Kleenex Rose
Luis Miguel Bendaña, Camille Blatrix & Matt Paweski, Liz Craft, Allison Katz, Orion Martin, Autumn Ramsey, Em Rooney
May 10 – June 14, 2015
bodega
167 Rivington St. Lower Level East,
New York, NY 10002
Allison Katz
Intimacy, 2015 Hubcap and glazed ceramic 17.75w x 17.75h x 6d in. |
Em Rooney
Casey, Seasons, 2015 Calf hair, digital C-print, styrene, wood 20.5w x 22h in. |
Autumn Ramsey
Christmas Rat, 2013 Oil on canvas 28w x 22h in. |
Liz Craft
Word Bubble (bla, bla, bla), 2015 Ceramic and Aluminum 23w x 27h x 3d in. |
Luis Miguel Bendaña
Cherry, 2015 Enamel on cast bronze 2h x 1w x 1d in. |
Luis Miguel Bendaña
Untitled, 2014 Ballpoint pen on paper 5.5w x 4.25h in. |
Orion Martin
Chean Brinx tres, 2015 Oil on canvas 35.25w x 51.25h in. |
Kleenex Rose, bodega, Installation view |
Kleenex Rose, bodega, Installation view |
Kleenex Rose, bodega, Installation view |
Kleenex Rose, bodega, Installation view |
Kleenex Rose, bodega, Installation view |
Kleenex Rose
The sunlight has ripened further, the peddlers are farther away, the warm produce is more acrid, in the markets of the world, along inexpressibly perfumed boulevards, on shores of seas, at the foot of volcanoes. I rejoice as one rejoices sowing seed with a fervor that mixes irreconcilable substances, magmas without amalgam, when life is April’s lemon and rose.
Luis Miguel Bendaña (b.1988) lives and works in New York, NY and is co-director of Queer Thoughts, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2012. Solo and two person exhibitions include Allen and Eldridge (at James Fuentes), NY (forthcoming), Malraux’s Place, Brooklyn (with Sam Lipp), Important Projects, Oakland and Preteen Gallery, Mexico City. Recent and upcoming group shows include Galerie Éric Hussenot, Paris (forthcoming), Arcadia Missa, London, and Interstate Projects, Brooklyn.
Camille Blatrix (b.1984) is a French sculptor based in Paris. His work has been the subject of several exhibitions, including Gasconade, Milan (2013), Galerie Balice Hertling in Paris (2014), and Sculpture Center in New York (2015). He is the winner of the 16th Ricard Foundation “L’époque, les heures, les valeurs, l’attention” curated by Castillo Corrales. He and Matt Paweski met during his school exchange in Los Angeles in 2009.
Liz Craft (b. 1970) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Recent solo exhibitions include “Big girls”, Truth and Consequences, Geneva, CH, and “Secret Lives of Spiders”, Jenny’s, Los Angeles, CA. Select group exhibitions include “Pot Au Fou” (organized by Amy Yao), Troedsson Villa, Japan; Liz Craft & Pentti Monkkonen, Shoot the Lobster, NY; “Golden State, Moca Tucson,” Tucson, AZ; “Bathymetry,” Del Vaz, Los Angeles, CA; and “New Age,” Nathalie Karg, New York, NY. She is the founder, along with Pentti Monkkonen, of Paradise Garage and Paramount Ranch.
Allison Katz (b. 1980, Montreal, Canada) is currently based in London, UK. She graduated with an MFA from Columbia University, New York in 2008 and a BFA from Concordia University, Montreal in 2002. Her first institutional solo exhibition opens at Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany, in September 2015. Recent solo exhibitions include “Rumours, Echoes,” BFA Boatos, São Paulo and “Adele,” Piper Keys, London (2014). Current and recent group exhibitions this year include No Joke, Tanya Leighton, Berlin; Call and Response, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York; The Violet Crab, David Roberts Art Foundation, London, and Puddle, pothole, portal, SculptureCentre, New York. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Metropolism and Flash Art, in addition to an upcoming cover for CURA Magazine, Italy. Features have been published in Kaleidoscope (2013), Art in America (2014) and BOMB (2015).
Orion Martin (b. 1988) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Solo exhibitions include Bodega, New York (2016, forthcoming), “Short St.” at Favorite Goods, LA (2015), and “Small Paintings” at Important Projects, Oakland, CA (2013). Group exhibitions include “Me and Bejamin,” curated by Jesse Stecklow and Audrey Moyer, Xippas Gallery, Paris, FR; “HaFo SaFo,” curated by Ross Caliendo and Andrew Cannon, 3daysawake Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; “Louie, Louie,” curated by Sam Davis, Human Recourses, Los Angeles, CA; “First Responders,” curated by Zach Smith, Good Work Gallery, New York, NY; “Chillingly Chill,” curated by Santi Vernetti, Sonce Alexander Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; “I Can’t Fuck You Tonight I’m Reading Proust,” curated by Parker Ito and Liv Barrett, Los Angeles, CA; and “Fükengrüven,” Bodega, Philadelphia, PA. He thinks about hair and shoes mostly.
Matt Paweski (b. 1980, Detroit, MI) lives and works in Los Angeles. His sculptures employ lexicons of cabinet- making and functional design braided with an idiosyncratic use of color and appreciation for the sensuality of building materials and processes. A fastidious attention to detail characterizes Paweski’s work – joints and notches are given an almost erotic attention – and his use of color and washes locates his sculptures in a welcomed liminal territory between painting and sculpture, art and design.
Autumn Ramsey’s (b. 1976) work often builds on Western history’s conceptualization of the body as simply one more object among others, part of the physical world, not entirely rational and a source of disruption that needs to be controlled. The resulting social construction of difference has correlations to ideas of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation that Ramsey uses to see not only the role of the image in shaping its situation but also the situation’s role in shaping the image. In her work each painting uses a central form to direct the narrative. In some works the narrative is iconic, using imagery abstracted from cultural and historic sources ranging from ancient Greek mythology to Vaudeville to Japanese prints. In others, Ramsey uses abstraction to reference a very different but ultimately similar lexicon of cultural, historical and philosophical sources. In all the work, Ramsey asks us to look more acutely at the paintings, their associations, and ultimately ourselves. Autumn Ramsey lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. Solo and group exhibitions include: What Pipeline, Detroit, MI; Night Club, Chicago, IL; Autumn Space, Chicago, IL; Actual Size, Los Angeles, CA; Julius Caesar, Chicago, IL; The Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI; Southfirst Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; and Rowley Kennerk Gallery, Chicago, IL.
Em Rooney (b. 1983) is a New York based artist born in Bridgeport, CT. She received her BA from Hampshire College and her MFA from Tyler School of Art. In 2012 she was a participant at Skowhegan. Her forthcoming solo exhibition at the Columbus College of Art and Design is slated for February 2016. Recent solo and two person shows include: Night Paintings, Beverly’s, New York (2014), Flesh and Ground, The Good Press Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland (2013), All Alone, Vox Populi, Philadelphia (2011), and Like Flex / Like Flex with Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, Bodega, Philadelphia (2010).
* All images are courtesy of bodega, and the artists