Rhombus Space is pleased to present REFLECTION, featuring work by artists Laura Frantz, Barry Gerson, Katherine Keltner, Tom Kotik, Colin O’Con, Elisa Soliven, Albert Weaver, and Brian Wood. As the fourth and final installment of exhibitions in this series of quarterly online shows, REFLECTION is a winter show that offers us work that is contemplative, connects us to our inner worlds, and encourages a sense of thoughtful observation. 

There is a rich sense of wonder and dreaminess in the artworks presented. Reflection manifests itself through shapes and compositions with symmetrical and parallel mirroring and repeating forms; psycho-emotional painterly gestures and intuitive artistic working methods, such as “feeling a painting” come into being; and in subtle color and light play combinations. Each artist in this exhibition offers us an opportunity to transcend the moment that we're in, reflect on our past or imagine distant otherworldly places, and ponder the nature of being. There’s a freshness and clarity in this work that defies the familiar, often employing metaphor and abstraction.

Albert Weaver and Brian Wood look for their paintings to emerge from a vigorous physical working of the surface. Weaver rubs colors on and off of his paintings until he gets a surprising combination that can only be discovered through the process of making. In the same spirit, Wood seeks the image and feels pulled by the internal pre-verbal language of the composition as if carried by its own energy to bring it into being. Both artists give into trusting the process of finding the painting. 

Barry Gerson and Laura Frantz are interested in how light is split and reflected on surfaces, through various materials, creating patterns and movement. Fleeting moments are captured in Gerson’s video artworks. He records and then combines footage in parallel, symmetry, and at angles to create new and unfamiliar poetic visual moving vistas. Frantz investigates how light falls on and through objects, casting shadows and reflections. She’s interested in how vision blurs and slips; and how something new and unexpected emerges from translating a concrete reference into a painted image.

Katherine Keltner and Tom Kotik use hard-edged shapes of contrasting colors to create a push-pull effect with color that is simultaneously defined and fleeting. Keltner explores meditative drawing processes that map out forms and space, and reacts to earlier marks in her paintings with new gestures in a call-and-response way. The culmination is work with a light-touched, balanced, and cohesive visual vocabulary. Kotik is highly influenced by music and sound, and explores the notion of rhythm. He makes works that are a meditation on distinct moments and clear improvisations where colors and shapes interact through a visual vibration that happens with closely valued and distinctly hued color fields.

Elisa Soliven and Colin O’Con work with quirky forms and embrace a funky and fun aesthetic. Soliven builds up the surfaces of her ceramic sculptures with mosaic-like elements and aluminum leaf. She makes simplified human-like forms in both her sculptures and drawings as talismans to convey feelings related to loss, love, and the human experience. O’Con’s recent landscape paintings reflect a feel-good soft-psychedelia that embraces the awe-inspiring color experiences that are sometimes possible in nature. His paintings try to capture a fantastical sensation of the sublime experienced outdoors.  

With 2021 coming to an end, REFLECTION is offered as an exhibition to help center us in quiet, thoughtful moments that connect us to sumptuous materials and colors, meditative processes and compositions, and the wonders of nature and life itself. Please enjoy the experience.

REFLECTION will be featured December 1, 2021 - February 28, 2022. For more information please visit: www.rhombusspace.com and @rhombusspace For inquiries please email: rhombusspace@gmail.com Find more of the artists' work on Instagram:

​@laurakfrantz @barrygerson @katherinekeltner @tomkotik 

@colin_ocon @_e_s_g_ @albertsunjoonweaver @brian_wood_at_nite

 

BOUNTY Exhibition September 1 - November 30, 2021

 

Rhombus Space is pleased to present BOUNTY featuring work by artists, Enrico Gomez, Rachael Gorchov, Adam Novak, Jean Rim, Corrie Slawson, Karla Wozniak, Holly Wong, and Etty Yaniv. 

Emerging from the heightened alertness and sense of worry that accompanied the earlier part of the pandemic, NYC is starting to return to some sort of normal that includes things that feel familiar. There is a hunger for connection and a semblance of life before the pandemic. BOUNTY is a celebration of making it through the hardest part. It is the fall harvest, the fruits of earlier seeds planted. Some artists have developed entirely new bodies of work because of the pandemic, while others have unearthed dormant ones that they were now ready to complete. The artists in this show manifest in themselves the bountifulness that is present in their studio work. They are generous in their other art roles as curators, writers, and educators. There is a giving quality to these artists and to their work. 

