Exhibitions

Cool & Collected ’19

18 July, 2019 to 7 September, 2019
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10 – 5:30 and by appointment
Posted by Kenise Barnes Fine Art

Location

Kenise Barnes Fine Art
1947 Palmer Avenue, Larchmont
New York, USA

New exhibition July 18 – September 7, 2019
Reception: Thursday evening, July 18, 6:30 – 8:00, public invited
1947 Palmer Avenue, Larchmont, NY 10538

Cool & Collected '19

Mark Bartkiw, Julie Maren, Siobhan McBride, Vicki Sher, Audrey Stone, Kit Warren

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to present Cool & Collected ‘19, the newest iteration of the gallery’s annual summer exhibition. Co-curated by director Kenise Barnes and Lani Holloway, associate director of the Larchmont location, this year’s exhibition features contemporary artwork, painting, photography, sculpture and work on paper in a multitude of media by Mark Bartkiw, Julie Maren, Siobhan McBride, Vicki Sher, Audrey Stone and Kit Warren.

Mark Bartkiw combines multiple photographs to a subtle but surreal effect. Pieced together, the images create fictional tableaus, an alternate, reassembled reality within the slightly skewed spaces. Juxtaposed landscapes from disparate seasons or different parts of the world, shadows separate from their source, and mysterious bursts of light, flame and smoke suspend expectation and defy definition. Bartkiw uses a variety of collage methods, either by building a photographic source or by manipulating images in post-production. Bartkiw’s photographs are amalgams of imagined realms, reflective of inner states and the human psyche.

As a freelance commercial photographer, Bartkiw has worked for Paramount Pictures, Revlon Canada, Universal Music, Virgin Mobile and many others. Since moving from Toronto to rural Ontario, Bartkiw’s focus shifted from commercial to fine art photography. In 2000, he was awarded the Juno Award for Best Album Design – Photographer and earned the Photo Annual Award from Photo District News in 2002. His work has been featured in Domus Web Italy, The Jealous Curator, Forth Magazine and The Photo Society, among others. Bartkiw earned a degree in Photography from Sheridan College in Toronto.

Artist Julie Maren’s meandering wall sculptures are made of hundreds of found acorn caps that Maren has filled with layers of glittering handmade paint, crushed glass or mineral shards. Each cap sits on a copper pin that is installed on the wall in varying depths to create clusters of

biomorphic patterns suggesting organisms and the exuberance of new life. The shadows cast by the sculptural installations are as dynamic as the sculptures themselves, inviting the viewer to take in the work from all angles.

Maren has exhibited work throughout the United States and in Madrid, Spain and Bangalore, India. She earned residencies at Weir Farm Art Center, Wilton, CT, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT, The Valley School, International Sculpture Symposium, Bangalore, India and Tareitanga International Sculpture Symposium, Wellington, New Zealand, among others. Maren earned a BFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder, CO. The artist lives and works in Boulder, CO.Siobhan McBride's paintings present views of a place that is at once intimate and familiar. The artist describes these spaces as airless, quiet with the sound “tamped out”. In her small and image-dense paintings, she endeavors to paint descriptions of weird and quotidian experiences, passages from books, film fragments, things caught in the corner of her eye. The paintings are simultaneously diagrams for understanding events from the past and puzzles to decode experiences to come. The work is strange and suspenseful like the excitement of exploring a new place, and the thrill of drifting back into a frightening dream.

Born in Seoul, South Korea and now based in New York, McBride has earned many prestigious residencies and awards including Sam & Adele Golden Foundation, New Berlin, NY, Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY, Alexander Rustch Award for Painting, Pelham Art Center, Pelham, NY, Viewing Program at The Drawing Center, New York, New York and the Angelo Savelli Award, University of Pennsylvania MFA Award, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. McBride earned a BA in English and Fine Arts from University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from University of Pennsylvania.

Vicki Sher’s drawings celebrate the ubiquitous semicircle, the geometric form embodied in the moon, a bowl, a mountain, an eggshell. The artist works intuitively and intentionally, starting with color or line and proceeding in a dialogue with her material. The artist uses oil pastel on translucent drafting film to describe a multi-layered experience within a pared-down composition. The shapes float, stack together and interact, acting as a symbol and codifier for the continuous activity of everyday life. Sher’s work stems from her interest in still life, domesticity and the poetry of the everyday, revealing the quiet hum of our collective existence.

Vicki Sher’s work has been exhibited throughout the USA and in Switzerland. She is a resident fellow of Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Amherst, VA, and earned an award and summer residency at MacDowell Colony, New York, NY. Sher earned a BFA from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY and an MFA from University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Audrey Stone has spent her lifetime being fascinated with color and line. Her paintings are explorations of these two elements, appearing in thick blocks of color and subtle color gradients. The boundaries between broad and narrow bands of color generate optical vibrations, stimulating visual processes for a viewer as the colors transition and inform an emotional and physical response to the work. Stone’s paintings present a dynamic opposition within graphic blocks of color in a perfect ordered symmetry, a simultaneity of excitement and calm, movement and stillness.

Audrey Stone’s work has been exhibited across the US as well as in Tokyo, Vienna, Prague and Bulgaria. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, W Magazine, Times Union and New York Artist Circle, to name a few. The work is in the collections of Ameritas Foundation in Bulgaria and Credit Suisse among others. Stone earned a BFA from Pratt Institute, New York, NY and an MFA from Hunter College, New York, NY. She resides and works in Brooklyn, NY

Kit Warren's paintings and works on paper explore the weight and significance of intention of a mark, whether it be the deliberate information contained in lines that make up a word or the figurative suggestions contained in horizontal and vertical lines and the circle. The artist uses densely pigmented metallic paints that shimmer against the velvety blackboard-like ground of her work. Warren’s work questions the boundaries of written symbols and sign systems and the meaning when marks dissolve or cohere into significance.

Warren earned residencies and awards from Chateau Orquevaux in Champagne, France, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellowship, Baltimore, MD, The Salstonstall Foundation Fellowship, Ithaca, NY, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA and The Viewing Program, The Drawing Center, New York, NY. Warren completed a Certificate Program in Interactive Media at NYU, New York, NY, earned a BFA from University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA and an MFA from School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

A link to the digital exhibition catalogue for Cool & Collected ’19 can be found on our website KBFA.com.

 Please contact the gallery for images, information or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.

We have a wide selection of paintings, drawings, prints and photographs to offer collectors and maintain an extensive inventory in our two galleries and warehouses.  

In-home or office consultations are complimentary.

Kenise Barnes, director: Kenise@kbfa.com

Lani Holloway, associate director (Larchmont): Lani@kbfa.com

Noelia Abreu, sales and administrative support (Larchmont): Noelia@kbfa.com