Garvey | Simon Art Access is pleased to present Musing Metallic, a group exhibition curated by Elizabeth Garvey on view at The Curator Gallery, 520 West 23rd Street in New York.

The exhibition features eight artists whose works are composed of or inspired by the glimmer and gleam of metal or metallic materials. Each has a distinctive approach to installation, process, media and perception. For some, metal or a metallic finish draws in the viewer with a reflection, or blurs the boundary between artwork and environment. A smooth, polished surface indicates the presence of the human hand, while a rusted or matte finish hails chance, the organic, and nature’s influence. The artists make ingenious use of everyday resources, and a highly finished work might be the product of an unexpected process. The artists engage in a multi-faceted reflection upon color, light, space, art, and the gallery space in their thinking, practice and artistic output.

Where: The Curator Gallery, 520 West 23rd Street, New York, NY, 10011
Exhibition: June 3 – July 11, 2015
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.

For artist information, images, or price and availability information:
Contact Elizabeth Garvey, 917-796-2146 or liz@garveysimon.com
    
ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Christopher Adams utilizes biological concepts - speciation, convergence, mimicry - as he creates ceramic works of “organic abstraction.” The sculptures suggest a variety of creatures, but not a specific organism. In the artist’s wall-hanging sculptures, a pioneering organism has entered an untapped environment, differentiating rapidly without departing too dramatically from its original form. The sculptures of porcelain, terra cotta, and stoneware are fired over a wide range of temperatures with a variety of glazes. Adams is also a doctor, working as a part-time dermatologist, and in his art he plays with shiny, gnarly, and matte metallic finishes to evolve the skin surface of his organic abstractions.

Joan Grubin utilizes paper, light, color, and space to create art objects that engage and commingle with the environment in which they appear. Grubin creates installations, sculptures, and small wall works from pigment, paper, reflected color, cast shadows, and negative space. The resulting work of art is equally a product of the artist’s hand and of the environment in which it is displayed. Metallic finishes in Grubin’s art underline the interrelatedness of object, light and environment with fragments of reflective negative space appearing on – or within – the surface of the work.

Marietta Hoferer builds drawings of tape and metalpoint on archival paper. Hoferer applies a graphite grid to the paper. She then cuts tape into pieces, arranging them into patterns over the grid. She works with different brands of tape, each with its own characteristics of color, transparency, and reflectivity. Hoferer recently began to utilize silverpoint instead of graphite, giving the grid a finer, stronger line while strengthening its role in the finished work. There is an element of chance as together the grid and non-archival tape change in patina over time.

J Ivcevich seeks beauty, serenity and profundity in overlooked and mundane settings. The artist reduces imagery to its essential elements with brushed paint contained by a strong, raised line drawn in sign paint applied with a dental syringe. Ivcevich’s recent artistic output is inspired by his own photography of ready-made collages in the form of old posters layered in the New York City subways. Recently Ivcevich began painting onto mirrored surfaces, an interesting twist that incorporates the viewer into the imagery. After his first solo show in 2001, Ivcevich was awarded a Pollack-Krasner Grant and was featured on the cover of New American Paintings in both the Southeast and Northeast. Ivcevich has had solo exhibitions in Washington DC, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta, and Memphis. His work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Georgia, the Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art, and the Mobile Museum of Art. In addition, Ivcevich has also been in group exhibitions in New York, Berlin, Providence, San Francisco, and Boston.

Tamiko Kawata grew up in Tokyo in the wake of World War II and immigrated to the United States in 1962. Her approach is informed by the modernist ideas of Dada and Assemblage. Kawata utilizes everyday, sometimes discarded objects in her work, including used pantyhose and food packaging. Impressed by the variety of safety pins in a tailor supply shop, Kawata adopted the safety pin as her basic readymade building block. Kawata builds rows of safety pins in multiple finishes on canvas, creating studies in line and color that are at once painting and sculpture. Kawata also creates fashionable wearable art in the form of jewelry for women.

Michael Kukla creates worlds of organic cellular forms in metalpoint over gesso on paper. Kukla is interested in the spatial relationships between objects in the drawing, as well as between the viewer and the drawing. When Kukla draws over a dark tinted gesso, the strange world seems to close in on the viewer. Drawing over lighter gesso, Kukla has the viewer peering in from outside. Kukla also plays with rigid geometric forms resembling the marquetry of a fine floor. His work invokes the Old Masters in the use of metalpoint and geometry, and the Gutai group in the use of organic forms.

Susan Schwalb has championed metalpoint in contemporary art making since she discovered the medium in 1975. Schwalb celebrates beauty and harmony in clean, straight lines drawn over a panel prepared with gesso. Her lines might be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal; there may be a series in parallel, perhaps interrupted by rhythmic intersecting lines. The lines vary in color and tone as Schwalb works with various metals: silver, gold, brass, aluminum, bronze, copper, pewter, tin. Schwalb leaves the finished product unvarnished, allowing metals such as silver and copper to change naturally in their patina over time. Schwalb’s work is included in the exhibition, Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns, which appears at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC from May through July, and the British Museum from October through December 2015.

Carroll Todd constructs highly finished sculptures from sheets of metal. Unlike an academic sculptor who creates a clay model and hands it off to a foundry, Todd builds unique works entirely by hand. Todd’s work ranges from humorous, such as a family of clean-lined mice with cheese, or a small house with green patina applied to nearby trees. Todd also produces graceful abstract works reminiscent in form and title of the work of Constantin Brancusi. The modern master’s influence is also present in Todd’s personal application of the many layers of chemicals, torching and wax to achieve the very high level of finish.
Artists included in the show: Christopher Adams, Joan Grubin, Marietta Hoferer, J. Ivcevich, Tamiko Kawata, Michael Kukla, Susan Schwalb, Carroll Todd.

For artist information, high-resolution images, or
price and availability information, contact:

Elizabeth K. Garvey
917-796-2146
liz@garveysimon.com