Etty Yaniv is an example of someone whose work reflects her nimble ability to balance chaos and order through her multifaceted work as an artist. Yaniv’s thick, nature-inspired mixed media paintings feel sculptural in their effusive layering of paint and other materials like stucco and plastic. Jean Rim’s paintings are also physical. Inspired by the energetic nourishing potential of art, she incorporates crystals and flowers into her work. Inspired by mandalas, chakras, and altars, Rim references nature directly, and at times symbolically by making fish scales-like carved marks on painting surfaces symbolizing the Little Mermaid’s loss for her transition to land, as an analogy to the immigrant experience.

Corrie Slawson makes narrative paintings that depict species gone extinct and those threatened by Climate Change. Contrasting elements of luxury and nature, Slawson integrates silk-screened collage elements to reference and challenge the authority of the European Master’s painting tradition. Karla Wozniak’s work deals with narrative in a more personal way. Reflecting on the major shift of work/personal space that many people experienced during the pandemic, Wozniak makes paintings based on a drawing practice that forms the bases of a personal lexicon of symbols evoking a sense of time passing, memory, and physical transformations.

Rachael Gorchov has been making Zoom drawings during the pandemic that have become, “just out of recognizable range,” sources for her paintings. Gorchov explores the relationship between form and space with color intensity and gestural brushstrokes. In her past work, the viewer moved at unusual angles around sculptures that punctuated the gallery space. Now the figure resides in the literal space of the painting partially and interacts with the floating forms of color. Adam Novak’s recent work explores the figure in motion. The works on view are part of a series that deconstruct and reconstruct the archetype of the runner. In Novak’s works, the figure is both concealed and revealed by bold gestural brushstrokes. Through their work, Novak and Gorchov both challenge the serious solemnity of Abstract Expression .

Erico Gomez’s work is influenced by letterform and graphic design. He started his Cuervo series a few years ago but decided to finish it only now while recuperating from a severe Covid-19 infection. In Spanish, ‘Cuervo’ means ‘crow,’ and Gomez wanted to harness the strength of the creature during his convalescence. In doing so he explored how the crow represents intelligence, trickery, and access to mystic secrets, as well as transformation. Holly Wong creates work to summon protection and celebrate female energy. She uses materials that are simultaneously strong and fragile. Wong makes work that also explores the mythical and mystical. She considers finished work to be connected to eternal energy and life force - and sees her studio practice as a way to find the sacred.

Looking at the artists' work through the lens of expansive, optimistic, and generous expression. BOUNTY is the third in an installment of online exhibitions that connect artists working in different regions of the country. The curatorial concept is to invite 4 artists who in turn invite 4 more artists to make a show of 8 artists, linked in a cultural dialogue about art in our time. In this way, Rhombus Space seeks to find connections between different artists and their work in new ways. 

BOUNTY will be featured September 1 - November 30, 2021. For more information please visit: www.rhombusspace.com and @rhombusspace For inquiries please email: rhombusspace@gmail.com Find more of the artists' work on Instagram:

@enricorichardgomez @rachaelgorchov @adamstephennovak @djinirim @corrieslawson @karla_wozniak @hollywongart @etty.yaniv

INTENSITY Exhibition June 1 - August 31, 2021

Rhombus Space is pleased to present INTENSITY featuring work by artists, Monica Carrier, Sherri Cobb, Dave Dexter, Carlos Dye, Bruce Eichelberger, Don Fritz, Adriana Furlong, and Sam Ticknor. Dealing with the aftermath of the surge of hardships experienced during the pandemic and as the aftershocks, realizations, and ferocity of a shifted realities start to set in, INTENSITY, aims to offer us a way to express all this trauma, displacement, and emotional reckoning. The artists in this exhibition walk the line of acceptable/taboo, hidden/visible, trauma/healing, to find a voice for uncomfortable perspectives that challenge the masking veil of the status quo. 

Looking at the artists' work through the lens of trauma/healing and emotion/resilience, INTENSITY is the second in an installment of Rhombus Space curated online exhibitions that connect artists working in different regions of the country. The curatorial concept is to invite 4 artists who in turn invite 4 more artists, for a showing of 8 artists, to come together in a cultural dialogue about art in our time. Artists are selected for how their work reflects the overall theme of the show.

