This group exhibition at the IW Gallery brings together a wide array of artists, visions, and mediums. Each of the eighteen artists in the show is connected in some way, whether it be from Pratt Institute, they are former international students who have decided to stay and continue making work, all the way to friends and former classmates. This grouping is an eclectic amalgam of stories and inspirations that diverge in their own ways and reconverge to create new conversations. Many of the artists in this exhibition use their work to embody their stories, memories, and histories. Pieces of their lineages, carrying across various places to join together in one location starting an ever expanding dialogue with each other.
Yedda Ye’s sculptures hold historical and cultural references to the traditions of footbinding and reference the forms of Scholar’s Rocks. These ceramics also tell a story through their forms. Ye’s pieces reveal to viewers how ideals of beauty can be viewed, questioning what is beautiful, and the enduring impact of distorted reverence of that beauty. Herok also uses forms and vessels within his paintings to house memories, histories, and carry with them expanding forms with which to hold them all.
Eric Geithner and Siha Park use abstraction to focus on forms as entities. Using both color and linework on canvas to contain the forms they build on the surface, each artist captures the essence of emotion and existence. The empty space in between also becomes an important aspect to the works, with the idea of presence through absence. The forms can grow and adapt to the viewer’s experiences, as they look closely at the surfaces of the canvas, but they can also be freeform and grow as the artists’ story emerges.
Yerang Moon’s ceramic sculptures and the wall work of Wei Yuan both capture the essence of a presence as well. While the wall work is an actual latex cast of the artist’s body, Moon’s ceramics become vessels for which emotions and experiences are held. In reconstructing the human form, both artists allow the opportunity for viewers to question the human form and consider the space that it exists within, because that is where what makes us human comes from. The space holding experiences, observations, explorations, failures and triumphs becomes very important, as it is that space, full of everything in between, that makes us also human.
Works such as Open Weave No 1 and No. 4, from Nazli Efe, Untitled textile works from Elizabeth Hackenberg, or You Know What You Had To Do from Susan Luss each use space, surface, form, and artist interventions to show presence. With Luss using rust and dye to record time, the artist’s intervention becomes important, like Hackenberg choosing pieces for the wall sculpture, the artist’s process and hand in the creation of the work becomes a crucial aspect to the existence of the piece. While Nazli Efe’s Open Weave pieces offer a series of textures and layers that we must look through and excavate to uncover the meaning. Efe wove these abstract shapes and forms together to create this new entity; one that welcomes us to look inside, but one that we cannot fully see either.
The connections in this exhibition are vast. While the artworks diverge onto their own paths, they still converge in similar aspects later on. Avery Schuster and Rodrigo Tafur both use color and layers to build up forms on the canvas to create illusions of environments. While Greta Schneider and Zakariya Abdul- Qadir take items from an environment and use the idea of images and text to express their inspirations and explorations on how transitory language can be.
This is only a few highlights on the interwoven layers of meaning that this show offers. Getting to see all of these different views of making and the artists’ various experiences are electric. This group has so much to say, and this show is definitely worth the time to join the conversation. Lineage and Latitudes is a constellation of distinct practices, however, each is tethered by a shared origin. So what begins in one place also extends outward.
What is learned from one, is transformed by another, and both the artists and viewers can join in on the transformations.
All images provided by Taylor Bielecki
Lineage and Latitude at IW Gallery, May 24 – July 26th, 630 Flushing Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, Open Tuesdays 1-6 pm or by appointment, , @iwgallery
Curated by: Vida Sabbaghi
Featured Artists: Aileen Schretzmayer, Avery Shuster, Claire Heidinger, Elizabeth Hackenberg, Eric Geithner, Greta Schneider, Herok, Hyun Sun Ohm, Monique Kevita Edwards, Nazli Efe, Rodrigo Tafur, Siha Park, Susan Luss,,Wei Yuan, Yedda Ye, Yeon Jong Jeong, Yerang Moon, and Zakariya Abdul-Qadir
About the Writer: Taylor Bielecki lives in Gowanus, where her studio is, and works at Pratt Institute, where she earned her MFA, she also studied at Penn State, where she earned a BA in English and a BFA in Fine Arts. She finished as a finalist in the Kennedy Center’s VSA National Emerging Young Artist program for 2017; where she earned an award of Excellence. She has shown prints internationally in a print exchange in Australia and exhibitions in Dubai, India and the Glasgow School of Art. She has also shown paintings internationally in Gallery 24N, PhilaMOCA’s juried exhibitions in Philadelphia, Pa., Perry Lawson Fine Art in Nyack, NY, BWAC in Red Hook, and Greenpoint Gallery in Brooklyn. Taylor has joined Art Spiel as a contributing writer.
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