Viewing entries in
2008

November 2008

November 2008

Jonathan B. French + Michael Dax Iacovone + Anne Chan

Hamiltonian Gallery and Hamiltonian Artists proudly present the works of photographers Jona- than B. French, Michael Dax Iacovone and Anne Chan. Through process and subject matter, each artist uniquely investigates relationships between themselves and their environment via the thread of disloca- tion and reconnection.

In his latest photographic installation, Jonathan B. French brings into focus the relationships be- tween dislocated Africans in the Americas and their brothers and sisters throughout the rest of the world. French oods the viewer with faces from his travels around the world, and through his documentary-style photography, the viewer gets glimpses into each one of their stories. French wants to bring these “Family Pictures” of Africans in the Americas to their extended family in the United States so that they may be reconnected culturally after so many years of displacement. This body of works points out that we all do share the same struggles, priorities and needs. In turn, he hopes that we choose to further explore the cultural diversity of these communities and embrace our commonalities.

Anne Chan creates a pristinely constructed world of her own, full of long, sleek boardroom tables and skyscrapers devoid of its usual inhabitants, but is actually far too familiar for many. By implementing corporate culture’s most common product – the staple - Chan creates tiny dioramas. Through the use of scale and lighting, Chan shifts the attention away from the hidden labor involved in their production, and to the critique of cubicle farm-life and its monotonous, in exible, contrived hierarchy full of disen- gaged drones.

Overlapping image upon image in his panoramic photographs, Michael Dax Iacovone creates ethereal, episodic landscapes of Washington, DC. In using a simple process and mathematics, Ia- covone developed a unique method based on spatial dislocation that casts off traditional documenta- ry photography techniques that are generally focused on composition. Instead, through his calculated shooting sequence, which utilizes a simple plastic Holga camera and a chest-level shooting style, Ia- covone allows the images to compose themselves and the single roll of lm reconnect back into a visu- al diary of his journey and becomes a singular representation of the spaces that he traveled through. 

click here to download a copy of the press release

November 8 – December 6, 2008

Opening Reception:
Saturday, November 8
7–10 pm

Artist Talk:
Tuesday, November 18
7pm

Hamiltonian Artists:
Michael Dax Iacovone
Anne Chan

Guest Artist:
Jonathan B. French

October 2008

October 2008

Nao Matsumoto + Bryan Rojsuontikul + Ian MacLean Davis

Please join us Saturday October 11 from 7-10pm for the openeing of an exhibition of new works by Nao Matsumoto, Bryan Rojsuontikul, and Ian MacLean Davis. Music by DJ Gavin Holland.

click here to download a copy of the press release.

October 11- November 2, 2008

Opening Reception:
Saturday, October 11
7–10pm

Hamiltonian Artists:
Ian MacLean Davis
Bryan Rojsuotikul

Guest Artists:
Nao Matsumoto

January 2009

January 2009

Mark Cameron Boyd + Christian Benefiel + Leah Frankel

 Hamiltonian Gallery and Hamiltonian Artists are proud to announce the opening of their fourth exhibition featuring the work of Mark Cameron Boyd, Christian Benefiel and Leah Frankel. Using archetypal objects, commonly used in their own practices, each artist manipulates, strips, cleaves, shrouds and sheathes their source material into new forms yet diametrically preserves its essence.

In “Theories and Documents,” Mark Cameron Boyd paints his own sentences as the subjects of his visual works, and through this practice, Boyd investigates text as a language for painting. Boyd’s art making process is directly apprised from his teaching and reading of art theory texts. In Boyd’s latest series, “Documents and Theories,” he creates numerous 4 x 6” blackboard panels on which drawn notecards are copied verbatim from his teachings of contemporary art theory, then, bisected. Also included in this body of work are large interactive panels that engage the viewer to read, decipher and literally complete the meaning of the text.

