APPLIED MATTER

Robischon Gallery is pleased to present “Applied Matter” featuring new and recent abstraction by gallery artists including Barbara Takenaga (NY), Terry Maker (CO), Omar Chacón (NY), Wendi Harford (CO), Deborah Zlotsky (NY), Marcelyn McNeil (TX), David Fought (CA), Jonathan Parker (NM), Ted Larsen (NM), Derrick Velasquez (CO) and Reed Danziger (CA). The highly complex, cosmological imagery of Takenaga, Danziger and Maker, alongside the formal and material nature of artworks by McNeil, Zlotsky, Chacón, Velasquez, Parker, Larsen and Fought, fully engage through myriad media in large and intimate scale. Surprising applications of oil, acrylic or mixed media on canvas, linen, panel and paper, emphasize the curvilinear as well as the linear while drawing attention through repetition and optical play of both space and surface. Similarly, the artists’ contemplative pursuits transform the commonplace and industrial materials of resin, plaster, vinyl, wood and steel into nuanced and unexpected sculptural works that invite investigation. Within the expansive exhibition, “Applied Matter” highlights the work of eleven distinctive national and regional artists who offer abstraction as a thoughtful means of invention and wonder.

 

Barbara Takenaga

Barbara Takenaga’s complex and mesmerizing abstractions imagine worlds both microscopic and macrocosmic. Her considerable offering of small and large-scale acrylic paintings on linen and panel, showcase the artist’s exquisitely painted details, which animate her visually transportive compositions. Clusters of concentric circles, tiny pearlescent sprays, or luminous structures of nets and fish-scale forms, each unfold and redirect the eye toward the next patterned pathway or shifting iridescent pool. Intuitively drawn to repetition yet responsive to the inevitability of change, Takenaga’s blend of worlds both ancient and contemporary, micro and macro, earthbound and cosmological – are equally guided by an impulse to address the universal. She states, “I’m interested in that shared place where one can hold two seemingly opposing views at the same time, a kind of standing in the middle; that space between naming something and having it be non-verbal.  Clearly, it’s a very old idea that comes up in many philosophies and religions. I like that idea of possibility.” With each complex painting, Takenaga rewards the fully engaged viewer with an entry into their own personal experience - one that is ignited and enhanced by the artist’s distinctive language of contemplative line, dazzling opalescent form and an encompassing experience of movement.  

Barbara Takenaga obtained both her BFA and MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Takenaga’s most recent awards include the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the FOR-SITE Foundation’s Wauson Fellowship, and the Eric Isenburger Annual Art Award from the National Academy Museum. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; Brattleboro Art Museum, VT; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO; National Academy Museum, New York, NY; Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia, PA; the Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV; American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY; and the International Print Center, New York, among others. Takenaga’s recent professional engagements included an extensive solo exhibition at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center in Brattleboro, VT, as well as the first in-depth survey of the artist’s work mounted by the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, MA, and a large-scale commissioned public project in the Neuberger Museum of Art SPACE / 42, New York, NY. She is represented in the permanent collections of The Library of Congress in Washington, DC; The Auckland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, NC; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; CU Art Museum, University of Colorado, Boulder; The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; the Fine Art Program at the Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC, The Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; The San Jose Art Museum, CA; the Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE; Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, NE; Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; and Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, among others.

 

Terry Maker

Terry Maker’s latest drawing and mixed media series, entitled “Field Lines,” invokes both the vastness of the celestial and a kind of cross-cultural or tribal sense of visual form.  Maker’s dynamic explorations into the circular vacillate between the commonplace and the cosmic, utilizing materials ranging from resin inlays to shredded scientific documents.  Composed of fragmented images of deep space, the pigmented paper backgrounds of each mixed media work on view, symbolize both Earth and Heaven, referencing, as the artist states, “the tension of the magnetic pull that exists and the attraction / repulsion of our current cultural climate.”  Whether  reflecting for the artist the oppositional rhythms of the contemporary world, or as a glimpse of Maker’s grand metaphor of the circularity and timelessness of humankind’s inherent pursuit of the infinite, the artist commits to the symbol of the circle as it radiates and stands at the core of her work.

