| "Walking a Line" by Nancy Cohen and "Soundings," a group show |
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Kathryn Markel Fine Arts is pleased to present:
Walking a Line
Nancy Cohen
Soundings: Curated by Nancy Cohen
Dale Emmart, Cristina de Gennaro, Reeva Potoff, and Barbara Zucker
February 17 - March 26, 2022
Join us for an opening reception Saturday, February 19, from 3-6pm |
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Kathryn Markel Fine Arts is thrilled to announce an exhibition of new glass sculpture and works on/of paper by Nancy Cohen. This marks the artist’s third solo exhibition in the gallery.
Cohen works concurrently in two media. She creates organic sculptural forms from pieces of glass and she creates drawings on hand-made paper using pigmented paper pulp as the drawing medium. These two ways of working are closely related both formally and conceptually. Both the paper pulp and the sculpted glass function as the substrate for drawing lines and both mediums are the physical embodiment of the essential thread that unites all of Cohen’s work– the relation between fragility and strength. Paper and glass both walk the line between strong and fragile, and Cohen is interested in pushing both mediums to the limit.
Line is the dominant formal element on all works in this exhibition. Both Sculpture and paper are covered with lines that both unite and divide, define or obscure. As Cohen says about the line:
“There is a fine fragile line between existence and its opposite, a line we all walk and which the small and large environments that contain us walk as well. Environmental and personal vulnerability has been a longstanding focus in my work. Waterways, in particular, with their almost human balance of fragility and strength, their perseverance through adversity—much of it inflicted by us—trace lines of stress and hope through our landscapes—as well as a strong line through the body of my work.”
Finally, the line between existence and its opposite has been sharpened for all of us in recent years with the climate crisis and, more recently, the Covid pandemic. At the same time, the line between our individual fragilities and those of the collective and the planet have been blurred. Individually, we have often been isolated—themes of escape and flight, literal and imagined, figure heavily in work I’ve produced in the pandemic period—but our fragile bodies and our fragile environment are inextricably linked. More than ever, we walk the line together.”
Nancy Cohen has exhibited throughout the United States, including at the Garrison Art Center, the Hunterdon Art Museum, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and the Jersey City Museum and New Jersey State Museum. Her work is in the collections of Citibank, Howard University, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Montclair Art Museum, and the Yale University Museum.
Learn more and view "Walking a Line" online here. |
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Kathryn Markel Fine Arts is pleased to announce "Soundings," an exhibition curated by Nancy Cohen with work by Cristina De Gennaro, Dale Emmart, Reeva Potoff, And Barbara Zucker. Cohen has written about the concept behind the exhibition and about each artist below.
Sounding: To make a sounding is to dip a string into water to measure its depth, to understand it in a way that would otherwise not be obvious. For a researcher, it provides information needed before the work can proceed.
The artists in "Soundings" make work that is visually engaging and beautiful, much of it initially communicating in the language of abstraction. But as the viewer digs deeper into the work, looking more carefully, letting questions bubble to the surface, reading the titles -- a greater complexity and layered meaning reveals itself. You can begin to see how the course of action unfolds.
The artists in this show make work that involves research into nature, culture, science, and the body. Through their individual investigations they have developed personal and unpredictable visual languages to express their findings.
Cristina de Gennaro considers the sublime through decay and regeneration. Her landscape drawings closely study the flora that comprise the desert and forest floors, exploring tensions between pattern and complexity, beauty, and chaos.
Dale Emmart studies our atmosphere. Her works on paper reference urban exhaust, industrial fumes, and smoke generated by city environments, suggesting complications of industry and climate. The edge between description and abstraction is her primary motivation.
Beginning several years ago with mold accidentally grown in a coffee cup in her studio, Reeva Potoff has been focusing on microbial activity, photographing, and developing that initial growth into complex digital prints that belie their origins. Scroll-like prints are incorporated into visceral installation-based work speaking about the transient nature of life.
“Nose Job” and “Liposuction Buttocks” are two sculptures’ from “For Beauty’s Sake” Barbara Zucker’s 1994 Artist’s Space exhibition examining cosmetic surgery. With her characteristic deadpan humor, fierce wit, and impeccable precision this work will make you laugh while you wince in emotional and physical pain at the same time.
Learn more and view "Soundings" online here. |
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Chelsea:
Tuesday-Friday 10am-6pm
Saturday 11am-6pm
529 West 20th Street, Suite 6W
212.366.5368 |
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Bridgehampton:
Saturday & Sunday 11am-5pm
2418 Montauk Highway
917.653.4861 |
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