KRISTY GORDON
Select 5
Barbara Cowlin, Kristy Gordon, Karl Hartman, Marilyn Holsing, Amy Laskin, Jennifer Presant, Mel Prest, Buket Savci, Joy Taylor, Kit Warren
November 2, 2020 —January 31, 2021
An Artsy.net exclusive exhibition
Fifth Annual Exhibition of Artists Selected from the
Gallery Review Program
Garvey|Simon is pleased to announce Select 5, the fifth annual exhibition of work by emerging and mid-career artists chosen by director Elizabeth K. Garvey through the gallery’s innovative Review Program. This year’s artists are: Barbara Cowlin, Kristy Gordon, Karl Hartman, Marilyn Holsing, Amy Laskin, Jennifer Presant, Mel Prest, Buket Savci, Joy Taylor, and Kit Warren.
Garvey|Simon established the Review Program in 2016 to open a dialogue between artists and galleries, a practice that has long been anathema to gallery orthodoxy. Neither the past practice of artists drowning galleries in heaps of slides nor today’s avalanche of emails is beneficial to either gallery or artist. Garvey believes that artists “need to have a working platform to engage with dealers who otherwise might not see their work.” In the multi-tiered program, artists must pay an administrative fee for their work to be reviewed. “We want artists to think before they submit and be sure their work is appropriate for our program – the small fee puts some skin in the game and detracts from artists sending generic, mass submissions.” Finalists are given a private meeting with the gallery to consider their work for the exhibition. Garvey|Simon has cultivated successful partnerships with artists Margot Glass, Eileen Murphy, Linda Lindroth, Leonard Sussman, Robert Stuart, Sung Won Yun and Joshua Flint through the Select program.
In the progressive spirit of the Artist Review program, and in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Garvey has turned to Artsy.net as the host for this year’s exhibition. By using this vetted online marketplace, the exhibition will have an extended duration, and the opportunity to reach an increasingly global audience. Though this year’s artists work in an array of techniques and modes, they are united by their compositional intricacy and multi-lateral approach to painting. Whether it be the inclusion of fluorescent paint, gouache, or embroidery; hard acrylic abstractions or luxe oil realism; each of these artists challenges the principles of painting.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
BARBARA KEMP COWLIN
Barbara Kemp Cowlin uses acrylics to achieve the precarious facets of her architectural abstractions. Contradictions proliferate her spaces, disorienting the viewer, and challenging their perception of long-habituated surroundings. Cowlin’s work is included in the City of Phoenix Arts Collection; the University of Arizona Special Collections; Providence Medical Center in Everett, Washington; Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio; First Bancorp Headquarters in Troy, North Carolina.; Baylor University Medical Center, Houston, Texas; Edison & Sprinkles Architecture & Design, Vancouver, British Columbia; Grafix, Maple Heights, Ohio. She lives and works in Oracle, Arizona.
KRISTY GORDON
Kristy Gordon gleefully subverts tradition in her historical paintings and portraiture. Canonical scenes of European painting are dismantled and repopulated with a more diverse cast of figures, undoing the gender and racial oppression perpetuated by these scenes. Often incorporating craftwork and detail, Kristy’s work is equal parts camp and commentary. Her work has been shown at Sotheby’s, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Artguise Gallery, Ottawa, CA, and LIC Open Arts Gallery, and she is included in the permanent collections at the Government of Ontario Art Collection and the China Central Academy of Fine Arts. Kristy lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
KARL HARTMAN
Karl Hartman gives primacy to the sparsity of form in his Mid-Western prairie landscapes. Simple and earnest, saturated primary hues and decisive lines add dynamism to these stoic scenes. Hartman leaves his horizon lines unencumbered, allowing the atmosphere to dominate the pictorial plane. Karl Hartman’s work has been shown at Carol Peck Gallery, Woodbury, CT, Swartley Gallery, Englewood, NJ, and the Mary Ann Doran Gallery, Tulsa, OK. The artist lives and works in Bergen County, New Jersey.
MARILYN HOLSING
Marilyn Holsing uses gouache to convey her infatuation with outdoor settings. Each individual land mass, rendered in Rococo detail and sentimentality, are microcosms of narrative. These plots are fecund with texture and tone; self-contained expressions of memory and sensorial-experience. Marilyn Holsing’s work has been exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, Robert Brown Gallery, Washington, D.C., and Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro, NC. Her work is included in the permanent collections at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Marilyn lives and works in Merion, PA.