Terry Maker received an MFA from the University of Colorado, an MA in Education from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, and a BA from McMurry University in Abilene, Texas. Her work has been exhibited in many solo museum exhibitions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO; Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO; Museum of Art Fort Collins, Fort Collins, CO; Littleton Museum, Littleton, CO; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and Museum; Arvada Center for the Arts, Arvada, CO; and the Longmont Museum, Longmont, CO, along with exhibitions at the Denver Botanic Gardens, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, and other venues throughout the United States.

 

Omar Chacón

Omar Chacón’s unique process-oriented approach towards painting produces a compelling combination of unexpected texture and depth as the artist’s essential vehicle for the vibrant color of his parallel series or the select monochromatic works currently on view. The artist notes, “My research and interest in the structure of painting throughout time enables me to break down the components of the act, allowing for a physical separation of the material from the canvas. I pour paint, letting it dry into units that become the building blocks or brushstrokes that then migrate onto the canvas.”  Each element acts like an individual brushstroke slowly adding to the aggregated whole. The glossy layered paintings beckon toward discovery and further asks us to consider what part we each singularly contribute to the greater whole. Deeply influenced by Latinx heritage, familial ties, international connections and art history, the artist remarks, “I liken my works to a social gathering, a global nation comprised of a diverse blend of culturally different peoples, living amongst each other with a sense of unity, yet maintaining individuality; each unit, each drip is unique. Though greatly absorbed with art-historical reference, at its core my work deals with subjects that shine from my heart; baroque in thought, fruitful in being and orgiastic in beauty.”

Born in Bogota, Colombia, Omar Chacón received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, CA, and his BFA from the Ringling School of Art and Design, FL. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in cities such as Los Angeles, Milan, San Francisco, New York City, and Mexico City. Chacón has participated in exhibitions at the Children’s Museum of the Arts in New York, NY, and the Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, AL. In 2009, Chacón was selected as part of the Queens International Four at the 2009 Biennial at the Queens Museum of Art, New York. Chacón received a public commission from the NYU Langone Art Program and Collection in 2017. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2007 William and Dorothy Yeck Award through the Miami University National Young Painters Competition and the 2008 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. His paintings have been reviewed in Art & Antiques, Artnet, Art in America, and Artweek Magazine, among other publications.

 

Wendi Harford

Wendi Harford’s investigation into palette and scale characterizes the artist’s personal vocabulary within abstraction. Harford creates mesmerizing results by coaxing and allowing gravity to take hold with each unique piece in her “Drip” painting series. Reminiscent, at first, glance, of Color Field painters  Harford rejects the hard-edged precision of such antecedents to investigate what is least easily controlled, the speed at which each drip falls in her process and the distillation of paint as one color slips over another; each flowing edge abutting a different color to ignite a charged perceptual visual experience. Regarding her work and this current moment, Harford eloquently reflects on the idea of adaptation: “I have gained a new appreciation for the making of these paintings. The nature of the material itself, making its way without any intervention. The repetitive, almost ritualistic process has become more of a meditative experience. I am fortunate to be able to experience that.”

A BFA graduate of the University of Denver, Wendi Harford also attended the Parson’s School of Design and the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Her paintings have frequently been included in exhibitions at the Arvada Center for Arts and Humanities, Arvada, CO; Carbondale Center for the Arts, Carbondale, CO; Denver International Airport and Republic Plaza, Denver, CO; and most notably, her work was included in the Metropolitan State University’s Center for Visual Art’s important exhibition entitled “Colorado Women in Abstraction” which coincided with Denver Art Museum’s groundbreaking “Women of Abstract Expressionism” exhibition. 

