Rhombus Space Presents "Heavy Metal" Featuring Artwork by MaDora Frey, Tom Kotik, Robbii, Alexa Williams, and Ward Yoshimoto.

Rhombus Space presents Heavy Metal, an exhibition featuring artwork by MaDora Frey, Tom Kotik, Robbii, Alexa Williams, and Ward Yoshimoto.
Curated by Katerina Lanfranco

Exhibition Dates: April 10 - May 3, 2015

Reception: Friday, April 10th, 6-9 PM

183 Lorraine St, 3FL #33 Brooklyn, NY 11231

The artists in "Heavy Metal" examine concepts of metal as a material, alchemy, and music. Their artworks are both heavy and defiantly light. Non-traditional and often industrial materials are used to create artworks that transcend the original nature of their materiality to form engaging and unexpected sculptures, paintings, and art installations.

Robbii’s shrine-like assemblages bring a redemptive quality to otherwise humble, old, and discarded materials like machine parts, aged wood, and rusted metal. Yoshimoto references his roots in the industrial suburbs of L.A. that polarized his Japanese heritage and plastic Americana, in his suburban folk art metal sculptures and drawings. Williams represents urban and industrial space through concrete and sheet metal paintings that suggest landscape while being formal abstractions. Kotik makes activated monochromes that investigate the relationship between sound, architecture, and Minimalism. Frey’s work synthesizes idyllic nature and city grit with urban elements such as glass, asphalt, and concrete – taking on the sinewy, geometric chaos of the natural world.

The artists in “Heavy Metal” embrace the power of transforming humble media in their work, to create stunning works that make us reconsider our daily aesthetic and even spiritual experience, in urban and industrial spaces.

MaDora Frey is a New York based artist with an MFA from the New York Academy of Art (and studied art in Florence, Italy). She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally with solo shows in Seattle, WA and in NYC. Frey is the recipient of several grants and awards including: the Ford Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and Prince of Wales Fellowship (Normandy, France). She has been awarded a 2015 artist residency at the Quarry at Marble House Project.

MaDora Frey, Kaleidoscope #500 (Space for One) 2013. Mirrors and mixed media, 12 x 22 x 12”

Tom Kotik is a New York based artist with an MFA from Hunter College. His work has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Smack Mellow, Socrates Sculpture Park, the Sculpture Center in New York, the Prague National Gallery in the Czech Republic, and at the Miro Foundation in Barcelona, Spain. He is the recipient of many awards and residencies in New York. Kotik has an upcoming solo show opening in June at the Leslie Heller Gallery in NYC.

 

Tom Kotik, Untitled (Red), 2011. Altered Ibanez DT 350 guitar, spray enamel, 24.5 x 15.5 x 6”

Robbii is a New York based artist with a BFA from Parson School of Design. He was inspired to become an artist by his father who was a commercial artist for over 70 years and taught him the value of good work, and by insight sharing identical twin brother who is a rocket scientist working for NASA.  Robbii has shown at numerous galleries nationally, and has had solo shows at Gallery Juno, NYC and at the Earlville Opera House, Earlville, NY.

Robbii, Measure in C. Mixed media, 12.5 x 8 x 5”

Alexa Williams is a New York City native, based in Red Hook, Brooklyn, with a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She has exhibited extensively in NYC, with solo shows at Gallery Brooklyn, Giacobetti-Paul Gallery, Schaefer Landing, and Greely Square Gallery. She is the recipient of artist residencies and fellowships including from the Vermont Studio Center and The Cooper Union. Post art school, Williams lived in Spain in order to paint near the sea, and developed her “Horizon” series.

Alexa Williams, Suzuki Reaction, 2014. Chalk and graphite on steel and concrete, 18 x 24”

Ward Yoshimoto is a New York based artist with an MFA from Brooklyn College, CUNY. Yoshimoto exhibits his work extensively nationally and internationally with solo shows in California, NYC and Paris, France. He has received several awards and residencies including, the MacDowell Colony, Governors Island, as well as from Brooklyn College and Bard College. He is also a founding member of ICOBA – a conceptual art group exploring institutional critique of the art world active in NYC and Paris, France.

 

Ward Yoshimoto, Drop Everything, 2014. Hardware cloth (metal wire), Krylon, and acrylic, 21.5 x 14 x 2.5”