35 WORKS ON PAPER
BEERS London is extremely proud to bring together a diverse selection of artists who have each contributed a piece or two of original work on paper for exhibit in 35 Works on Paper. The show features emerging, mid-career, and established artists from around the globe who each bring their unique perspective to an exhibition that celebrates art in what can often be its simplest, most instantaneous – and invariably profound – articulation. The included works cover a large breadth: including abstract, figurative, and even conceptual pieces, as well as proposed sketches, text-based work, painting, drawing, and even collage. All are unique works either created specifically for this exhibition or culled from the artist’s own personal archive.
DALE ADCOCK
Dale Adcocks’s works are subversive reinterpretations of historical narratives, imagined monuments, and ancient structures. Stemming from both pre-existing historical documentation and objects of his own invention, his works are hyper-realistic in appearance but subvert the guise of realism by incorporating a slightly skewed and tweaked sense of perspective that causes a subliminal sense of unease in the viewer. Each takes a large amount of time to complete due to its meticulous brushwork; Adcock may finish four or five a year.
Dale Adcock (B. 1980, United Kingdom) received his MA in Fine Art from the Chelsea College of Art & Design, where he graduated in 2005. Solo shows include Ratio at TJ Boulting (London, 2013) and Chloe, Be My Minotaur at Coleman Projects (London, 2008) London. Adcock has also exhibited extensively in group shows internationally including The Future Can Wait at Victoria House (London, 2014), Perfectionism at Griffin Gallery (London, 2014),The Fine Line at Identity Gallery (Hong Kong, 2013) Alter at Vegas Gallery (London, 2012), The Perfect Nude at Charlie Smith Gallery (London 2012) and the Future Can Wait presents Polemically Small at the Torrance Art Museum (Los Angeles, 2011). His work has belongs to the John Jones Collection as well as the Artists First Management Collection. Further, Adcock is featured in 100 Painters of Tomorrow, authored by Kurt Beers and published by Thames & Hudson (2014), as well as 100 London Artists authored by Zavier Ellis & Edward Lucie-Smith and published by Elizabeth Beecher Publishing (2014). Adcock lives and works in London.
ANDREW BIRK
Andrew Birk’s eclectic practise encompasses writing, photography, digital media, painting, and everything in-between. Heavily inspired by the proliferation and rapid dissemination of information through the Internet, he makes works that intend to be created and digested as quickly as possible. In an interview he claimed that ‘we have no business sitting on leather museum benches musing over oil paintings. There is no benefit to taking your time; your brain knows what it wants in 1/10000th of a second.’
Andrew Birk (B. 1985, Corvallis, Oregon) is a graduate of the University of Oregon and has lived and worked in Mexico City since 2011. He has exhibited in solo and group shows internationally such as rheo-GRANDE at Anonymous Gallery, Mexico City, TRU AF at Johannes Vogt Gallery, New York, and One Bite at OTHER Projects, Berlin. His work has been published in magazines such as Huffington Post, ArtReview and VICE.
SVERRE BJERTNES
Sverre Bjertnes is a rising star of Norway’s contemporary art scene. With works in the mediums of drawing, painting and sculpture, he is particularly interested in the act of exploring the creation of the works as they unfold, as well as the aesthetic experience of the viewer as they traverse from the figurative to the literal. This mode of thinking results in works which are both realistic and abstract in equal measure, transporting the viewer to a place where the familiar and the unfamiliar melt into one and can be viewed entirely subjectively.
Sverre Bjertnes (B. 1976, Oslo) first studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts, Norway, then later graduated in 2004 from AKI Academy of Fine Art, Holland. Recent exhibitions include shows at Galleri Brandstrup, Oslo, White Columns, New York, and Gallery Rod Bianco, Copenhagen. He has lives and works in Oslo and been represented by Galleri Brandstrup since 2014.
