HALSEY MCKAY GALLERY

HALSEY MCKAY GALLERY is pleased to present Aura & Angst, a group show of works on paper featuring Patrick Brennan, Louisa Chase, David Kennedy-Cutler, Chris Duncan and Joey Piziali. The exhibition examines these artists endemic approaches to applying mark and material on to paper in ways that emote physical and psychological responses.

David Kennedy-Cutler’s works are made from soaking shards of broken glass, paper towels and etching plates with consumer and commercial materials such as ink jet ink. The bleed and oozing of edges as the ink runs through the printing press reflect the rubble and polluted shimmer of the industrial environment in which he works. Ranging from graphic to ethereal, these Arenas grant beauty to the violence of things discarded and shattered. Louisa Chase’s Untitled oil stick drawings on Mylar are attacked on front and back in emotional torrents of script like line. As much documents of mood as pictures, these all over compositions reflect the immediacy of the marks that compose them and the rapid fire consciousness of their creation. Conversely, thousands of acrylic dots speckle Chris Duncan’s Static works as if the energy of Chase’s darting line is channeled into tightly composed groupings. Duncan’s laborious application of tens of thousands of painted dots layered upon themselves reflect a trance like, rather than feverish state. Painted on mirrored paper any reflection is deferred leaving a visual imprint as if we were caught staring at the sun. While these works consolidate our focus, Joey Piziali pushes the visual information to the exterior, forming vacuous white voids. Glowing rather than empty, these Edge works developed from testing the spray of airbrush while working on other paintings. The arbitrary marks became formal exercises that also act as a convincing light source. Their meditative nature reflects the flow of the artist in studio, a memento of the conditions under which such happy accidents occur. We find a similar glow sprayed to the surface in Patrick Brennan’s collaged Moon Drawings. Pock marked and cratered like the surface of their lunar inspiration Brennan cuts, paints, scratches and glues pieces together in a playful and piecemeal fashion. Their irregular planes and organic edges hover in the frame like satellites suspended in the vacuum of space.

Patrick Brennan was born in Syracuse, New York and now resides in New York City. He studied at Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute and received a BFA in Painting and Video Art from Alfred University in 1998. Recent exhibitions include: Halsey Mckay Gallery, MOMA / PS1, Galerie Lelong, Nicole Klagsbrun, Monya Rowe Gallery, Zieher Smith, Edward Thorpe Gallery, Artist Space and Clifton Benevento in New York. Brennan has been awarded residencies at Atlanta College of Art, Atlanta GA, Burren College of Art (Ireland), and The Experimental Television Center Owego, NY.

Louisa Chase lives and works between East Hampton and New York City. Ms. Chase’s works have been featured in gallery and museum shows in Cologne, Nurnberg, Luzem, Switzerland, Toronto, and Tokyo, as well as at various galleries and museums throughout the US. She has been featured at the American Pavillion at the Venice Biennale and has been awarded two grants by the National Endowment for the Arts. Among others, Chase’s works are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Arts, The Corcoran Gallery and The Library of Congress.

David Kennedy Cutler lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Derek Eller Gallery, NY and his work has been included in exhibitions at Kate Werble Gallery, Socrates Sculpture Park, Dieu Donne Papermill, D’Amelio Terras, NY, Nice & Fit, Berlin; Portugal Arte ’10, Lisbon amongst others. Kennedy-Cutler is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, and a current recipient of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop SIP Fellowship through the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts.

Chris Duncan lives and works in Oakland, California. An MFA candidate at Stanford University the artist has been in recent exhibitions at Halsey Mckay Gallery, East Hampton, Eli Ridgway, San Francisco, The Berkeley Art Museum,  Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York. Recent reviews of the artist’s work have appeared in Artforum, the New York Times and Art in America.  His works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The JP Morgan Chase Collection, The Berkeley Art Museum and The Progressive.

Joey Piziali lives and works in San Francisco, CA. He has a MFA from the Art Institute of San Francisco and a BS from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Recent solo exhibitions have been at Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, Smith Andersen Gallery, Paolo Alto and Collectors Contemporary in Singapore. Recent group exhibitons include at the Bronx River Arts Center, Baer Ridgway Exhibitons, SF, Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose and Scion Installation Space in Los Angeles. Piziali is an Artadia Award finalist and an SFAI Fellow.