“Surface Tension” Exhibition
Ortega y Gasset Projects @ The Old American Can Factory
This event has ended.
Ortega y Gasset Projects presents Surface Tension, a group exhibition featuring work by Dexter Ciprian, Rachel Granofsky, Christina Graham, Kirstin Lamb, Caitlin Macbride, and Sarah Pater. The exhibition is curated by OyG Co-Director & artist, Lauren Whearty.
Surface Tension explores contrasts between objecthood and its relationship to painting, sculpture, & photography. The artists included in this exhibition work with objects through image depiction and physical manipulation in order to juxtapose content and blur visual and physical boundaries that create new meaning.
Opening at OyG on Saturday February 5, 2022 from 1 - 6 PM, Surface Tension explores works that playfully make critical use of traditional notions of the picture plane and our experience of looking. Upon approach these works expand beyond their initially perceived sense of flatness and exhibit a resistance to the historic and often assumed presentation of painting - a fixed image displayed on a wall with an ideal frontal perspective viewpoint.
Working with the slippage and contrast between the real and the simulated, the flat and the dimensional, or the abstract and representational, these works engage the viewer physically, conceptually, and perceptually. The more time spent closely looking, the more these works reveal a richness of secrets, stories, and content.
The objecthood of many works in the show blur boundaries between reality and artifice - as the works reveal physical and illusionistic surprises - like doubled images, surprise reliefs, or everyday materials repurposed or investigated in a new light.
Objects represented throughout the show range from art historic references to still life to contemporary things of daily familiarity and work in tandem with representations or depictions of objects and their domestic spaces - immersing us in an environment where specific combinations open up narratives, histories, and a curiosity for more connections.
Dexter Ciprian (b. 1984, he/him), is a Dominican-American visual artist living and working in The Bronx, NY. His work explores migration, diaspora and mythology and has been exhibited nationally. He is a current Artist in Residence at The Bronx Museum, and his work has appeared or been reviewed in Hyperallergic, The New York Times, and ArtNet Magazine, and published in Architecture Inserted (W.W. Norton & Co., 2012). He is co-director of OPEN DOORS, an arts and justice initiative which supports the creativity and leadership of Black and Latinx people who use wheelchairs and inspires action for safer more just communities. He holds an M.Arch from the Yale School of Architecture (2009), and a B.S. from the University at Buffalo (2006).
Rachel Granofsky has an MFA from California College of the Arts and a BFA from Pratt Institute. She had her first solo show at Rachel Uffner in New York City in 2019. She was the 2019 Deutsche Bank NYFA Fellow. Rachel was an artist in residence at the Drawing Center’s Open Sessions program, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Lighthouse Works, Ox-Bow and Greatmore Studios. She has exhibited in group shows in South Africa, Germany, Sweden, Canada, the U.S.A. and Brazil. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Rachel currently lives and works in the Catskill Mountains.
Christina Graham (b. 1989) is an artist from Brooklyn, NY. Her work uses mirrors, windows, and curtains to explore interiority and the poetics of perceptual experience. Christina graduated with a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2011 and is currently pursuing an MFA at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College. They have attended residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Cuttyhunk Island Artist Residency, and Trestle Art Space. Christina’s paintings have been included in group shows at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Brooklyn; Camayuhs, Atlanta; and Fjord Gallery, Philadelphia; and solo exhibitions at White Couch Projects and Brethren Gallery, Queens. They live and work in Queens, NY.
Kirstin Lamb is a painter living in Providence, Rhode Island and working in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Kirstin studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with an MFA in 2005, and she received her AB in Visual Art and Literatures in English from Brown University in 2001. Kirstin’s work has been shown in venues across the country, recently showing at the Spring Break Art Fair in NY, Periphery Space at Paper Nautilus in Providence, RI, the Wassaic Project in Amenia, NY, the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA and Providence College Galleries in Providence, RI, among others. She has attended residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Bunker Projects, the Wassaic Project, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, The Ora Lerman Trust Soaring Gardens Artist Residency, and the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation. Kirstin recently completed a two-year contract curator position at The Yard, Williamsburg, a coworking space in Brooklyn that hosts solo and group shows quarterly, and has begun planning online and new curatorial projects. Kirstin has taught painting and drawing at a range of New England colleges and is currently working at Clark University in Worcester, MA, teaching painting and drawing courses on the undergraduate level. Kirstin gratefully acknowledges the role that her 2020 Rhode Island State Council for the Arts grant has played in her newest work. Her work is in the collections of Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA, the Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA, and Providence College, Providence, RI, among others.
Caitlin MacBride is an artist based in Hudson, NY. Her work engages material culture and artifacts in an exploration of labor, desire, and belief systems. MacBride’s paintings balance various languages of painting with the structures of utilitarian objects sourced from museum archives. MacBride has a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College. She has shown at Fisher Parrish, Heroes, Chapter NY, Real Fine Arts, Greene Naftali, Zach Feuer, Jack Barrett Gallery, Hesse Flatow, and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein among others. Her work has been written about in The New York Times, Modern Painters, Art Forum, New York Magazine, and Vogue.com.
Sarah Pater (b. 1987, Wilmington, DE) is a painter based in Philadelphia. Her work blurs the aesthetics of boredom and attention with office-leisure-domestic design, daily experiences, and painting tropes. Her paintings have been included in exhibitions at Orgy Park, Brooklyn; Brennan & Griffin, New York; FJORD, Philadelphia; Western Exhibitions, Chicago; 808 Gallery at Boston University, Boston; and RISD Museum, Providence, among others. She has been awarded residencies at Lighthouse Works, the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, the Sam & Adele Golden Foundation, and the Ora Lerman Charitable Trust. She received an M.F.A. in painting from Rhode Island School of Design and a B.F.A. from Boston University.
Lauren Whearty is an artist, educator, and curator living and working in Philadelphia, PA. She received her MFA from The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH) , and her BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University (Philadelphia, PA). Lauren has been a Co-Director at Ortega y Gasset Projects in Brooklyn, NY since 2017. Lauren has attended residencies such as Yale’s Summer School of Art through the Ellen Battle Stoeckel Fellowship, The Vermont Studio Center, and the Golden Foundation. She has recently received an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant. Her work has been exhibited at The Delaware Contemporary (Wilmington, DE), The State Museum of PA (Harrisburg, Pa), The Woodmere Museum (Philadelphia, PA), Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), Bridgette Mayer Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Center for Emerging Visual Artists (Philadelphia, PA), Satellite Contemporary (Las Vegas, NV), Monaco (St Louis, MO), The Painting Center (New York, NY), Ortega y Gasset Projects (Brooklyn, NY), Underdonk (Brooklyn, NY), and Deanna Evans Projects (Brooklyn, NY). Lauren currently teaches at The University of the Arts and Tyler School of Art & Architecture in Philadelphia.
Media
Schedule
from February 05, 2022 to March 20, 2022