LAURA BRUCE
Laura Bruce works primarily as a painter, sculptor and video artist, and has more recently begun to explore the possibilities and limitations of drawing. The bold, graphic style she uses to depict realistic scenes imbues each piece with a sense of transition between the real world and a realm of uncanniness. Verging on abstraction, this merging of two worlds seeks to remind us of planes beyond our comprehension, and of the spaces between reality and myth. In a more worldly sense, her drawings and paintings are particularly focussed on exploring the tangible nature of a mark on a surface; the way graphite scratches paper and coloured pencils interact with black and white laser prints.
Laura Bruce (B. 1959, New Jersey) has mainly lived and worked in Berlin since 1990. Graduating with an MFA in sculpture from The Slade School of Fine Art, London, she is now a lecturer in drawing at the Akademie der Malerei Berlin. Recent shows include Love and Other Machines at New Art Gallery, London, Augenweide at Vatttenfall Foundation, Berlin, and Night Twist at Delikatessenhaus, Leipzig.
YVETTE COPPERSMITH
Yvette Coppersmith’s paintings seem at once bright yet muted; her often cold colour palettes are struck with flashes of green, yellow and orange. A recent series of paintings was inspired by objects that guests to her home arranged into impromptu still lives in her studio; heirlooms, flowers and ephemera. Whilst being firmly rooted in the domestic, Coppersmith’s works often portray their subjects as sharp and angular, with bold shapes and lines being indicative of a refined yet still deeply experimental practise.
Yvette Coppersmith (B. 1980, Melbourne, Australia) completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts Melbourne in 2001 with a focus on painting. She has exhibited widely across Australia and elsewhere, with shows including Smell of an Oily Rag at Fort Delta, Melbourne, Iconoclasts at Airspace Projects, Sydney, and F-Word at the Central Institute of Technology, Perth. She was the winner of the inaugural Metro 5 Art Prize and her works can be found in collections such as the Jewish Museum of Australia and Benalla Art Gallery.
KIM DORLAND
Kim Dorland’s works seek to remind us of the power of nature, and humanity’s impact upon it. His paintings, often mixtures of oil and acrylic, are inspired by the landscape of his native Canada, and by traditional landscape painting and portraiture. Through their use of harsh colours and depictions of objects such as graffiti-ridden walls and bridges encroaching on the natural world, they depict a more sinister undertone to the environment than first meets the eye. Figures are often incorporated, although they are barely recognisable; ghostly, shadowed, and obscured with hoods covering their faces, they bring a distinctly human sense of the uncanny to the natural scenes.
Kim Dorland (B. 1974, Alberta, Canada) lives and works in Vancouver. He completed his MFA at York University, Toronto, Ontario, and his BFA at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver. Recent exhibitions include Kim Dorland: Everyday Monsters at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, I’ve Seen the Future, Brother at Galerie Antoine Eraskiran, Montreal, and Pushing Paint at Equinox Gallery, Vancouver. He was Globe and Mail’s Artist of the Year 2013, and his works can be found in the collections of the Art Gallery of Alberta, Musée D’art Contemporain De Montréal and The Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection.
AUSTIN EDDY
Austin Eddy’s works use the tools of abstraction and other historical visual languages in order to break down qualitative aspects of painting and question the validity of ‘seriousness’. With a working process being so deeply rooted in the act of play, it stands to reason that each work is bold and striking, often utilising bright and limited colour palettes that range from earth tones to pastels. Whilst this level of abstraction usually appears static, Eddy’s use of shapes reminiscent of hands, eyes and fingers bring an element of action and movement.
Austin Eddy (B. 1986, Boston, Massaxhusetts) graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in Painting in 2009. Solo exhibitions include The Gloaming at Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas, Two Friends Walk Into a Bar at Launch F-18 Gallery, New York City, Finger Nose Thumb at Roberto Paradise, San Juan, and Down in the Blanket at Bendixen Contemporary Art, Copenhagen. Upcoming and previous group exhibitions include Four Painters at Fredericks and Freiser, New York, SUMMERZCOOL at David Shelton, Houston, All Tomorrows Parties at Hathaway David Contemporary, Atlanta, Group Show at Bendixen Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, and Imagine at Brand New Gallery, Milan.
