Previous Exhibitions

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Cheryl Goldsleger: Paradox
Feb. 14 - March. 12; Artalk Feb. 14, 7:30 p.m. via Zoom

Resound, mixed media on DuraLar, 40”x40”, 2018Cheryl Goldsleger’s paintings, drawings and three-dimensional works are an exploration into the inescapable relationship individuals and societies have with place and location, and the myriad forces at work upon the landscape and its inhabitants. She offers her viewers unique vantage points from which they might understand these visible and invisible forces at play, suggesting that these are mutually dependent yet in constant states of flux - complex and ever-shifting.

Artist Statement

My paintings, drawings and three-dimensional works are an exploration into the inescapable relationship individuals and societies have with place and location. When envisioning various sites, I imagine the myriad forces at work upon the landscape and its inhabitants.As socio-economic events and natural phenomena unfold, viewers are offered unique vantage points from which to understand the visible and invisible forces at play.Although the networks of relationships may not always be apparent, linear, or distinct, links exist, and connections and possibilities can be inferred. Visualizing webs of connections between positive and negative, animate and inanimate, natural and synthetic, and tranquil and turbulent, I visually suggest that these are mutually dependent yet in constant states of flux - complex and ever-shifting.

In these works, perception merges with proprioception - an awareness of our body in space - with attention to movements and changes in an evolving landscape. They are not static. Proprioception and unusual perspectives are particularly important, generating tension while fostering empathy when they coalesce. By immersing viewers in these situations, one can imagine how others feel in these conditions.

In planning my compositions, I weave together fragments that I have gathered from research, reading, travel and more, with how I react to that information and how I imagine it impacts others. My paintings develop in layers, accruing marks that, at different stages, must be selectively removed to reveal the foundation of lines and forms created in their earlier stages of development.The initial composition becomes submerged during this process as brushstrokes and color are added atop the original framework. Many more layers, additions, subtractions and revisions eventually allow the final image to emerge. In many ways, the process is a metaphor for the content.

Meteorologist Edward Lorenz stated, “When a butterfly flutters its wings in one part of the world, it can eventually cause a hurricane in another.” In my work, I strive to immerse the viewer in these places and in so doing, address these interrelationships and create an understanding of their chaotic ramifications in our increasingly smaller, interconnected global society.

Artist Bio

Cheryl Goldsleger’s artworks in her exhibition, Paradox, continue her exploration of the relationships individuals and societies have with place and location. When envisioning various compositions, Goldsleger imagines the myriad forces at work upon a site and its inhabitants. Viewers are offered unique perspectives and are encouraged to immerse themselves in order to understand the webs of visible and invisible connections affecting our interconnected, global society.

Cheryl Goldsleger received her BFA from Philadelphia College of Art (now The University of the Arts) and her MFA from Washington University with additional study at Tyler School of Art’s program in Rome, Italy. She has an extensive exhibition record both nationally and abroad, including the European Cultural Centre’s 2019 Venice Art Biennale (Italy), The National Academy of Sciences (DC), the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (NY), The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (GA), the Krannert Museum (IL), the Montclair Art Museum (NJ), the North Carolina Museum of Art (NC), The Institute of Contemporary Art (PA),the Israel Museum (Israel), and the High Museum (GA).

Goldsleger is a 2020 recipient of a Porter Fleming Foundation Artist Grant and previously received two senior Artists Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as other regional and state artist’s grants. Her work has been discussed in an extensive list of publications including Art in America, Artforum, The Hudson Review, The New York Observer, Burnaway, and ArtNet Magazine. Her international residencies at the La Napoule Foundation, France, a US/France Exchange Fellowship in Paris, and artist residencies in Italy have provided invaluable resources for her work.

Her artwork is represented in important museum collections including the Albright-Knox Gallery (NY); the Brooklyn Museum (NY); The Fogg Museum at Harvard University; the Greenville County Museum (SC); the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University (NY); the High Museum (GA); The Israel Museum (Israel); the Museum of Modern Art, (NY); the New Orleans Museum (LA); the North Carolina Museum of Art (NC); the Tel Aviv Museum (Israel); and Yale University Art Gallery (CT); among other important public and private collections. Goldsleger’s public project Crossroads is a permanent mosaic tile floor installation in Terminal A of the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia.