While the CDC recently announced that vaccinated people can now generally de-mask, it is hard to fathom that areas of Canada are still in total lockdown and countries like India are in an extreme crisis. The work in the show deals with a kind of eruption and expression of intense physical, visual detail, conceptual depth, existential crisis, and emotional resonance. 

Sherri Cobb uses her body to create bold and dynamic action paintings that emphasize strength, speed, and the impermanence of life. Monica Carrier is unabashed in her depiction of bodily vulnerability through the figures in her work by letting ink pool and sinuously guide her image-making towards unexpected and uncontrolled precisions registering the subject’s subjective presence in the world. Scratching away at the surface of consensus-based accounts of history to challenge the ideal of the American Dream, Adriana Furlong uses an array of materials and techniques driven by a conceptual exploration of archives, labor, and migration exploring themes of the Dust Bowl, immigration, and Manifest Destiny. Bruce Eichelberger is unafraid of touching the third rail of controversy by questioning religious authority and patriarchy, through a fixated exercising of personal and social trauma through his detailed and meticulous drawings, paintings, and sculptures.

Living between Mexico and California, Don Fritz plays with high-brow/low-brow imagery mining the depth of cultural views through icons and characters floating through his works to challenge North American (including Mexican) childhood, gender-role, and political expectations piercing society’s skewed veneer of what is considered normal. Dedicated ceramicist, Carlos Dye, works with symbols and humor influenced by the televised violence, drama, and humor of the 1960s and 1970s, juxtaposing tangent story fragments and creating new narratives of the American Experience in his sculptures and ceramic paintings. Painting with trompe l'oeil techniques Dave Dexter goes deeper than the surface of things, examining stereotypes, poking at taboos, and seemingly innocent childhood memorabilia. Diving deep into the heat of self-awareness Sam Ticknor employs humor in her work dealing with the intense isolation brought on by conditions of the recent pandemic by presenting focused familiar domestic scenes as a metaphor for the emotional and psychological space of the viewer. 

These works are presented in the context of art historical precedents which abound with examples of the quality of intensity in art. Most notably, such works include the art of Hieronymous Bosch who painted apocalyptic scenes showing the existential struggle and the sins of ego and vanity. Also Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s famous painting The Blind Leading the Blind, made as a biblical parable and made in response to mass arrests and religious suppression. Horror and death are evident in Francisco Goya’s Black Painting series (ex. Saturn Devouring His Son). Trauma and edges of social acceptance were present in Henry Darger’s work that reflected his own adoption experience and childhood institutionalization. Carroll Dunham’s thick-line cartoon indebted work pushes boundaries of social norms and sexuality. Finally, there is Jackson Pollock’s early work that focused on grand mythological themes and evolved into a powerful corporeal testament of being.

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INTENSITY will be featured June 1 - August 31, 2021. 

http://www.rhombusspace.com/current-intensity.html

For more information please visit: www.rhombusspace.com and @rhombusspace

For inquiries please email: rhombusspace@gmail.com

Monica Carrier @monicacandoit www.monicacarrier.com

Sherri Cobb @sherricobb www.sherricobb.com

Dave Dexter @davedexterartist bit.ly/2RYYfbi

Carlos Dye @carlosdyeceramics www.carlosdye.com

Bruce Eichelberger @bruceeichelbergerart www.bruceeichelbergerart.com

Don Fritz @donfritz www.donfritz.com & www.donfritz.org

Adriana Furlong @adriana.furlong www.adrianafurlong.com

Sam Ticknor @sammytthebrave www.samt.work

GROWTH - Exhibition March 1 - May 31, 2021

GROWTH - Rhombus Space - Exhibition Dates: March 1 - May 31, 2021

Rhombus Space is pleased to present our first online exhibition entitled GROWTH, featuring work by Ward Yoshimoto, K. Tauches, Mel Prest, Damien Olsen, Rhia Hurt, Petra Gupta Valentova, MaDora Frey, and Samanta Batra Mehta. In response to our current world constrained by the realities of the pandemic, Rhombus Space will be celebrating art and the exchange of ideas through a series of online art exhibitions. In GROWTH,  the first of the series, four artists whose work seems to evoke notions of growth were asked to participate and to invite another artist whose work could also be in dialogue with the exhibition’s theme. Each artist is exhibiting two artworks. In contrast to the restrictions that the virus has enacted in our society, GROWTH, sets out to champion the nurturing and expansive aspects of life. All of the artists in this exhibition engage in creative processes that resonate with generative design.