DANNY FOX
Danny Fox’s paintings and ceramics display a unique sense of simplicity and naiveté that doubtlessly stems from being self-taught. His works often incorporate the repeated motifs of horsemen and boxers in order to depict that which is both beautiful and destructive; a comment, perhaps, on painting itself. In his own words: ‘Painting always has a sleazy edge to it, because it’s voyeuristic. You have to be able to see something beautiful that isn’t necessarily there.’ Usually biographical in nature, the characters in his paintings are often based upon people he has met throughout his life.
Danny Fox (B 1986 St. Ives, UK) is a self-taught artist currently living and working in L.A. Recent exhibitions include Onions Under Water at S|2 Sotheby’s, New York, As He Bowed His Head To Drink at The Redfern Gallery, London, and Fresh Cuts at Eric Firestone Gallery, New York, and has had his work covered by Dazed, TATE Magazine and Saatchi Gallery’s Art & Music Magazine.
ALICIA GIBSON
Alicia Gibson’s loud, confident paintings hide behind their chaotic, energetic, densely layered exteriors a great amount of considered hidden intricacies. These are works that are autobiographical in nature; visual interpretations of Gibson’s memories and experiences. She takes inspiration from the walls of Brooklyn, where she now lives and works, populated with years of layered graffiti – contemporary histories evolving upon brick canvasses. And her works appear just as textured – paint is laid thickly with old, frayed brushes, with ephemera from her life hidden amongst the images and colours like hazy memories.
Alicia Gibson (B. 1980 Manhasset, NY) is a MFA graduate of Hunter College, New York. Her extensive exhibition history includes recent solo shows such as Purgatory Emporium at Canada Gallery, NY, and Flip the Script Turn the Tide at Julius Caesar Gallery, Chicago. Recent Group exhibitions include X at Lyles and King NY, Future Development at David Petersen Gallery, Minneapolis, and Hill of Munch at Rachel Uffner Gallery, curated by Jennifer Sullivan and Stevie Mykietyn. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
PAUL HOUSLEY
Paul Housley uses historical references as the starting points for his paintings, drawings and sculptures. The works he creates are imbued the the acts of creation and destruction, of brith, death and rebirth. Behind each painting may lie layers created by many years’ worth of previous incarnations; Housley is not ‘precious’ about his works, and will happily build upon a painting once deemed finished in order to change and improve it. Thus, what the viewer sees on the canvas may be the ghost of its previous self. This is why the motifs of skulls and axes often make appearances – the axe being a tool of construction and an instrument of destruction, the skull being a symbol of death that takes on a new life.
PAUL HOUSLEY (B. 1964, Stalybridge, United Kingdom) holds an MA in painting from the Royal College of Art, London, graduating in 1995, and a BA in Fine Art from Sheffield City Polytechnic, graduating in 1986. He has shown widely since the 1990s, most recently with solo shows at Mini Bar at Farbvision, Berlin, Journeys to the Interior at Belmacz, London, and Studio for a Mind at Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver. Group shows include Grit: 11 Painters at Mercer Chance, London, A Bestiary at Turd Projects, London, and Group Painting Show at Angell Gallery, Toronto. Selected works have been collected into the 2013 publication Music From The Studio. Paul lives and works in London.
GARY HUME
Gary Hume is perhaps best known for his paintings on aluminium panels, which combine both abstract and reductive figurative elements. He decides to do away with traditional painterly practises by using startling colour combinations made with paints purchased pre-mixed from hardware stores, creating planes of industrial colour that both mirror and alter the quotidian subjects he depicts. Recurring motifs in his works include flowers, animals, nudes, as well as contemporary pop culture icons such as Michael Jackson and Kate Moss.
Gary Hume (B. 1962, Kent) is a British artist and Royal Academician who graduated from Goldsmith’s College in 1988 as a member of the influential group of artists known as the YBAs. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1996, and represented Britain at the Bienal de São Paulo in the same year. In 1999 he represented Britain at the 48th Venice Biennale. Solo exhibitions include shows at the White Cube São Paulo, Sprüth Magers in Berlin, Whitechapel Gallery in London, the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria, and Modern Art Oxford. Selected Group Exhibitions include At Home, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK, 10 Sculptures, Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles, Summer Exhibition 2015, Royal Academy of Arts, London, and Natures, Natural and Unnatural at Whitechapel Gallery, London.