 

View the Artalk: February 14, 2022

 

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Hedwig Broukaert: Peel (America)
Jan. 9 - Feb. 5; Artalk Feb. 2, 7:30 p.m. via Zoom

View the Artalk: February 2, 2022

Working with mass media imagery, Hedwig Brouckaert’s art refers to its distorted messages of desire and identity, totally transforming the original narrative. In doing this she reflects on mortality and the vanity of life in the hyper-consumer world of today.

Artist Statement:

Peel (America) XVII paper, acrylic paint and glue on ceramic tiles, 11 ¾ x 7 ¾ x ¼”, 2020

As a teenager, I fantasized about painting all billboards black - and hijacking commercial images. Working with mass media imagery, my work refers to its distorted messages of desire and identity, but totally transforms the original narrative.

I am interested in the tension between the highly representational starting point, and the illegible and condensed result of my layering process. Using drawing, digital printing, collage, and installation, I create abstract and tactile work out of what once was commercial, banal material. As a memento mori, I reflect on mortality and the vanity of life in the hyper-consumer world of today.

‘Peel - America’ is a recent series of work of collage on commercial ceramic and marble tiles. From mainstream magazines like Vogue, with its over-produced images of whiteness that mask the inequalities in our society, I cut out models’ skin and layer it over and over with glue and acrylic paint to create a bas relief on tiles. I sand, cut, and carve with sharp tools to reveal the deeper layers beneath. The skins peel, uncovering strange patterns and melting boundaries.

—HB, 2022

Artist Bio

Hedwig Brouckaert grew up in Flanders, Belgium, and has been living in NYC since 2011. She received an MFA from the University of California, Davis after completing a Masters in sculpture at the Sint-Lukas Hogeschool in Brussels, and a Postgraduate at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Belgium. Brouckaert received numerous grants from the Flemish Government in Belgium, and fellowships of the NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, the Rockefeller Foundation – Bellagio (IT), Liguria Study Center Bogliasco (IT), Cité Internationale des Arts Paris, Hafnarborg Museum of Iceland, Yaddo (NY), Anderson Ranch (CO), Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and FLACC (BE). Her work has appeared in numerous exhibitions throughout the US and internationally, including ‘Re/pro/ducing Complexity’ curated by Peter Lodermeyer with work by Jorinde Voigt and Nelleke Beltjens at the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens (BE), Städtische Galerie Villa Zanders (DE), Bangkok Art and Culture Center (TH), VOLTA NY with Jan Dhaese Gallery (2014 & 2018), Kentler International Drawing Space (NY), Kunstraum (NY), Project:ARTspace (NY), ChaShaMa (NY), Murray State University (KY), and Pallazo Vendramin Costa (Venice IT). Brouckaert’s work has been discussed in magazines and papers such as the Brooklyn Rail, the New York Times, Blackbook, ArtSpiel, Uncovered, the ArtCouch, and KunstHart (BE).

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Greg Banks: An Explanation of Sympathetic Magic
November 1 - November 24

View the Virtual Gallery Tour: An Explanation of Sympathetic Magic - Greg Banks

From the surrealistic imagery of The Precautionary Tale of The Goatman to the palpable memories of After The Family Farm, Greg Banks’ images weave a tapestry of family, folklore and the subconscious. Family photos combine a personal narrative with the folkloric history of the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky.

Artist Statement:

God, witches, devils, mythical creatures, speaking in tongues, snake and fire handling, and raising the dead all exist in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky. For this body of work, I am appropriating family photographs, as well as vernacular images, to tell supernatural stories about my family history and the region from which I come. My work weaves together a personal narrative with the folkloric history of that area. Photoshop and the unpredictability of smart phone applications are used in a similar way to how a folktale unfolds. Each app is manipulating the story as a person might exaggerate a tale when they pass it along. By assembling family photographs and appropriating historical images, I am constructing stories with contemporary tools for manipulation and passing them along as visual folklore.

—Greg Banks

Artist Bio:

Greg Banks is a photo-based artist and instructor at Appalachian State University. He received his MFA in photography from East Carolina University in May 2017.He received a B.A. in photography and a B.A. in fine art from Virginia Intermont College in 1998. Banks was a top 200 finalist in Photo Lucida’s Critical Mass in 2018. He was one of only seven artists chosen for the Light Factory’s Annuale 9 in 2017. Banks’ work was among the top 5 most popular on the online magazine “Don’t Take Pictures” in 2017.His work can be found in publications such as Jill Enfield’s Guide to Photographic Alternative Processes, 2nd edition. Greg combines iPhone images and historic 19th century processes, gelatin silver printing, painting and digital printing. His current creative practice investigates family, folklore, memories, magic and Appalachia, as well as history and religion.

