surfaces, physical objects and locations
are incessantly interrupted or even decimated by the introduction of light and
color. Her work removes the distinctions between the internal and external
realms, real and imagined spaces, and creates a radiant but fractured world.
Brimming with vigor, Simonian’s works present us with a multifaceted interplay
between perceived space, residual memory, and technical prowess.

KK KOZIK is an artist and writer who lives and works in Sharon, CT and
Brooklyn, NY. Her paintings have followed many odysseys over the years but
interiors have been a constant. Her concern with space and geometry, perhaps
derived from her years as an architecture student, is always evident, though
frequently tempered with mood, mystery, and a sense of play. She is currently
included in New Narrative, at Storefront Ten Eyck in Bushwick. She has
exhibited broadly in the United States and abroad, is included in numerous public
and private collections, and has been reviewed extensively including currently in
the blog “Two Coats of Paint.”

VINCENT ZAMBRANO was born in Manta, Ecuador. The vivid colors of South
America continue to inspired Zambrano’s visual impressions and creativity.
Zambrano grew up in Queens, NY. He studied Fine Arts at the Fashion Institute
of Technology and film directing at The School of Visual Arts. His broad
approach to style and subject in his paintings challenges himself as well as the
viewer. With painting, photography, and film the artist focuses on portraying the
human condition. His films have been presented at the HBO International New
York Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival. Recent group shows of
paintings include Contemporanea University of Connecticut, Hutchins Gallery,
and C.W. Campus Long Island.

FEDELE SPADAFORA is currently based in New York City. After studying art at
Michigan State University in his native Lansing, Spadafora headed to Prague,
which was just shaking off 45 years of communist groupthink. He spent six
exciting years there, painting and co-founding an alternative publishing company,
Twisted Spoon Press. His painting, titled The Conversation, presents a chat
between two old Czech women sitting on a park bench in Prague. Drawing upon
his experiences, Spadafora blends tradition and modernity to create the
painting’s heavier and darker atmosphere, which calls to mind the graphic works
of Bruno Schultz.