ANDY KOLAR
Andy Kolar’s works are intentionally positioned between representation and abstraction. The lines and simple shapes he uses construct familiar scenes pared down to their basic elements of colour, shape and scale in a minimalist language. Alliances and dissensions are formed between the organic and hard-edged forms, which seem to fight for space within the otherwise sparse canvas. This leads to compositions which appear at once spontaneous and calculated, with shapes primed to reform themselves at a whim.
Andy Kolar is an American artist. In 2004 he graduated with a BFA in Painting & Printmaking from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and he received his MFA in Drawing & Painting from California State University, Long Beach, in 2007. Solo exhibitions include This and That at Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles, Little Guys and Fairly Impartial at Carl Berg Projects, Los Angeles, and Either, Or, at Conkling Arts Gallery, Minnesota. Group Exhibitions include 6018 Wilshire at Edward Cella Gallery, Los Angeles, The Familiar Unfamiliar at Casa Agave, California, Wall Painting 2013 at Irvine fine Arts Centre, California, and De Stil at Andrew Shire Gallery, Los Angeles.
ADAM LEE
Adam Lee works from his studio in the hills of the Macedon Ranges, Victoria, and he works mostly with traditional painting and drawing materials. His work references a wide range of sources including historical and colonial photography, biblical narratives, natural history and contemporary music, film and literature. He seeks to investigate aspects of the human condition in relation to ideas of temporal and supernatural worlds.
Adam Lee (B. 1979, Melbourne, Australia) received his Bachelor of Arts, Fine Art (Painting) from the Royal Melbourne Institute of technology. Lee continued his studies by completing his Masters by ‘Research In Fine Art’ from the Royal Melbourne Institute of technology and furthered his education by undertaking a PhD in Research Project at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Lee has had solo exhibitions of his work, including A Long Obedience (2015) at BEERS London, Eden. Exile. Babel (2015) at Station, Melbourne, Into the Heart of the Sea and the Sea and to the Roots of the Mountains (2013) and The World Travailing (2012) at Kalimanrawlins, Melbourne and also, And They Build for Themselves Kingdoms (2011), Tristian Koenig, Melbourne. Lee has been shortlisted for numerous awards including the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize, Geelong Gallery, Geelong, Victoria, (2014). National Works on Paper Prize, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Mornington, Victoria, (2014). The Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, Victoria (2013). The Churchie National Emerging Artist Award, Griffith University, Brisbane (2012/11). Redlands Westpac Art Prize (nominated by Jon Cattapan), Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney (2010). Lee is represented by BEERS in London, Station Gallery in Melbourne and Angel Gallery in Toronto.
RHYS LEE
Rhys Lee’s works are bizarre, bleak and otherworldly, featuring grotesque cartoon-like characters who invite the viewer to contemplate other planes of existence. Often expressionless, the figures sit before muted backgrounds, flat and haunting, both mystical and psychedelic in their presence. Lee constructs them with broad, confident strokes, not afraid to discover how different painterly processes react with each other. He plays with scale, sometimes painting fast, large murals that hark back to his youth as a graffiti artist.
Rhys Lee (B. 1975, Brisbane) lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. Graduating with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Graphic Design from Queensland College of Art, Brisbane, he has since exhibited widely in Australia. Solo shows include The Mask of the Female Crane Fly at Sydney Contemporary, Recent Works at Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane, A Bag of Ears at Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, and Drawing Wall 12 at Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria. Recent group shows include Bad Painters at Sheffer Gallery, Sydney, More Love Hours at The Ian Potter Museum of Art and, Melbourne, and Basic Instinct at Karen Woodbury Gallery, Brisbane.
