Press Release: “(Not) Plain Sight: The Paintings of Joanie Gagnon San Chirico”

For immediate release:                                                              April 5 – May 1, 2012

“(Not) Plain Sight: The Paintings of Joanie Gagnon San Chirico”

The work of Joanie Gagnon San Chirico is rooted in concerns with environmental preservation and the far-reaching (and often unintended) effects of human habitation and civilization. Her paintings (and they are paintings) combine linear gesture and thin layers of color with stitching to evoke locations that read as real and specific to the viewer, but are ultimately fictional. The fictional nature of her space and imagery allows her to engage broader political issues without the need to construct facile narratives or parables. Particularly interesting are the consequences of scale, as the micro-culture of instant gratification and the macro-effects of pollution and energy inefficiency are mirrored in paintings of microscopic spores and algae whose threat can only be fully understood when photographed via orbiting satellite. For the artist working alone in her studio, her beautiful surfaces belie a deep concern that the underlying structure (of nature, of our society and culture) is ill-equipped to support what we heap upon it.

Just as her use of needle and thread connects her to a lineage of feminist political activism that was often shrouded by the formal concerns of domestic arts, Joanie Gagnon San Chirico makes artwork in which the agenda is never compromised, but may be misunderstood or ignored by those who commission it. She primarily functions within the public realm, yet subverts the desire for a pretty picture (the Matissean armchair) with an activist’s desire that the work’s true nature might be divined from those who delve below the surface. Here subterfuge is unnecessary, and we can celebrate the conviction of the work’s deeper intent.

Joanie Gagnon San Chirico’s work, including her public commissions and work for private spaces, can be explored in depth on her website:  http://joaniesanchirico.blogspot.com/

The Extra Gallery is an art space that occurs at odd intervals in a semi-private Chelsea location. The space is located at 635 West 27th St. Please enter the door and press the buzzer to the right to be admitted to the second floor lobby.

Update: WHILE YOU WAIT has been extended!

“While You Wait: Greg Allen, Laura Isaac, Laelia Mitchell, Christopher Moss, Maritza Ruiz-Kim, and Jason Varone on the Art of the Lobby,” curated by Brian Dupont has been extended by one week thru Tuesday, November 8th.

The space may be found at 635 West 27th Street. Go in the front door and turn right. Buzz the door labeled Artex to gain admittance to the second floor lobby.

“Gallery” hours are regular business hours, 9:30am – 5:00pm. If you would like to make an appointment to see the show outside of regular business hours, you may email the curator, Brian Dupont, at briandupont [at] gmail.com to set up an appointment.

While You Wait

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Images of the “While You Wait installation”:  Works by Christopher Moss, Greg Allen, Laura Isaac, Laelia Mitchell, Jason Varone, and , Maritza Ruiz-Kim (clockwise from the entrance to the exhibition).

Press Release: “While You Wait…”

For Immediate Release                                                       September 13, 2011

“While You Wait: Greg Allen, Laura Isaac, Laelia Mitchell, Christopher Moss, Maritza Ruiz-Kim, and Jason Varone on the Art of the Lobby,” curated by Brian Dupont

Extra Gallery NYC, October 6 – November 1, 2011

Coming off the street, climbing the stairs and through the door, you cross the small space and talk to a receptionist seated behind the desk. Appointment or no, he or she mediates access to those you are there to see, and you are invited to sit and wait in the lobby. Everyone has been in these spaces where we are asked to sit and wait, and we do so without complaint, expecting to wait even when on time for a scheduled appointment.

As there is always a place to sit in the lobby, and something set out to read, so there is always something on the walls as well. If nature abhors a vacuum, so does any transitive space; walls, carpet, and furniture are blank enough to be utilitarian, yet not inviting enough that you will regret leaving them behind when called to move on (although perhaps that depends on your reason for coming there in the first place). Usually the art is as inoffensive and bland as the rest of the décor, yet there are always exceptions.