 

Deborah Zlotsky

Deborah Zlotsky integrates overt geometric forms and improvisational or illusionistic elements within her vocabulary to produce unexpected puzzle-like compositions that captivate both the eye and the mind.  Expanding on the means behind her vivid abstractions, the artist offers: “These initial colors and shapes start a process of discovering unintended proximities and relationships, of finding logic and meaning in the unique situation that emerges. For me, beauty is bound up with accumulation and time and the realization of the necessity of change. The first marks and shapes are catalysts for a process that requires me to constantly reevaluate.” Zlotsky's boldly painted geometric forms display planes of bright, interconnected color; vibrant and immediate, structured and contained – often with an element of humor or tromp l’oeil depth. Contrasted with her gesturally rendered charcoal drawings, similarities between her distinct handling of materials emerges. The large, gestural works on paper are made over a substrate of previous Zlotsky drawings that have been power-sanded down to form a drawn pentimento of sorts to be rebuilt upon with new drawings. Created over an uneven surface, holes, bumps, patterns and grooves become part of the composition. When considering Deborah Zlotsky’s multiple techniques, the continuity is actually an evolution of shifting opposites; a sense of history and change reflected in line and form.

Deborah Zlotsky received her MFA from the University of Connecticut, and her BA from Yale University. A 2019 recipient of a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts, and the Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship, two time New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Artists’ Fellowship in Painting, First Place Award, SACI International Art Competition, Studio Art Center International (SACI), Florence, Italy, Juror’s Award, Mohawk Hudson Regional, and The Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY juried by Stephen Westfall, are among many prestigious recognitions that Zlotsky has received throughout her career. Zlotsky’s work has been exhibited in a multitude of solo and group exhibitions including the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME; Providence College, Providence, RI; Studio Art Center International, Florence, Italy; and Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Warne, IN, among others. Her work is housed in the permanent public collections of Rutgers University, NJ; Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, Istanbul, Waldorf Astoria, NY; New York Palace Hotel, NY; William Benton Museum of Art, Storrs, CT; Albany Institute of History and Art; RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design; Polsinelli Collection; University of Iowa Health Center; Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Loomis Chaffee School, Windsor, CT; University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA; Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, IA; Nebraska-Wesleyan University, Lincoln, NE; Southwest Texas State University, and Eastern Oregon State University.

 

Marcelyn McNeil

Marcelyn McNeil’s paintings are often defined by an animated spontaneity which offers a compelling tension between formal and informal approaches towards abstraction. Prompted by the idea of adaptation, no two paintings are approached with the same painting techniques or with repeating imagery. McNeil eloquently describes her stance and process which in this case, uses a variety of stitched together linen, canvas and burlap for her new works on view, “As a painter, I conflate modes of abstraction from hard-edge form to thinly veiled stains. My experimental approach to making merges improvisation, intuition and control.” Her dynamic and contemplative paintings are a personal response to today's fast-paced, chaotic age. McNeil further notes, "I think a life of varied experience is evident in my work. The paintings, while materially invested, can suggest sculptural ideas about mass. The work has been described as both 'lyrical and muscular,' which is reflective of my personal history and how I make sense of and move through the world."

Marcelyn McNeil has an M.F.A. from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a B.F.A. from Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR. Her work has been shown widely across the United States including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, and Dallas, among others. A recipient of A Zeta Orionis Fellowship, a Vermont Studio Center Residency, a 100 W Corsicana Residency, Corsicana, TX, as well as a Milton and Sally Avery Fellowship at MacDowell Colony, Petersborough, NH. Additionally, McNeil has been a Sharps-Walentas Studio Program Fellow, Visual Artist of the Year at the Decorative Arts Center, Houston, TX and a Hunting Art Prize finalist multiple times, awarded a CAAP Grant, The City of Chicago, Department of Cultural Affairs, a fellowship from The University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, and the Purchase Award, The Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR as well as being a repeat artist in New American Paintings (Western Edition). McNeil has also been included in exhibitions at the San Antonio Art Museum, Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX; and the Galveston Art Center, Galveston, TX; among others.

 

David Fought

In his first showing at Robischon Gallery, David Fought presents his intriguing geometric sculptures of common wire coat hangers and construction-grade plaster. Quietly emotive in their graceful form and elemental materiality, Fought describes his process saying, “Metal coat hangers are burned red-hot, cooled and hammered into straight rods, then re-bent into various flat shapes. When two flat shapes, say a triangle or a square, are intersected, three-dimensional negative spaces are created, then plaster is used to fill some of the negative spaces to emphasize mass. For me, the tarnished, blackened and patinaed metal rods and flawed, blemished plaster with random oxidation stains evokes imperfection, aging and impermanence.” In a synergy between the object and its context within space, Fought notes, “These works offer an engagement with the physical world finding objecthood in the way color often locates emotion.”