CHRISTIAN LITTLE
Christian Little’s collage-like paintings are, by his own admission, based on contradiction. That which may first seem erotic, with disembodied legs and arms splayed in quasi-sexual poses, is rebutted with stiff, sterile lines and simple shapes and textures. Inspired by voyeurism, popular culture, and 1980s commercial illustration, he incorporates Trompe-l’œil techniques to allow his subjects to extend beyond the guise of decoration into a unique, three-dimensional space; an attempt to extend beyond the constrictions of the two-dimensional image.
Christian Little (B. 1982 in Southampton, NY) has recently had solo exhibitions such as Exhibitionists at Sara Nightingale Gallery, Watermill, New York, Keep It Tight at Hewn Arts Center, Jersey City and Leisure Time at Vital Joint Gallery at The Silent Barn, Brooklyn, NY. Group exhibitions include Lover at Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York, Beautiful Object: Upsetting Still Life at Jeffrey Leder Gallery, Long Island City, and Improper Articles at Greenpoint Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. Gaining an MFA in Painting/Drawing from the State University of New York in 2015, he now lives and works in Kingston, NY.
JONATHAN LUX
Jonathan Lux’s practise is interested in the contradictory relationship between spontaneous processes and images that evoke nostalgia, fantasy, and narrative. Utilising imagery reminiscent of a darkly humorous edition of Alice in Wonderland, such as teapots, Cheshire smiles and dancing figures, Lux’s artistic decisions are based as much on a reorganisation of the cultural, playful, nostalgic aspects of his surroundings as they are on his process of creating the works themselves; densely layered, the works take on a palimpsest-like quality.
Jonathan Lux (B. 1976 Bluefield, West Virginia, USA) received his MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (2014) and has since been awarded the prestigious Valerie Beston Artist’ Trust Prize (2014). Notable exhibitions include Modernist Lunch (with Thrush Holmes), BEERS (2016), Contemporary Visions VI, BEERS London (2016) Saatchi New Sensations, London (2014); A Smile from Across the Room, Marlborough Fine Art, London (2015), Less like a Cauldron & More Like a Tea Cup, Pasmore Gallery, Middlesex (2015) and Fear and Play, University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME (2011). Jonathan Lux currently lives and works in London.
JESSIE MAKINSON
Jessie Makinson’s paintings are filled with nostalgia and art historical references. She romanticises her figures, through the use of soft, curved lines and flourishes of pattern reminiscent of cuts of fabric, in order to explore issues surrounding femininity, cultural appropriation, and the relationship between art and fashion. Playful with colours and shapes, Makinson incorporates a plethora of subjects picked from history and her own subconscious.
Jessie Makinson lives and works in London. Graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2007 with a BA in Drawing and Painting, she later attended The Royal Drawing School in 2011. Her works have been shown in solo and group shows including Captain Lightfoot Presents… at The Glasshouse in Edinburgh, and Fake French at Roman Road, London. In 2013 she was awarded the Royal Drawing School’s fully funded Moritz-Heyman Artists’ Residency in Tuscany.
KATHRYN MAPLE
With a practise firmly rooted in drawing, Maple is obsessed with the possibilities of mark making and image-making. Her works combine areas of fine detail with those of minimalism, creating tapestries of paint and line that appear compact yet broadly simplistic. She holds a particular focus on areas in her surroundings that are in some way forgotten or neglected. Often, these scenes depict buildings surrounded and permeated by nature – trees thrusting upwards behind wrought iron fences, dense foliage almost merging into brickwork.
Kathryn Maple (B. 1989, Canterbury) graduated from Prince’s Drawing School’s Postgraduate Programme in 2013. Before that, in 2011, she graduated from the University of Brighton with a BA in Fine Art Printmaking. With forthcoming shows at Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, and Mall Galleries, London, she has previously shown at Fruit Salad Group Show, Mercer Chance Gallery, London, Drawings from the Royal Drawing School at Christies, New York, and Islands of the Blest at The Strand Gallery, London. She was the winner of the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition in 2014.
