Rhombus Space Presents "Funkdafied" Featuring Artwork by Martha Clippinger, Rachael Gorchov, Chad Nelson, and Dominic Nurre.

Martha Clippinger, Peel, 2013. Oil on wood, 8 x 6 x 1.5”

Rhombus Space is pleased to present Funkdafied, an exhibition featuring artwork by Martha Clippinger, Rachael Gorchov, Chad Nelson, and Dominic Nurre. 

Curated by Katerina Lanfranco

Exhibition Dates: October 17, – November 9, 2014.  Reception: Friday, 10/17, 6-9 PM 

The works in Funkdafied dissolve traditional categories of painting, sculpture, and installation. Conceptually driven and intuitively articulated, they explore the familiar in an unexpectedly beautiful way. Martha Clippinger’s work occupies the fertile area between painting and sculpture. She paints idiosyncratic wooden shapes with a formal finesse that emphasizes geometry. Clippinger’s work calls attention to color, the physical qualities of material, and architectural context. Rachael Gorchov creates paintings that are organic, as well as geometric 3D forms that hang on the wall. Mixing Abstract Expressionist brushwork with miniature landscapes these 3D paintings will ask you to walk around, duck, and tilt your head to explore them. Chad Nelson explores painting possibilities that embrace the edges of the low brow/high brow range of artist materials. He combines slick painted surfaces with beer cans. Nelson meticulously recreates ordinary objects out of traditional painting materials creating a trompe l’oeil effect that intrigues and catches the viewer off guard. Dominic Nurre reveals and conceals in his work. Inviting the viewer to ponder the strange combination of deceptively simple objects that become much greater than the sum of their parts – Nurre’s sculptures often become personified into something ineffably figurative. His sculptures embody an opposition of contrasting materials, as well as a considered combination of serious/not serious sensibilities.

The four artists presented in Funkdafied create work that bewilders upon first encounter, but retains our attention because they are uniquely insightful, engrossing, and poetic in their perspective. They offer us a chance to re-experiencing the familiar in a new and deeper way. The work in this show is fresh, formally charged, and charts brave territories in contemporary art that transcend traditional categories, while eliciting beguiling art encounters for the viewer.

Artist Biographies:

Martha Clippinger, born in Columbus, GA. BA from Fordham University and MFA from Mason Gross School of Art, Rutgers University. Clippinger has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Edward F. Albee Foundation, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the 2014 American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award and a 2013 Fulbright Research Grant, completed in Oaxaca, Mexico. Clippinger’s work has been featured in The Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, and The Huffington Post. She exhibits internationally and is represented by Elizabeth Harris Gallery in New York.

Martha Clippinger, Gold Rush, 2013. Acrylic and fabric on wood, 10 x 7 x 1”

Rachael Gorchov received her BFA from Tyler School of Art and her MFA from Hunter College. Her recent solo exhibition, ‘Making Strange’ was at TSA Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. She has participated in exhibitions at Harbor Gallery in New York; Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Philadelphia; The University of Massachusetts in Amherst; The Billboard Art Project; The English Folk Dance and Song Society in London; Galeria Arsenał in Białystok, Poland and has been featured on Gorky’s Granddaughter. Originally from Philadelphia, Gorchov lives and works in New York City.

Rachael Gorchov, Enter to win 6x12 Ft; Chicken House, Paonia, CO, 2012. Acrylic on mixed media 10x10x10”

Chad Nelson was born in Waterbury, Connecticut in 1974. Nelson received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1999. He received his MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College in 2005. Nelson has taught Art at Hunter College and Montclair State University. His artwork makes use of various mediums but is primarily communicated through Painting and Video. Chad Nelson lives in Tarrytown, NY with his son, Jasper and wife (and fellow Painter), Charlotte Nicholson.

Chad Nelson, Silver on Silver, 2013. Acrylic on 12 oz. aluminum can on panel, 14.5 x 17.5”

Dominic Nurre was born in Mankato, MN USA, 1980. His work has been shown extensively in New York at galleries including: Barbara Gladstone, Team Gallery, Thierry Goldberg, West Street Gallery, and Gavin Brown Enterprise, among others. In 2010, Nurre was included in the third iteration of Greater New York at MoMA PS1. Solo presentations have been held at Asia Song Society (ASS), the RuSalon, and helper. Nurre lives in New York, NY and thinks about leaving for somewhere else, on occasion.

Dominic Nurre, The North, 2014.

Black pearl, coconut oil, and tin can 1.5 x 3 x 6”