Drawn to construction or demolition objects, such as welding rods and chain-saw chains, that distinctly carr an air of strength and power, yet are disposable, Christian Benefiel disunites these objects from their working ensemble and preserves them in iron or paper. The natural chemical processes that render these objects useless in the first place, have, in turn, preserved them from their destruction. In his mélange of sculptural works, Benefiel has constructed a bread market, although the bread is iron-casted. In this installation, Benefiel uses two universal staples of culture – bread and iron – and demonstrates that both commodities share the same qualities of market-driven consumption.

Leah Frankel deliberates over the functionality of language in this quickly amalgamating world. Employing hundreds of books written in many different languages, Frankel transforms these pages and shells of the books into a visual imagery that, in her eyes, is far more expressive than the bounds of language would ever allow. Ripping out page after page – releasing them from their “binds” – then manipulating them in wax, Frankel authors a new contextual environment of organic, repetitive forms that are born from the text that she now deems secondary.

click here to download a copy of the press release

January 31 – March 14, 2008

Opening Reception:
Saturday, January 31
7–9 pm

Hamiltonian Artists:
Christian Benefiel
Leah Frankel

Guest Artist:
Mark Cameron Boyd

December 2008

December 2008

JAMES RIECK  + LINDA HESH + YOUNGMI ORGAN

Hamiltonian Gallery and Hamiltonian Artists are proud to announce the opening of a three person exhibition featuring James Rieck’s newest series of larger-than-life oil paintings, Linda Hesh’s photographic works documenting recent installations and products used in them, and Youngmi Organ’s delicate drawings constructed from individual strands of her own hair. Including both bold moments and subtleties, each artist presents an idiosyncratic viewpoint on our material world.

In James Rieck’s “Great Ideas for the Great-Outdoors”, Rieck muses on the commercial products that a suburban man uses to interact with nature. Continuing to use inspiration from vintage catalog photography in his work, Rieck names this series after the 1970’s Sears catalog titled “Catalog of Great Ideas for the ‘Great-Outdoors’ Season.” The largest painting, serving as the focal point of the series and sourced directly from a 2008 Nissan Pathfinder advertisement, is, rightly titled, “Pathfinder” which depicts the bottom halves of the four tires of a Nissan Pathfinder sitting atop a misty waterfall. Five accompanying paintings each present a pedestrian product that Americans bring into the natural world everyday. With their studio-lit backgrounds, Rieck captures the stark coldness that these accoutrements possess, especially when compared with the richness of our natural world.

Linda Hesh is interested in the varied human interactions and relationships she observes, often combining everyday encountered social constructs, commercial products and public locations in her work. In projects “For and Against Benches” and “Desolation Doorknob Hangers”, Hesh has common commercial products constructed, on which uncommonly found text is written, and places them in public places. The text in bold font contains words or statements emotional and controversial. How the public interacts with these objects is what Hesh captures through photography in “For and Against Benches” where benches in red and blue reading either the word “for” or “against” are placed throughout the DC metropolitan area. Hesh also will display photographs from her “Desolation Series” for which she has hung commercially printed door hangers on the doors of galleries in Chelsea, New York. The hangers which pertain to failing relationships read statements of loneliness, longing and unrest such as, “I tried to forget” and “I don’t understand you” leaving open the desperate situation these fictional characters might have found themselves in, but suggestive of the unrest of the art market in this economic climate.

The drawings of Youngmi Song Organ speak a bit more quietly about her observations on the material world. Inspired by the complexity in simple life, she too uses the common, the banal product in her work. To construct her drawings, Organ affixes many strands of her own hair to mulberry paper, creating tightly rendered representations of domestic objects such as houses, barns and benches. By using her own hair, Organ references the life cycle and sense of the history and relationships involved in it. Inspired by the world in terms of microcosms, Organ sees any tiny speck as representative of, as well as itself part of, the entire miracle of nature. Organ takes the painstakingly long process of creating these drawings as a time to reflect on contemporary life, and how life and herself are changing over time.

click here to download a copy of the press release

December 13 – January 24, 2008

Hamiltonian Artists:
Linda Hesh

Guest Artists:
James Rieck
Youngmi Organ