HOLLY MILLS
Working across painting, printmaking, illustration and textiles, Holly Mills draws influence from fictional narratives, remembered journeys and imagined destinations. An interest in the process of making is an integral part of Holly’s mixed media works on paper. With a childlike naivety and pervading sense of unease, inspiration from the drudgery of modern day life starkly contrasts with vivid paintings of foliage and pattern. Holly’s eclectic and experimental practise intends to evoke mood and atmosphere through the use of bold layered colour and intense scratched lines.
Holly Mills (B. 1990, London) lives and works in London. She graduated from Camberwell College of Arts with a BA in Illustration in 2012, the same year she won the V&A student Illustrator of the year award. Selected exhibitions include The Jungle Book Club, Book Club, London, Secret 7” and Pick Me Up, Somerset House, London, Cluster Puck, Print Space, London, and V&A Illustration Awards, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
RYAN NORD KITCHEN
Simple and abstract on the surface, Ryan Nord Kitchen’s works depict scenes we see around us every day. Fields, parks, rivers and gardens are here uniquely reinterpreted as seemingly random lines and squiggles, each meticulously placed within the image in order to hint towards representation. With colours and strokes that rarely overlap, his paintings possess a childlike quality that is simple and somewhat naïve yet deceptively complex in their subject and execution.
Ryan Nord Kitchen (B. 1988, USA) obtained his BA from Luther College in 2011 and his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2014. Represented by Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, NYC, selected exhibitions include Salt talk at Auto Body, Bellport, Winter Paintings at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York City, The Clear and the Obscure at Lulu, Mexico City, and Paintings at Jacob Bjorn, Denmark.
TAL R
Tal R extensive oeuvre includes sculpture, furniture, painting and drawing. His most recent works are portraits of individuals he approaches and asks to paint. He intuitively draws his sitter in real time, attempting to build a personal rapport with his subjects that is then channelled onto canvas – a reaction to the omnipresent nature of technologies such as cameras and digital images in the modern day reproduction of images. Bright, colourful and playful, Tal R plays with paint and surface, often squeezing paint straight from the tube. ’I do painting a bit like people make a lunch box,’ Tal R has said, ’I constantly have this hot-pot boiling and I throw all kinds of material into it.’
Tal R (B. 1967, Tel Aviv) is an internationally recognised Israeli artist living and working in Copenhagen. His extensive exhibition history includes recent solo shows Tal R at Retrospective Gallery, Hudson, New York, Chimney School of Sculpture at Victoria Miro, London, The Virgin at ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark, and Egyptian Boy at CFA Berlin. Recent group exhibitions include Tightrope Walk: Painted Images After Abstraction at White Cube, London, Little Nemo at Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Vienna, Front Row at Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, and Paper at Saatchi Gallery London. He taught painting for nine years at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf.
JOSH REAMES
Josh Reames’ works mimic the streams of information we experience online. Like digital collages, he brings together text and image that are, by his own admissions, not related in any narrative sense. His interest lies within the ability of mindless Internet browsing to depart from any sense of order or hierarchy between images, and the question of importance between any number of opposing media appearing upon the same platform. Often created with airbrushed acrylic, his seemingly random scenes are unified in their exploration of free association.
Josh Reames (B. 1985, Dallas, Texas) lives and works in Brooklyn. He received his MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012, and his BFA from the University of North Texas in 2007. Recent solo exhibitions inclue Wet & Wild at Brand New Gallery, Milan, Josh Reames + Jose Lerma at Luis de Jesus, LA, and Trash Day at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago. Group exhibitions include New American Paintings at Elmhurst Art Museum, Illinois, Surreal at Koenig Galerie, Berlin, and The Aging Coconut at Roberto Paradise, Puerto Rico. He has been covered in publications such as Artnews, Hyperallergic and ArtInfo.
TONY ROMANO
Drawing on a range of sources from philosophy to linguistics to pop culture, Tony Romano’s works experiments with codes as living cultural forms. Borrowing from the archetypal silhouettes of reclining nudes, his sculptural works reflexively pay upon their minimalist, austere tendencies with a contemporary, sly sensibility. Working within a family tradition of carpentry and iron work, Romano uses these sculptures to explore the vernacular of his everyday materials and examine the disparate worlds of daily working class labour with the more rarefied world of the high art object. Combining references to history and Romano’s own tendency for shape, colour, use of material, and narrative, the works seem timeless, yet engaging and experimental.
