This show is about collage and the ‘collage aesthetic.’ Jerry Kearns describes that aesthetic as ‘the visual theory of relativity’ and equates it with the Renaissance discovery of perspective for the way it liberates our notion of visual relationships between objects in time. Computers, Photoshop and the Internet have vastly expanded that visual field and the ⌘C and ⌘V computer keys are as much a way of thinking, as they are tools for collageing. Synthesis, hybridism and the irrelevance of boundaries are characteristics shared by the artists in this show.
Kearns raids ‘the vast information flow that informs much of what we know about the world’ for images that he then recombines in Photoshop to make collage amalgams which provide the imagery for his paintings - a process he sees as a ‘dialogue between hand and machine’.
The hand is a strong factor in Smith, Spelios and Wilson’s work, particularly Spelios, who makes hand-cut photo collages with fantastic fluidity. He collects found printed matter that he slices, rotates, mirrors, repeats and transforms into complex, disorientating images.
Smith’s collages are juxtapositions of erotica and landscape photography that focus on the female gaze, pleasure, and fantasy. She takes apart and re-assembles images from early Playgirl and other vintage magazines, with results that are romantic/erotic and humorous at the same time.
Wilson brings a sculptor’s tactile sensibility to three-dimensional photo collage. She combines photographs of natural landscapes with a broad range of materials in ways that question photography’s ability to convey the physicality of landscape. She works across media blurring the boundaries between abstraction and realism, landscape and architecture.
Seher Shah’s work is situated at the intersection of architecture and drawing. Trained as an architect, she creates fabulous, multi-dimensional spaces that combine photography, drawing, ornament, and architecture. She is particularly interested in the architecture of power, and, like Kearns, social commentary is a strong component of her work.
Brief Artist Bios
Jerry Kearns was born in born in West Virginia in 1943, grew up in California, graduated with an MFA from UC Santa Barbara in 1968 and won the Rome Prize for Sculpture that same year. Moving to NYC in 1976, Kearns began working as a cultural activist and artist with the Artist Meeting for Cultural Change (AMCC) and The Red Herring Collective. He was a street photographer with two civil rights groups, The Black United Front of Brooklyn and The Committee Against Fort Apache in the Bronx. In October 1981, Lucy Lippard and Kearns reported on these activities in their Artforum article, "Cashing a Wolf Ticket." This was the beginning of 5 years of close collaboration with Lippard, writing articles, organizing cultural events and curating exhibitions. That same year, 1981, they joined in co-founding Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D), a cultural activist group that was part of the Soho, East Village scene in the 1980s. During this period Kearns worked closely with Leon Golub, Nancy Spero, Dennis Adams, Papo Colo, Jeanette Ingberman, Afredo Jarr, Ida Applebroog, Sue Coe, Anton van Dalen, David Wojnarowicz, Keith Herring, Judy Glantzman, Jane Dickson, and Charlie Ahern, among others.
A 1985 a solo exhibition at EXIT ART, NYC, launched Kearns' painting career. Since then he has produced 25 one person exhibitions; his prints and paintings are represented in 33 museum and public collections, including The New York Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Nationale Galerie, Berlin, The IVAM Centre, Valencia, Spain, and The Western Gallery of Art, Perth, Australia.
Website: www.jerrykearns.com
Seher Shah was born in 1975 in Karachi, Pakistan, and grew up in London, Brussels, and New York City. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1998. Recent exhibitions include "Eccentric Architecture" at the Queens Museum of Art; "21: Twenty-First Century Artists"" at the Brooklyn Museum; "Drawing Space and Line of Control" at Green Cardamom, London; "Infinite Possibilities" at Momenta Art, Brooklyn; and "On Rage/ Uber Wut" at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. Her work is included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum of Art, and Museum of Contemporary Art in Schauffhausen, Switzerland, among others. She has had reviews in the New York Times, Art Asia Pacific, Bidoun, Art Papers, Newsweek, and Frieze Magazine. Shah lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.Her current solo show at Scaramouche Gallery, 52 Orchard St, NYC, NY 10002 is up through October 30th.
Website: www.sehershah.net
Rene Smith was born in Philadelphia and received her M.F.A. in Painting from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and her B.A. in Painting from Bennington College in Vermont. She studied painting for two years in Rome, Italy. She was a Visiting Lecturer in Painting at Chiang Mai University in 2008-09. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at Chiang Mai University in Thailand, a two person show at Koi Gallery in Bangkok, and The Siam Art Fair with BKK Art House Gallery in Bangkok. She is currently an Adjunct Lecturer at Saint Thomas Aquinas College in New York. She lives and works in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York.
Website: http://renesmith.net
Brooklynite Tim Spelios, takes photos, assembles collage, plays drums, cuts up sounds, makes sculpture, and builds cabinets. He has shown his collage and installations at Exit Art, the Drawing Center, Sculpture Center, Smack Mellon Studios, Long Island University, Pierogi Gallery, and Parkers Box among others. Spelios has taught at Pratt Institute, and The University of Illinois at the Phillips Collection in D.C. Spelios has played drums internationally with the bands No Safety, and Chunk. During the burgeoning Williamsburg art scene of the 90s' Spelios, with Caroline Cox, co-founded and ran Flipside Gallery from 1996-2001, showing a wide range of innovative art.
Spelios began making collage in high school when he created flyers to promote performances of Mr. Klopp. His visual and musical pursuits brought him from Normal Illinois, to New York, via San Francisco. He continues to weave an improvised and convoluted personal narrative through his work. Mining obscure connections and reacting to the overlooked poetry in the mundane, he searches for his source material in flea markets, bookstores, and the ever-changing ephemeral urban landscape.
Website: www.timspelios.com
Letha Wilson was raised in Colorado and received her MFA from Hunter College in New York City, and her BFA from Syracuse University. Letha attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2009, and her artwork has been shown at many venues including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Socrates Sculpture Park, Exit Art, Arko Arts Center (Seoul), BravinLee Programs, Sue Scott Gallery, PARTICIPANT Inc, Vox Populi, Nudashank, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery and the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2011 Letha was an artist-in-residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art and her work is currently included in the 2011 Next Wave Art exhibition at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Website: www.lethaprojects.com