AMY LASKIN
Amy Laskin’s botanical still lifes are a surrealist blend of body and bloom. This combination of unlike elements forms the basis of Laskin’s practice, creating visual foils that bring into focus the mystique of nature, gender, and identity. Ornate, fractal-like flower petals mingle with fabric and facades to hint at human forms, forging a connection between humans and the environment. Amy Laskin has been shown at the Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, IL, Chelsea Gallery, Kingston, Jamaica, and the Salena Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. She is included in the permanent collections at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art, Collegeville, PA and the Bank of Jamaica in Kingston. Amy Laskin lives and works in Kingston, Jamaica.
JENNIFER PRESANT
Projection and artifice form the foundation of Jennifer Presant’s depictions of memory and time. She begins her paintings with the image of a blank interior, layering mirages of endangered landscapes and psychological recollection to consider the cycle of life and the process of aging. Her paintings appear as renderings of dioramas, further extending the theater of memory. Jennifer Presant’s work has been exhibited at Linda Warren Projects, Chicago, IL, Blank Space Gallery, New York, NY, the Evanston Art Center, and the Wilmette Public Library, IL. Presant is also the three-time recipient of the Residency Fellowship at the Vermont Studio. The artist lives and works in Evanston, IL.
MEL PREST
Color and line are imbued with taste and aroma in Mel Prest’s linear abstractions. Her recent works experiment with interference, fluorescents, metallics, and mica, subtly altering the light conditions and the flavor palette of her panels. Kinetic and capricious, Prest’s paintings jostle the eye, causing it to flit from glimmer to glimmer. Recent solo shows include: lux at Galleri Urbane (2018), Lilac Aura at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary (2017); and In Praise of Planetary Time at B Sakata Garo (2016) in Sacramento. Prest’s work is included at the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA, the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center at the University of Virginia, Richmond, and Apple. Mel Prest lives and works in San Francisco, CA.
BUKET SAVCI
Buket Savci’s paintings are cloisters of comfort and contact. Her figures are lazy with content, protected and insulated in their conclave of inflatable balloons and toys. The entanglement of limbs and flesh is softened by these elements of innocence. Buket’s subject matter has taken on even greater relevance and a sense of danger with the necessity for social distancing. Buket Savci has been shown at the Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH, Kunstverein Ludwigsburg, Germany, The Hole, New York, NY, and the Mandarin Oriental, Miami, FL (curated by Helena Christensen and Brooke Shields.) Buket Savci lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
JOY TAYLOR
Joy Taylor’s botanical still lifes capture imaginary subjects. Her fabricated florals are dictated by two basic tenets: scale it up, for a more detailed view of the composition; and simplify, for greater clarity of form. The end result is a denial of depth and a refusal of perspective. Graphic and vibrantly toned petals, leaves, and stems sprawl across one other, creating the experience of a bouquet without the form of one. Joy Taylor’s work has been exhibited at Galerie Gris, Hudson, NY, Imogen Holloway Gallery, Saugerties, NY, and the Berkshire Botanical Garden, Stockbridge, MA. Her work has been commissioned by the MTA Arts for Transit Program for multiple public transit stations. Joy Taylor lives and works in Red Hook, New York.
KIT WARREN
Inspired by Indian miniatures, Italian medieval art, and natural accumulation, Kit Warren’s paintings are at once ornate and organic. Her compositions are dictated by intuition, culling rich, nuanced narratives from abstracted landscapes and glimmering linear patterns. Warren’s gold acrylic roundels accumulate, disperse, and hover, quietly describing populations, dissemination of information, or the abundance of stimuli in our surround. Kit Warren’s work has been exhibited by Kenise Barnes Fine Arts, Larchmont, NY, PS 122 Gallery, and The Painting Center. Warren is the recipient of the 2019 Conception Arts award at the Chateau Orquevaux artist residency and was the 2018 Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellow. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
For further information, to see more images, or to schedule an in-person or Zoom viewing, please visit Garvey Simon or contact Elizabeth Garvey at liz@garveysimon.com or 917-796-2146.