Tony Romano (B. 1978, Toronto, Canada) obtained a BFA from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Romano has shown his work extensively internationally including exhibitions in Canada, Austria and Sweden. Recent solo shows include The Last Act, Articule, Montreal, Onward Future, Oakville Galleries, and Notary Moon, MacLaren Art Gallery, Barrie as well as group shows such as The Way I Are, Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto; You Don’t Really Care for Music, Do You?, Red Bull Projects, Toronto; Everything will be OK, No. 9 Projects, Toronto; and Air Conditioned Jungle, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto.
ANDREW SALGADO
The large scale, gestural paintings of Andrew Salgado works explore concepts relating to the destruction and reconstruction of identity – a process that he views as re-considering the conventions of figurative painting through a pursuit toward abstraction. To create paintings that engage beyond what is immediately visible, he often consciously questions the nature of identity (and painting) itself as something deconstructed, created, and tangible. A significant perspective of his work is concerned with the ‘monstrosity’ of the masculine form, incorporating Classical archetypes like the Laocoön or Dionysian, to subtle references to Guston, Bacon or even artists who exhibit a wild deviation from rules like Daniel Richter or Bjarne Melgaard.
Andrew Salgado (B. 1982, Regina, Canada) is one of the eminent emerging painters internationally. He has been listed by Saatchi as “one to invest in today”, lauded by esteemed critic Edward Lucie Smith as a “dazzlingly skillful advocate [for painting]”, endorsed by Tony Godfrey (author of Phaidon’s Painting Today) as an “exciting artist with a particular vision”; and labeled a “rising star” by London’s Evening Standard. Forthcoming solo exhibitions include A Quiet Man, Pulse Miami Beach over Art Basel Miami (2015), as well as his much anticipated fourth solo exhibition at BEERS London in 2016. In 2015 Salgado curated The Fantasy of Representation, including work by Francis Bacon, Gary Hume, Alexander Tinei, and Hurvin Anderson for BEERS London (July-Sept 2015). In 2016 the first monograph of the artists work will be released, entitled Youth in Revolt.
MASON SALTARRELLI
Mason Saltarrelli’s works are built upon almost pure intuition. Using oil, gouache, graphite and spray, he constructs deceptively simple shapes through the use of delicate, intricate line and colour, which take inspiration from religious, tribal and personal symbology. In an ongoing dialogue with nature he often leaves his canvasses outdoors, exposing them to the elements in an attempt to surrender a degree of autonomy over his works by allowing the process to dictate the textures and colours that he will later use through their weathering.
Mason Saltarrelli (B. 1979, New Orleans) studied Photojournalism at Fordham University from 1997-2001. Recent solo and two-person shows include Raw Intuition at Turn Gallery, New York, In the Presence of True Blue Tulips at Boyd Satellite Gallery, New Orleans, and Pages from the Neon Bible at Randall Scott Projects, Washington DC. Group exhibitions include Paper in Practise at Moran Bondaroff, Los Angeles, Summer Flats at Shrine Gallery, New York, Summer Timeat Geukens & De Vil, Belguin, and Our Winter Show at Gallery Steinsland Berliner, Stockholm.
DANIEL SEGROVE
Daniel Segrove’s works are often mixed media, incorporating paint, masking tape, ink, beeswax and graphite. His use of fragile surfaces such as burnt paper is an attempt to harmonise with his subjects’ psyches. Blending highly detailed, photorealistic figures with simplistic marks and lines draws the viewer towards the delicate emotions he portrays, whilst the stark use of empty space becomes a balancing act that brings the viewer back to the physical, painterly aspect of the works.
Daniel Segrove (B. San Francisco) graduated from Academy of Art University in 2014. Previous exhibitions include Holiday Show at Smash Gallery, San Francisco, Edge of Realism at Abend Gallery, Denver, Skin at 17thGallery, San Fransisco, and a show at Galerie de Francony in Paris.
