The Clear and the Obscure /
Michael Berryhill, Ryan Nord Kitchen, Victoria Roth, Patricia Treib
9/4 - 5/6, 2016
Bajio 231, the red door (corner of Manzanillo).
Colonia Roma, 06760 DF
Mexico
Michael Berryhill
Victoria Roth
Michael Berryhill,
Ryan Nord Kitchen
Patricia Treib
Patricia Treib
Ryan Nord Kitchen
The Clear and
the Obscure is a group exhibition that brings together the work of four painters
whose very different ways of working nevertheless possess salient affinities.
From a preference for a bright, at times pastel and high-contrast palette,
whose common debt to early European and American modernism is notable, to a
proclivity for subject matter which sits comfortably on the threshold between
figuration and abstraction, these four artists create works whose contours and
intentions are at once clear and obscure. Methods and techniques among the
group vary. For instance, where Michael Berryhill and Victoria Roth wield a
much more intuitive, labored and vigorous approach toward generating their rich
and evocative imagery, discovering it as they proceed, Patricia Treib’s quasi-calligraphic picture making is much more methodical, referring to
a specific, repeated source, while Ryan Nord Kitchen essentially depicts
landscapes which all but blaze into ideographic abstractions. But, in
accordance with a common faith in painting as painting, these heterogeneous and
highly sophisticated practices are deeply engaged in the cultivation of their
own pictorial vocabularies, which are hard won and fueled by a commitment to
color, facture and mark making. They create work in which intention is not the
opposite but the very preserve of mystery, collectively gesturing toward the
happy and ongoing co-existence of the two in contemporary painting.
Michael
Berryhill (b. 1972, El Paso, Texas. Lives and works in Brooklyn). A selection
of recent solo exhibitions includes: (2016) Kanas gallery, New York (2015) Shrine
Time, Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, NY; Art Los Angeles Contemporary, Los
Angeles, CA; (2016) and group: (2016) Strange Abstraction, Fredericks &
Freiser Gallery, New York, NY; Around Flat, Knockdown Center, Maspeth, NY;
(2015) Intimacy in Discourse: Unreasonable Sized Paintings, School of Visual
Arts, New York, NY; The Negative Hand, Anonymous Gallery, Mexico City, MX
Ryan Nord
Kitchen (b. 1988, Minnesota. Lives and works in Baltimore). A selection of
recent solo exhibitions includes: (2016) Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York,
NY (forthcoming); (2015) Summer Paintings, Terrault Contemporary, Baltimore,
MD; Paintings, Galleri Jacob Bjørn, Aarhus, Denmark, and group: (2016)
Mother Popcorn, Big Medium, Austin, TX; Jon Pilkington, Ryan Nord Kitchen, Stefanie
Heinze, Rod Barton, London, UK
Victoria Roth
(b. 1986 Paris, France; lives and works in Brooklyn). A selection of recent
group exhibitions includes: (2016) In the Mix, Hometown Gallery, Brooklyn, NY;
Vivid Bra, New York, NY; SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York, NY; (2015) Figuration
Inside/Out, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY; (2014) Leaning Steeples, Show
Room Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY
Patricia Treib
(b. 1979, Saginaw, MI. Lives and works in Brooklyn) A selection of recent solo
exhibitions includes: (2016) Galería Marta Cervera, Madrid (forthcoming); (2015)
Patricia Treib, Kate MacGarry, London, UK; (2014) Solo project, Wallspace,
Liste Art Basel, Basel, CH; (2013) Patricia Treib, Wallspace, NY and group:
(2016) Nice Weather, curated by David Salle, Skarsted Gallery, NY; (2015)
Fictions, Derek Eller, New York, NY
Lulu is an
independent, Mexico City-based project space founded and run by the artist
Martin Soto Climent and the independent curator Chris Sharp.