Rhombus Space Presents "All Worked Up" featuring work by Eddie Chu, Courtney Puckett, Seren Morey and Karla Wozniak

Karla Wozniak, Highland, Underground, 2014. Oil on panel, 25 x 27”

Rhombus Space is pleased to present: All Worked Up, an exhibition featuring artwork by Eddie Chu, Seren Morey, Courtney Puckett, and Karla Wozniak.                              

Curated by Katerina Lanfranco

Exhibition Dates: September 12 – October 5, 2014.  Reception: Friday, 9/12, 6-9 PM 

All Worked Up is an exhibition that focuses on art that is made through successive layers of material application to a support surface, and is characterized by a commitment to process and an investigation of art materials with the results being deeply physical and sensual. Eddie Chu approaches making art like an engineer, exploring ideas of mechanization, intention and accident – his works are both physically layered paintings and the products of a kind of artist-scientist research lab. Seren Morey builds her unearthly and minutely detailed multilayered paintings by intricately combining cutting, sewing, sculptural relief and paint. These works culminate in a delicate interlacing of mediums. Courtney Puckett combines found materials as the armatures for her sculptures that are then wrapped, woven and heavily altered. Her recent fabric paintings are direct developments from her material explorations and the additive approach to her work. Karla Wozniak is a painter’s painter. Using an arsenal of traditional paint handling techniques she combines them with a generous application of oil paint to make chromatic landscapes that often hint at human presence amidst lush nature.  

The four artists presented in All Worked Up handle the surfaces of their artwork in a labor intensive, mindful and meditative way. They share a sense of resolve to push the limits of their work - layering rich oil paint strokes side by side to build up a luscious surface (Wozniak), experimenting with paint and sculpture mediums to create shallow reliefs and painting objects (Chu and Morey), and wrapping and sewing layers of fabric and plastic into 2D and 3D works (Puckett).  Balancing formal logical and artistic intuition, these four artists make images that are more than just windows into other worlds. Their works have undeniable physical presence in the viewer’s world.

Eddie Chu, Untitled, 2014. Paint on cloth.

Eddie Chu (b. sWashington DC) lives in New York, NY. Chu received his MFA from Hunter College in New York City and BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He’s exhibited his work widely in New York, Germany, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Los Angeles, including group shows at Swiss Institute and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He’s been nominated for the Christoph Merian Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland and received a KACAL honoraria. Currently Chu works in Brooklyn, NY, and participates in the emerging Bushwick artist communities and is an active member of the BOS (Buskwick Open Studios) arts festival.

Seren Morey, Compendium, 2014. Ultralight,

and mixed media on cut canvas, 23 x 21 x 3.5 “         

Seren Morey (b. Massachusetts) earned her BFA from Bard College. After her undergraduate, she was an artist assistant for Kiki Smith. Morey completed her MFA at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She has taught Painting Processes for materials and techniques and Foundation: Light, Color and Design - a comprehensive color theory course at Pratt Institute. Morey’s work has been exhibited extensively, and was reviewed by Barry Schwabsky and Helen A. Harrison (New York Times). She currently lives and works in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and is a partner in Guerra Paint and Pigment in NYC, a specialty resource store for artists.

Courtney Puckett, May Day's Eye Flower,       

2014. Fabric, marker, and thread 48 x 48”      

Courtney Puckett (b. Winter Park, FL) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a BFA from MICA and an MFA from Hunter College, and studied at the Center for Art and Culture in Aix-en-Provence, the Glasgow School of Art, and the University of New Mexico. Puckett has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Vermont Studio Center, Buffalo National River, and at Byrdcliffe Arts Colony. Group exhibitions include Wallspace, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, Denise Bibro, CUAC Utah, Seton Hall University, Long Island University, and Jamaica Center for Art. Puckett is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts project grant and was featured on the NYTimes art blog.

Karl Wozniak, Summer Light, 2014.                     

Oil on canvas over panel, 30 x 25”                    

Karla Wozniak received her MFA from Yale University and her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Recent solo exhibitions: the Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco, CA, and University of Vermont in Burlington, VT. Recent group exhibitions: Regina Rex, in Brooklyn, at Lehman College in the Bronx; and Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Ketchum, ID. Wozniak’s distinctions include a NYFA fellowship, and residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Skowhegan, Millay Colony, VCCA, UCross, and Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program. Her work has been featured in the The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, Village Voice, and Huffington Post.