This exhibition asks you to consider the structure of where you are sitting and what you are looking at, and by extension how you got there and what you expected to see. At the door, Christopher Moss takes the sublime intention of abstraction and reduces it to the bland and generic, having pixelated his own painting into an aggressive design and placed it on the floor so you may wipe your shoes. Similarly, Laura Isaac replaces the typical reading materials with her own limited edition artist’s magazine, titled (appropriately) Wait. The artist provides this specialty publication as a means of modifying an experience that is universal and rendering it particular. Both Greg Allen and Jason Varone address the singular window within the space; the lone source of natural light that provides little in the way of view. Greg Allen continues his investigation into Google’s Street View mapping project, using a near omnipresent digital technology with all its inherent glitches to re-envision an otherwise blank industrial view. Whereas Allen obscures the window, Jason Varone replaces and moves it, by projecting the light otherwise lost. His window is not tied to the local weather or time of day, but nonetheless contains a record of subtle events and the passage of time. Laelia Mitchell engages the enclosed receptionist, sitting behind a window that narrowly projects into the space and divides inside from the outside. She extends the metaphor to include the division and enclosure of nature by man-made structures, echoing the little bit of natural foliage the inhabitants of this office may see in their workday. And Maritza Ruiz-Kim uses a set of five paintings to bring attention to the mental shift that takes place when one enters, waits within, and then exits a space. Her layers of encaustic paint and hidden text activate the tension between space and void, opening the possibilities of how one views the waiting space.

More information about the participating artists and the curator can be found on their respective websites.

Greg Allen: greg.org

Laura Isaac: lauraisaac.com

Laelia Mitchell: laeliamitchell.com

Christopher Moss: christophermoss.neoimages.net

Maritza Ruiz-Kim: maritzaruizkim.com

Jason Varone: varonearts.org

Brian Dupont: briandupont.wordpress.com

The Extra Gallery is located in a semi-private space in Chelsea in New York City. If you would like to make arrangements to view the exhibition or would like more information, please contact Brian Dupont via email at briandupont@gmail.com.

Brian Dupont: Text Blocks

September 20011

Artist’s Statement: My practice is a study of how the visual aspects of information can be conveyed — or distorted — within the framework of abstract painting. My recent work has begun to focus on the visual possibilities inherent in language; I take the written (or printed) word as source material, stressing and distorting the text through a process of painting, erasure, and repainting. Working in oil on metal (usually aluminum) I engage with the techniques of high art and common signage in an attempt to foreground the painting’s material reality. My goal is that the painted surface and language will be placed on equal footing so that the works will not merely be read, which I feel ends any engagement with it too quickly. To this end the text is distorted, reversed, and repeated with odd kerning and shifts in scale so that that the act of reading is transformed into looking.

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More of Brian Dupont’s work can be found on his website.

He can be found on Twitter here.

Summer Fun In America: June 2011

This June featured a group show with the following artists.

Gordon Fremaux

Jeanine Harrington

Dan Kilian

Allison Ward

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Enjoy!

Alison Ward: June 2011

This June featured the works of Alison Ward.

Alison Ward’s practice combines traditional art making with performance projects that reach a diverse range of audiences.  In 1997 she created Tex and Trixie’s Vaudeville Show, paving the way for New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scene.  In 2001 she helped found The Glamazons, a burlesque troupe challenging the norms of feminine beauty. In 2009 she helped build The Waterpod, a floating eco-habitat that she and two other artists inhabited for five months.  Her latest project is The Ruffian Arms, whose a gender-bending punk aesthetic delights and challenges audiences on all levels.

Exhibitions include the Queens Museum, The Dumbo Arts Center, the Bronx Museum, the CCCB Museum in Spain, RAW Space Gallery in Australia and Castlefield Gallery in England. She has done residencies at Raw Space in Australia, The Artist in the Marketplace Program, and the LMCC studio program, The Waterpod Project in New York City, and LMCC’s Swing Space Program.  She has received grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council and the Lewisham Arts council in London to perform her work.  Alison is currently an artist in residence at Flux Factory in Long Island City, Queens and is doing a project with the Islington Mill in Manchester for the summer.