STRUAN TEAGUE
Struan Teague’s abstract works reveal an interest in how visual expression performs within a separate arena to written or spoken language. Through a balance of compositional structure and intuitive touch, he comments upon the modes and systems utilised by working artists and how these methods are thereby relayed to the viewer. His use of instantaneous processes and material such as screenprint, spraypaint and dirt, force quick, irrevocable decisions to be made, imbuing Teague’s work with a sense of risk and uncertainty.
Struan Teague (B. 1991, Edinburgh, Scotland) received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. Recent exhibitions include group shows at BEERS London, Fifi Projects, Sand Pedro and RSA New Contemporaries. Teague lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark, and will take part in the 2016/17 Lepsin Art Foundation grant program in Düsseldorf, Germany.
KRISTIAN TOUBORG
Kristian Touborg’s artistic practice is one focused almost entirely on sculpture and painting, specifically on unexpected perspectives, forms and situations. Continuing from his ‘Strange Abstraction’ series Touborg revisits his childhood memories of witnessing mesmerizing water surfaces and their hypnotic patterns and organic reflections. These works border between realism and abstraction with attention on line, form and material. The resulting pieces become ambiguous between abstract work and figuration simply by depicting surface water. Through this process the work morphs into something vaguely unrecognizable by creating an experience suspended somewhere between the subject (viewer) and object (painting).
Kristian Touborg (B. 1987, Denmark) is currently undertaking an MA in Fine art at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2009-2016). Notable exhibitions include A Deep Hum, Galleri Benoni, Copenhagen (2015); Strange Attraction, Galleri Jacob Bjorn, Aarhus (2015) and Bell Jar Tourism, Gallerie Mikael Anderson, Copenhagen (2014). Toubourg has also released several self publications including A Deep Hum (2015) and Bell Jar Tourism (2014). The artist lives and works in Copenhagen.
JOHANNES VANDERBEEK
Johannes Vanderbeek’s works are often mounted on large, imposing metal structures used to divide the gallery space. However, the act of situating yourself in relation to the work is not the only aspect of physicality that Vanderbeek employs; his use of paint is primal and instinctive, almost childlike in its liberal application. Indeed, for a recent exhibition at Zach Feuer, he claimed to be fascinated by how his young daughter sees the world, and ‘imagining how she was seeing the world without the pre-associations that language provides’.
Johannes Vanderbeek (B. 1982, Baltimore) lives and works in New York. He received his BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art and Science, New York, in 2004, and has since had solo shows such as Tahitian Hallucination at Halsey McKay Gallery, New York, Early Hand at Zach Feuer Gallery, New York, and Thunder Ground Sky at Brand New Gallery, Milan. Group exhibitions include Procession at CAPC Musée D’art Contemporain, Bordeux, The Crystal Palace at Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, High, Low & In Between at White Flag Projects, St. Louis, and Personal Freedom Portugal Arte 10 Biennial, Lisbon.
PAUL WACKERS
Paul Wackers makes art in at attempt to understand the world around him. By blending multiple realistic scenes together, he creates alternate worlds that seem confusing and uncanny. The external scenes he depicts are, perhaps paradoxically, visual metaphors for his own internal space – rarely are the objects in his paintings pulled from direct observation, in fact, he allows his internal assumptions of what something is to open up a myriad of diverse possibilities. By playing with the simplistic, the abstract, and the detailed, he attempts to breathe life into the mundane and the everyday.
Paul Wackers (B. 1978, New Haven, Connecticut) holds a BFA from the Corcoran College of Art and Design, Washington D.C, and an MFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute. Recent solo exhibitions include Slow Wave at Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco, Thank you for Being You at Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, Still Life at Charlotte Fogh Gallery, Denmark, and Almost Somewhere at Narwhal Art Projects, Toronto. Group exhibitions include Futur Simple at Alice Gallery, Belgium, Objektivity at Impacto, Peru, and A Massive Swelling at Muddguts Gallery, Brooklyn.