David Fought received an MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts, San Francisco, CA, and a BA from the New College of California, San Francisco, CA. Previously an affiliate artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA, his work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States including solo and group exhibitions in California, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Oregon among others. Fought has been included in international group exhibitions in Japan and Mexico as well as exhibitions at the Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA; the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA; Rocky Mount Arts Center, Rocky Mount, NC; and the Western Colorado Center for the Arts, Grand Junction, CO, among others.

 

Jonathan Parker

Jonathan Parker’s uniquely conceived “sewn paintings” showcase the artist’s organic approach towards abstraction through his intuitive hand and a distinct choice of raw canvas. The artist’s painted, cut and sewn canvas works are created from an organic-abstract-geometric stance, and manifest the artist’s hand in every stitch akin to a brushstroke. Parker’s compositions hold within them an uncommon combination of rich material-based texture and strong dynamic graphics. In discussing the nature of his series of sewn canvases, Parker explains how he “repeats or elaborates using a loose, invented visual vocabulary of forms,” trusting his “subconscious to guide these repetitions and elaborations so that the forms evolve into variations.” Composed thread by thread, each composition is slowly revealed, like the discovery of a drawn mark which is visible on the verso of every work or inviting the viewer to follow each stitch of the pieced together canvas elements, sewn like a patchwork. Parker states, “I feel these small pieces rely on the material to make them shine - often the beat up or marked canvas and the raw or rough feeling they produce. That is not to discount my shapes, which can be rather minimal or a little more complicated, depending on where the work takes me.  My pieces include elements of drawing, painting and more provisional approaches like mending and appliqué,” which fit firmly within the artist’s abstract vernacular.

Jonathan Parker’s work is in the permanent collection of the Oakland Museum of California, CA, and in multiple private and corporate collections including the David & Lucile Packard Foundation and Kaiser Foundation. Parker has been recognized with numerous honors including a Painting Residency and Painting Fellowship at Djerassi Residency Artists Program in Woodside, CA, an Artist Residency at the Kala Institute (Printmaking), Berkeley, CA; Painting Residency, Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL; Painting Residency, Blue Mountain Center, Blue Mountain Lake, NY; Affiliate Artist Program, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; a painting residency/fellowship at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY and a San Francisco Bay Regional Painting Fellowship, Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco, CA. His work has also been featured in the Pacific Coast edition of New American Paintings. Parker’s work has been exhibited nationally throughout California, Washington, New Mexico, New Jersey, Colorado, Texas, Maryland, and New York along, with a solo exhibition in Berlin, Germany. Parker was recently featured in an extensive group exhibition at the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM, and the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA.

 

Ted Larsen

Ted Larsen’s sculptures take their shape though the artist’s signature manipulation of metal to create multiple fastened box forms joined in intimate scale. With his characteristic sophisticated stance and strong tendency toward the ironic, Larsen’s use of geometry in his work is typically in dialogue with revered tenets of art history including the movements of Geometric Abstraction, Minimalism, Op Art or Constructivism and is ultimately located between the abstract and reductive. The individually constructed elements of the sculptures – repurposed steel that is sun-faded, pigment-chipped, scratched or rusted from the original life of the object – are then bricolaged; stacked or leaned and joined to form each piece. These matchbox-sized elements of the artist’s Buddha-form series are revelatory and offer an experience of a latent sentience within the work, and though not initially intended, may serve as a glimpse into the psychological, a step further than in Larsen’s other series. Of this diminutive work, Larsen states, “In a sense, this is the most didactic body of work I have yet to create.  It has a message, one which will hopefully be interpreted with humor, joy, and optimism.”

