Hannah Barrett | Linda Gallagher | Becky Kinder | Summer Wheat
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, June 29th, 7-10pm
In the second iteration of FOUR PAINTINGS, Regina Rex presents one painting each from four New York City-based artists: Hannah Barrett, Linda Gallagher, Becky Kinder and Summer Wheat. Through careful observation and rigorous attention to subject matter—portraiture, still life, figure model drawing, action painting and photography/cinema as source material—these paintings refute notions of objectification by demanding the active presence of a viewer standing in the room. The scale of each painting demands the use of the entire body. As such, the viewer is made aware of their own body in relation to the painting. Like performers on a theater stage, the paintings in the exhibition seem to be actively looking out, aware that they’re being looked at and matching the gaze of any spectator. Some portray a private moment that would seem exhibitionist or provocative, but the color, actions and material qualities of the paint steal the scene and become the object of focus. The convergence of these four works is like a fictional cocktail party where the four guests, previously strangers, divulge intimate details of their past into the wee hours, exchanging stories of their own making.
Hannah Barrett has spent a decade developing and exhibiting an oeuvre of androgynous portraiture. Always invented, these personages invite the viewer to enter the space of the canvas with their own interpretation of dress, hair and accessories. Hannah holds an MFA from Boston University, a BA from Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, and has studied at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna as well as at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has had several solo exhibitions in New York and Boston, most recently at Stephen Stoyanov, NY, in 2012, and has been included in group exhibitions such as Twisted Sisters at Dodge Gallery, NY, in 2012, and Body of Work at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, in 2010. She is an Artadia Fund Award recipient (2007) and currently teaches at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn as well as the School of the Museum School, Boston.
In the act of painting, Linda Gallagher navigates the world as seen through publicly shared imagery, creating fantastical mash-ups of cinema, landscape, still life and pattern. Her work in this exhibition, Selma, 2009, synthesizes her experience of viewing Lars Von Trier’s film Dancer in the Dark, 2000. The color and mark making on the big screen of the canvas convey a foreboding chill related to the action isolated in the frame within the frame. She received a B.F.A. from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, in 2001, and an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2004. Linda’s work has been featured in group shows in NY, most recently in Narrative Ability at Camel Art Space in Brooklyn.
Becky Kinder’s paintings begin as drawings from life, working with real couples over long periods of time. The later act of painting and abstracting allows for generalization and improvisation and the resulting ambiguity opens up multiple interpretations and reflections. Through this method of working with models, she is able to see herself in the painting; the canvas becomes a sort of mirror. Becky has shown in group exhibitions at 92Y TriBeCa and Sugar in Brooklyn in 2012 and was included in the show Curated by Daniel Hesidence at Tracy Williams Gallery in 2010. She holds a BA (1998) from Columbia College, Chicago, an MFA (2001) from Hunter College, CUNY and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2004.
Summer Wheat makes both large and small paintings that push material play and action painting into the arena of figurative and narrative pictures. Her work Scratchpad, 2010—with the humility of a provocateur unable to provoke—shows a female figure leisurely and unselfconsciously scratching her genitals. The spread eagle composition intimates a taboo, but the stripes on the socks and the luscious paint squiggles that compose the hair and head is far more spectacular. Summer recently had a solo show at the Cress Galleries at the University of Tennesse, Chattanooga, and has been included in multiple group shows nationally and internationally, most notably at the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA, Thierry Goldberg, NY and Samsøn Projects, Boston. Summer is represented by Samsøn Projects.
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