Charles W. Goolsby: Familiar Territory September 27 - October 23 

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View the Virtual Gallery Tour: Familiar Places - Charles W. Goolsby

Artist Statement

Marathon, oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches, 2020

I am transformed by my surroundings. My paintings are initially designed from an exploration of the environment in which I live. Partly informed by traditions of 19th-century American landscape painting, abstract expressionism, and neo-expressionism, my process transforms the landscape that inspires me into images that become intense psychological dramas.

 

Industrial Park, oil on canvas, 72 x 96 inches, 2020The process for my work involves going out on location and making sketches and photographs. I use these source materials to develop my final compositions into the paintings. I am interested in paint as a physical material, which leads me to approach canvases with a gestural and liberal handling of the medium. Physicality and richness are two characteristics of oil paint and I wish to exploit them to their fullest extent.

I contrast geometric and the organic elements with activated brushwork in my paintings to develop a sense of tension and anxiety. Gestural brush marks colliding with trees and dappled reflected lights contrasting against aggressively sweeping concrete are examples of this basic organic-geometric opposition that is embodied in my work. In addition, I am fascinated with issues of space and the dynamics it has to offer in terms of illusionary depth within the picture plane. I am continuously searching for a personal, convincing and restricted color palette that is effective in delivering an emotional punch.

The selections I make are chosen because of a subconscious affinity I have to the subjects and forms that interest me. The themes that dominate my work are speed, confrontation, crossing borders, transitions, compression, isolation, reflection, fear, and collision. Mystery, monumentality, and ambiguity are key components of my work.

— Charles W. Goolsby

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Richard Whitten: Grand Illusions August 23 - September 18

Flat Earth, oil on wood panel, 33”x30”, 2017Richard Whitten’s paintings are meant to be games– games to be played in the imagination. He invites the viewer to interact with the painting by visually exploring the image and “touching” the objects depicted in it, challenging them to decipher the “rules” to propel the objects into “motion”.

The paintings, ranging from palm-sized to mural-sized shaped panels, fall into two categories: those that depict invented toys or machines in imagined classical architecture and those that act as game-boards themselves.

Richard WhittenWhile the painting surfaces are flat, the viewer’s eyes persistently say otherwise, thus questioning their perception of reality.

 

 

 

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Matt Wilt: Plans and Contingencies February 15 - March 13

An artist who draws inspiration from ancient vessels and other historical ceramics is featured currently in the McGlothlin Center Art Gallery at Emory & Henry College,

Matt Wilt’s exhibition, Plans and Contingencies, also is inspired by the “flotsam and jetsam of contemporary culture,” according to the artist.

While Wilt’s work in this exhibition is less vessel-oriented, those historical works continue to feed his ideas, which is demonstrated through forms that suggest a specific function or use, albeit a hybrid of the known world with a less concrete reality.

This newer work also draws from a catalog of forms that are suggestive in nature. “In Philip Rawson’s book, Ceramics, he refers to memory traces, and the power of forms to evoke thoughts and memories,” said Wilt. “This is similar to the way we associate colors with emotional states or meanings. By incorporating forms that are symbolic and suggestive, I attempt to engage the viewer in a process of decoding.”

Most recently, Wilt has become intrigued by art that synthesizes the human body with the mechanical forms of the manmade world, connecting threads that link elements of history, culture and what it is to be human.

These forms, as manufactured objects replicating natural functions, act as substitutes for nature. “I find this composite of the physical body and the synthetic world simultaneously fascinating and frightening,” Wilt said. “Through this line of inquiry, I am conscious of the connecting threads that link the many disparate elements of history, culture, and what it is to be human.”

Wilt holds a master of fine arts degree from Ohio University in Athens. He has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grants, an Illinois Arts Council fellowship, and the Evelyn Shapiro Foundation fellowship.

His artwork can be found in the collections of the Crocker Museum of Art in Sacramento, the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, Arizona State University’s Ceramic Research Center, the Hand Art Center of Stetson University, the Kennedy Museum of American Art, and numerous private collections.

View the Artalk: February 15, 2021