|
For Immediate Release: "THEM!" Insect Images at Jay Grimm Gallery, Chelsea
The show brings together seven artists who have used imagery of bugs in their work: Jess von der Ahe, Emilie Clark, Tamara Clark, Cor Dera, Shane Hope, Nina Katchadourian and Bill Scanga. In their work for this show, the artists shift scale and employ the visual intensity of the scientific gaze to play on the discomfort that insects cause. By grouping artists that embrace such squeamish subject matter, the impact of objective scientific observation on contemporary art can be seen easily. "THEM!" also hopes to demonstrate the less obvious point that this influence works both ways, that the anthropomorphic manner in which scientists depict and understand the natural world employs the visual strategies perfected by artists.
Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11-6 P.M. and by appointment. Please call the Gallery at 212.564.7662 for images or additional information, or visit our website at www.jaygrimm.com.
|
Jay
Grimm Gallery at 505 West 28th Street, New York, will hold an exhibition
of seven artists from February 15th through March 17 th, 2001. There will
be a reception at the gallery on Thursday, February 15th, from 6-8 P.M.
The
artists come from disparate backgrounds and work in a variety of media.
Jess von der Ahe is better known for her abstract paintings done in blood
and gold leaf. Her piece in "THEM" uses a mounted beetle from
South America, behind which she has painted a background in blood and
gouache. Emilie Clark is painter who uses animal forms as starting points
for her abstractions. She will exhibit watercolors wherein clearly depicted
bugs lose their shapes in washes of color. Tamara Clark, a scientific
illustrator who does work for the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural
History and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, will show
crisply executed watercolors of grasshoppers. Cor Dera, a Dutch artist
who exhibits at P.P.O.W. in New York, rephotographs pre-existing images
of insects which he places on uniform tiles and installs a grid. Shane
Hope is a San Diego-based artist who makes tiny sculptures that are mounted
on electrical plugs. Nina Katchadourian, who is represented by Debs &
Co. in New York will exhibit a piece from her well-known series of photographs
of spider webs. In these works, she has repaired damaged webs with red
thread and photographed the result. Bill Scanga's work juxtaposes a caustic
yet affectionate anthropomorphism with an ostensibly empirical scientific
inquiry. He will show portraits of ants executed as archival ink-jet prints
with round frames. Scanga currently is showing a piece in "Almost
Warm and Fuzzy," at P.S. 1 in Long Island City.