Ward Yoshimoto and Damien Olsen are both sculptors who make work through an additive process. They share a maximal aesthetic that comes together through the assembling of smaller building blocks. Yoshimoto works between assemblage and wire sculpture. He employs humor and social critique that is implied in the narrative content of the work as well as the material metaphor of the objects he selects. Olsen is invested in the assembling of wood and mixed media. His elaborate approach amplifies form and structure through the deliberate formal unifying technique of limiting his color palette.

K. Tauches and MaDora Frey are both interested in how we relate to the natural landscape. Tauches is presenting works from two series; Disappeared Houses, and MTN Top Removals. These works are artistic intervention as a form of imagining nature’s return to the environment.  Frey’s interest in presenting the mysterious, ineffable, and sublime experience in nature, resulting in sculptures that are made in nature after hiking onto location and responding to both the terra firma and flora and the atmospheric qualities of changing light. 

Mel Prest and Rhia Hurt explore additive abstraction in their paintings. Both artists work in a visual language of non-objective abstraction with deliberate mark-making. Prest’s all-over geometric compositions focus on linear patterns that create an energetic optical vibration. Hurt’s paintings are also precise in their selective approach to mark-making, and her forms are ovular and organic. Hurt’s paintings capture unique composite forms that look like unknown flowers and plants. Hurt allows the organic qualities of water and paint pigment to set as the moisture evaporates to create forms and unexpected patterns - finished off with collaged mixed media elements. 

Petra Gupta Valentova and Samanta Batra Mehta investigate ideas of femininity and identity in their work. Gupta Valentova uses embroidery as a drawing tool in her recent cyanotype works. Embroidery is a slow drawing process that links to the craft and labor of women. At times nearly invisible, embroidery emerges over time and connects the line and shape elements in the artist’s work. Batra Mehta's work explores ideas of identity and the interconnectedness of the feminine and nature. Her elaborate garden drawings echo the tradition of detailed miniature painting and botanical illustrations.

Curated by: Katerina Lanfranco

www.rhombusspace.com

http://www.samantabatramehta.com

https://madorafrey.com

https://petravalentova.wordpress.com

http://rhia-hurt.com

http://www.damienolsenarts.com

https://www.melprest.com

http://www.wardyoshimoto.com

http://www.ktauches.com

You're invited! Rhombus Space presents our first annual drawing marathon March 12th

Drop in and draw with us at our first annual drawing marathon on March 12th from 9 AM-9 PM, hosted by Artist-in-Residence Katherine Keltner! 

Free admission. All ages welcome. Materials will be provided, but feel free to bring your own. Check out our fb event page and RSPV here.

See ya there! 

Rhombus Space Welcomes Katherine Keltner as our Artist-in-Residence!

"My art walks a fine line between figuration and abstraction, centering on the body as the expression of identity/who and where I am in the world. I make collage-paintings using objects and images from my immediate surroundings that often seem at first to be insignificant but are too important to throw away, and, in a real way, describe the poignant actuality of everyday life—scraps of paper that I have collected, old drawings, and fragments of photographs. I combine these objects and images in two ways: editing digital images of some of them and printing those compositions on canvas; and attaching others directly to the canvas using thread or adhesive. Lines of thread, ink, and paint on the surface exaggerate the composition and create land or body masses that the viewer can imagine occupying. Parts of each painting are recognizable and parts are masked so that the resulting collaged image looks more map-like than figure-like. In these works, I explore the same method of selective and piecemeal self-definition facilitated by social media and the same obfuscation of the female body that we see in the images all around us, and I grapple with the balance between the desire to be noticed and the desire for privacy. One's own identity is always relative to other factors and histories. The works I create ask the viewer to decide how much of the image is real and how much it even matters; ultimately, we all decide for ourselves where our truth resides."   -- Katherine Keltner

"Retrofit": Exhibition Photos

Carrie Rubinstein at the opening of Retrofit, her immersive solo exhibition at Rhombus Space on September 25th, 2015.