Ted Larsen graduated magna cum laude with a BA from Northern Arizona University and is a recipient of the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant Award, the Artist Stipend Award, Wichita Falls Art Council, Texas, Surdna Foundation Education Travel Grant, New York, United States Representative to the Asilah Arts Festival, Morocco Representative and the Edward Albee Foundation Residency Fellowship among others. His work has been exhibited in solo shows at the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM; Albuquerque Museum; Amarillo Museum of Art, TX; Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO; Northern Arizona University Museum, Flagstaff, AZ, along with exhibitions at art centers and gallery venues across the U.S. and internationally. Larsen’s work is in the collections of the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM, the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, the Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California, The Edward F. Albee Foundation, Procter & Gamble, Fidelity Investments, National Broadcasting Company, The Bolivian Consulate, Reader’s Digest, PepsiCo, The University of Miami, Krasl Art Center, Dreyfus Funds, JP Morgan Chase, Forbes, and Pioneer Hi-Bred, Inc.

 

Derrick Velasquez

Multi-disciplinary artist Derrick Velasquez describes the mindset and conceptual framework behind his signature series of dynamic vinyl and wood wall sculptures, as well as his broader body of work by stating, “I have always dealt with physical and metaphorical ideas of structure - how one object or entity is or is not held together by another. I like to take commonplace materials and use forces that are natural, like gravity - or forced pressures like bending something until it breaks. For me, this exploration of specific materials comes from a position of our physical and psychological relationships.” In consideration of the tactile and corporeal qualities of the materials he works with, the artist compares his process of layering vinyl over wooden armatures to the human form as “the way that skin lays over muscle...the way our bodies relax in a state of repose.” Regarding his completed works the artist notes, “They are very physical, both visually and in actual weight, but they also have a sense of ‘float’ to them.”

Derrick Velasquez received an MFA from Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, and a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, CA. His awards and residencies include a prestigious Joan Mitchell Award in Painting and Sculpture, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, William and Dorothy Yeck Young Sculptors Competition Purchase Award, Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum Artist Fellowship, Colorado Creative Industries Career Advancement Award, Vertigo Art Space Artist Residency (as Stapleford Collective), Denver, CO, Redline Artist Residency – Denver, CO from 2010-2012, Juror’s Pick: Tricia Robson – Icebreaker 2.0, Ice Cube Gallery, Denver, CO 2011, Best In Show – Boxcar Gallery Annual Juried Show and the Fergus Family Material Award – The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. Velasquez has exhibited in solo and group museum exhibitions as well as numerous university galleries, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO; the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM; the Frame Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, PA; Hiestand Gallery, Miami University, Oxford, OH; Vicki Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, Denver, CO; Curfman Gallery, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO; Hopkins Hall Gallery, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; along with Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum based out of Denver, CO. His work is represented in select private and corporate collections such as Fidelity Investments; Miami University, Oxford, OH; Dikeou Collection, Denver, CO; and the Colorado Convention Center, among others. Velasquez is a founding member of Tank Studios and Tilt West, both based out of Denver, CO.

 

Reed Danziger

With densely interconnected geometries, linear marks and underlying organic passages, Reed Danziger’s compositionally complex paintings on paper and panel coalesce into individual universes – each with its own distinct gravitational force. Visually unfolding and converging simultaneously, the artist’s two-dimensional work meshes traditional materials like oil, gouache, ink and graphite with printmaking techniques into a delicate, yet momentous interweaving. Danziger’s intimately textured abstractions reside on the threshold of unpredictability; extravagantly painted yet seemingly capturing a singular moment. The artist states, “I think of this work as representing imagined narratives of events which are in the process of occurring: a build-up of pressure, a breaking point, or a point of impact. My intent in capturing these moments is to also release the drawing’s need to conform to any linear depiction of time, or to follow true spatial perspectives. I am interested in creating a space in which events seem to occur simultaneously, both above or below or in front of or behind one another. These narratives allow me to explore and make sense of the unexpected, and to express my interest in trying to understand the intangible”

Reed Danziger received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She exhibits widely in California and has had solo and group exhibitions in New York, Boston, and Switzerland as well as group exhibitions at Sonoma State University, Sonoma CA; Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA; Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee, FL; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA and Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA. Danziger has work in the permanent collections of the Ulrich Museum at Wichita State University and the Los Angeles-based Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation.