"Till We Have Faces" group exhibition

December 2, 2015 - January 10, 2016

“Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”   
- C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

We are known by our face: our physical features, the expression of our feelings, our identities of gender and ethnicity - our face is what we present to the world and how the world perceives us. But what does it mean to truly see and be seen? What is our true face?

The artists in Till We Have Faces share a common interest in exploring reality and identity through studying the faces of various individuals. Lydia Samson uses allegorical characters in her portraits to visually process through what it means to be human, exploring and questioning her own beliefs as she brings the faces to life on canvas. Sophia Dawson employs portraiture as a means to bring the viewer in intimate dialogue with members of the Central Park Five (five young men of color wrongfully accused, convicted and imprisoned) and in doing so, allows us to face our own assumptions and prejudices. Through photographing people he knows, Elias Popa invites the viewer into a space free from distraction to see the simple beauty of a fellow human being, validating the other’s humanity even as we consider our own.

Perhaps what we see and how we are seen now is but through a glass darkly, an image distorted by our own biases and interpretations of reality. In this season of Advent, the Church celebrates and anticipates seeing the Ultimate Face of glory and love, contemplating how the knowledge of that Face may indeed give us our true faces.

Curated by Eva Ting and Christina Young 

Exhibiting artists: Sophia Dawson, Elias Popa, Lydia Samson

"Returning to the Place I Know" by Alicia Flannery

October 21 - November 22, 2015

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
- T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

This is a season of homecoming: autumn is a time of return, coming back after a summer of travels and idyllic days. We return to familiar rhythms and settle into patterns even as we anticipate the upcoming holidays and make plans to celebrate with family and friends. We turn our thoughts to home — whatever shape that may take and however it makes sense to us. The journey is always there; whether it is the physical movement towards the place we call home, or whether it is an emotional movement back through the annals of our personal stories we sense the never-ceasing desire to read the past in order to understand our present. 'Returning to The Place I Know' explores both a personal and communal odyssey through Alicia Flannery's visual storytelling. Flannery's use of nostalgic images beckons us to a collective memory while prodding us to consider how we grapple with and understand issues still prevalent today.

Curated by Christina Perry

About the artist:

Alicia Flannery graduated from Pratt Institute in 2007, and has exhibited in group and solo shows throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Flannery was commissioned to create a mural for the "River Kids Community Mural Project,” remembering 9/11 and working with children affected by 9/11. The mural now hangs in the office of the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

STREETOPOLIS group photography exhibition

September 10 - October 8, 2015

Streetopolis is an exhibition of contemporary fine art, urban and documentary photographers responding to the theme of ‘streets of the world’. The photographers are part of the Association of Urban Photographers, an international collective focusing on the nature of urban and city spaces. The artists are all urbanists whose work focuses on aspects of urban life, including landscape, architecture, portraiture, objects and the street.

The aim of this exhibition is to expand on notions of what constitutes contemporary street photography and to offer an alternative range of practices that link street cultures back to the wider context of urban life. In doing so, the artists’ practices suggest an alternative set of visual imaginations from those associated with traditional documentary narratives, from personal perspectives of streets that have meaning to them within the context of the cities they inhabit or have visited.

The exhibition was supported by Goldsmiths, University of London, Urban Photo Fest and Openvizor.

Exhibition artists include: David Kendall, Diego Ferrari, Isidro Ramirez, Kyler Zeleny, Lene Hald, Michael Frank, Paul Halliday, Peter Coles, Rachel Sarah Jones, Rebecca Locke, Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo, Yanina Shevchenko

"Bearing Image" group exhibition

August 4 - September 6, 2015

Birth and growth, decay and death - we go through these life processes in deeply personal ways. Each of us experiences life uniquely while rooted in a common humanity. We sense that we are more than these frames of bones and canvases of skin; they define us to an extent but our identity goes deeper than these familiar forms.

In ‘Bearing Image’, five artists create works that reflect the body beyond mere illustrative or representational forms. Employing natural colors and organic shapes, these artists use rice, ink, metal, twine, dirt and other varied materials to forge impressions and construct figures that point beyond its physicality. Each piece bears the image of the human body without using any of its recognizable aspects. Through the artist’s application of these materials, our understanding of how we typically know these materials to function (dirt, rice, cloth, etc.) shifts to something intangible.

The artist’s intentional manipulation and choice of materials expand our understanding of what our bodies are comprised of, what we can feel through our senses, and allows us to revisit our body’s basic elements and functions. We are asked to see the human image through these prosaic yet transformed materials to explore the precious fragility and mystery of what we all carry in our bodies.

Exhibiting artists: Kelly Larsen, Courtney Hughes, Michael Watson, Yasmeen Abdallah, Chelsea Horvath

"I Love a Parade" by Leigh Carlson

June 16 - July 21, 2015

For Leigh Carlson, “I Love A Parade” started as a way to show family and friends a slice of New York City life. The project covers miles of parade routes, in all kinds of weather, and presents a behind-the-scenes look at parades and the people who march in them.

Curated by Melissa Beck

About the artist:

Leigh Carlson has been living in New York City and working as a commercial actor and print model for over thirty years and is a member of the Screen Actors Guild. Photography has been her lifelong passion, and in recent years Leigh has begun a more serious pursuit on the other side of the camera. "I Love A Parade" started as a way to show family and friends a slice of New York City life. The project covers miles of parade routes in all kinds of weather, and presents a behind-the-scenes look at parades and the people who march in them. Leigh uses photography as a form of intentionally telling stories through pictures. “I Love a Parade” is Leigh’s first solo exhibition.

To see more of Leigh's work, visit her website at leighcarlsonphotography.com

"Re-Imagined" by Whitney Wood Bailey

May 5 - 31, 2015

Whitney Wood Bailey’s work is driven by questions of a metaphysical nature such as how design and orchestration within nature affects our consciousness, and how the extraordinary geometries within nature’s design demand the consideration of intelligent design as well as our notions of spirituality. She combines forms that are organic in creation with carefully placed and predetermined mark making. The linear hatch marks (“ticking”) in the work, inspired by visits to the ancient art caves of France, represent a form of structure, applied to the naturally occurring elements within this painting process. The combination of the two suggests the idea of an intersection of faith, reason, instinct and intellect.

About the artist:

Whitney Wood Bailey received her MFA in painting in 2008 from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, GA where she was awarded the Artistic Honors Fellowship. She received her BFA in painting from Auburn University and studied with the University of Georgia’s Lama Dodd School of Art in Italy as well as a postgraduate study with Rhode Island School of Design in France. She also studied under painter Larry Poons at the Art Students League in New York City.

Whitney has exhibited internationally in Paris, Shanghai and Hong Kong, as well as NYC and around the U.S. She was awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Hambidge Center, and was a featured artist in New American Paintings, edition #94.

Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Atlanta, GA, The Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, Savanna and Hong Kong, the Music City Center in Nashville, TN, and numerous public and private collections.

She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY