Vanessa Palmer: Soul Sanctuary
November 22 – December 14, 2013
Opening reception: Friday, November 22, 6-8PM
(Chicago) - Kasia Kay Art Projects gallery is please to present Vanessa Palmer in her newest exhibition, Soul Sanctuary. This is her premier show in the United States.
Like any truly inspired contemporary artist, Vanessa's work is very unique, inspirational and weaves just the right amount of Zen energy to lift any spirit. Much of her inspiration comes from her own spiritual journey, through her travels in Asia, yoga, meditation, life, family, friends and most of all her love for spirituality. Her art lights you up, makes the viewer happy, positive and most of all calm. This is perhaps because of the layers of inspiring words, Buddha charms, oil colors of the chakras, Sutra scrolls or whatever other unique, world traveled trinkets she collects to incorporate into her pieces.
Vanessa Palmer’s work has a Feng Shui element to it, which is why her art is so sought after in many collectors' homes – her pieces bring an indescribable amount of positive energy to the environment.
Working out of her studio in Chicago, the artist travels the world regularly for inspiration. For over 10 years Vanessa has incorporated her love of creativity and spirituality into her business, art and now a series of books. she is also available for private and commercial commissioned art projects.
Vanessa Palmer is an author of "OM FOR THE MOM" a guide on finding, love, inner peace, passion and abundance. Books will be available for purchase at the gallery. One can also purchase them here: http://www.omforthemom.com
Bio: Vanessa studied a 4-year fine arts degree at the “School of the Art Institute” in Chicago and then continued to Italy to finish her studies in art and design. She has been an entrepreneur in the creative industry now for over 20 years. In addition to her art career, her successes range from building and designing a global fashion label, creating marketing and advertising campaigns and managing international brands. Her work has been shown in Australian galleries and she is regularly commissioned to paint her contemporary spiritual pieces and large modern abstracts. Vanessa was inducted into the Australian Hall of Fame for women in 2000 for her achievements in the creative industry. "Soul Sanctuary" is Vanessa’s first solo art show in the USA.
Diane Christiansen - Cup Freaketh Over
October 18 – November 16, 2013
Opening Reception: October 18th, 6-8PM
(Chicago) - Kasia Kay Art Projects gallery is please to present Diane Christiansen in her newest exhibition, Cup Freaketh Over. This is her third solo show with the gallery.
In her new series of works, Christiansen presents works of oil on plaster as well as ink on paper. Each image has a visually rich and spontaneous feel, with subtle imperfections that create an entrancing depth. Combining both risk and finesse, Christiansen present pieces of intricate complexity.
The paintings on plaster exist as sites of filling and erasure. Empty and full. Overfull. Her actions of working on them (painting, drawing, sanding, and opening) runs parallel with their “thematic guts.” As Christiansen states, “I'm stirring three pots at all times: drawing, painting, and animation, which is hilarious given that overwhelm informs the content. And, there is some utterly readable imagery in there. That's right; that's a big welt of color reaching down to grab a nut.” According to her, the multiple practices each feed each other in a sort of celebration of bombardment, married to a search for visual and emotional space.
Annie Morse describes Christiansen’s work in an essay entitled, The Rat Who Retired From the World: “Erasure can betray regret, revision or refusal. In Christiansen’s hands, these amendments work ceaselessly toward the achievement of imperfection, in the service of which hazard, chance, and error play a part. Hectic, comic, human in their sloppy and affectionate appeal, these works also suggest the wounds that attachment entails.”
Christiansen’s work in the upcoming exhibition correlates with October Chicago Artist Month, the city’s annual campaign to support local artists that exemplify creative growth.
Duncan R. Anderson and Daniel Bruttig - Wisconessee
September 6 – October 12, 2013
Opening reception: Friday, September 6th, 6-8PM
(CHICAGO) - Kasia Kay Art Projects is pleased to present the collaborative work of Duncan R. Anderson and Daniel Bruttig in their new show, “Wisconessee.” This groundbreaking exhibition offers the combined perspective of two innovative and dynamic artists that creates an unparalleled visual experience.
“Wisconessee is what happens when the tragicomic jumble of national myths, personal icons, family histories, and dislocated spirits of the artists' respective homelands are reassembled according to a new set of instructions, resulting in the kind of unlikely hybrids that could only happen here.
Daniel Bruttig, from the lakes and woods of Wisconsin, and Duncan Robert Anderson, from the mountains of East Tennessee, don't take us to Wisconessee; indeed, you really and truly can't get there from here. Wisconessee is about a place, but it doesn’t come with a map as such. Instead, it’s a work of cultural geography, a map made of portraits. This work speaks of other places by introducing us to other creatures: the wandering, the disconnected, the abandoned, the marooned in our midst.
On the one hand, Anderson and Bruttig come on in this show like a couple of carnival barkers: behold! The stranded astronaut! The grotesque frantic lady! The monstrous mechanic! The werewolf-architect of memorials! But just as many folks miss out on the complexity of the American backwoods running beneath the surface of atavistic stereotypes, to note only the pop, almost camp dimensions of the melodramas here is to miss out on an important point: these are people they know. This is the place they are from, too.
Each artist undermines his overstatements with an injection of the ordinary. Bruttig’s Wisconessee is populated by furry freaks, for sure, but they’re the freaks you’re likely to meet in the parking lot at an AC/DC concert, or stand in line with at the bank. And while, by contrast, we tend to find Anderson’s Wisconesseeans in more Romantic predicaments—last stands, pyrrhic victories, moments of truth, of superhuman longing and distress—in the midst of them, as often as not, Our Hero is liable to behave in ways as petty and profane as you or me. Epic tragedy is more likely to be met with grumbling resentment or pitiful resignation than with noble stoicism.
In the end this is street-level mythology, as grotesque and Romantic as daily life practiced by two guys who met one day on a street in Chicago. Wisconessee isn’t a foreign land after all, its legends notwithstanding. It’s not an effort to show us a way out of the city, an Otherworld played for hilarity or horror, it’s an effort to add to it, to clear a space in the grid for faces from other places, and their freakish, epic dramas of the mundane. Everybody’s got legends, and Wisconessee is one of them.”
- Douglas Reichert Powell, PhD, Columbia College Chicago
Duncan Robert Anderson (born 1969) received his BFA from East Tennessee State University. His work has been exhibited in Chicago, IL including East Tennessee Landscapes (solo exhibition) at Columbia College, Mountain Empire Monuments (solo exhibition) at FireCat Projects, New Work (two solo exhibitions at Kasia Kay Gallery), Mexico City, Mexico; New York, NY; and Los Angeles, CA. Articles on Anderson have appeared in the Chicago Reader and New City Chicago. Wisconessee is his third show with Kasia Kay Gallery.
Daniel Bruttig (born 1975, Milwaukee, WI) received a BFA from University of Illinois at Chicago in 2001 and his MFA from the Department of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University in 2010. He has presented work in group and solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, and Milwaukee. Bruttig has contributed work to the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, The Hyde Park Art Center and Evanston Art Center. Collections include Moscow, New York, San Diego, Chicago, Madison and Milwaukee. In 2009 he received the Dedalus Foundation nomination. Bruttig lives and works in Chicago, IL. In 2010, Bruttig received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging MFA nomination. Wisconessee is his third show with Kasia Kay Gallery.
Mike Wong - The Dramatics of Living
June 7 - June 28,2013
Curated by Stefania Carrozzini
Vimeo link http://vimeopro.com/unburden/chicago
(CHICAGO) - Kasia Kay Art Projects is pleased to present “The Dramatics of Living”, Mike Wong’s first solo exhibition with the Gallery. The show, curated by Stefania Carrozzini, is composed of several mixed media paintings and one video installation entitled “Unburden”.
“The Dramatics of Living“ is an original approach of how Mike views life in recursive forms, paradoxical codes within the complex structures. The audience walks through the journey of living and finally come to the video installation to unburden themselves so that they can be free - to unlearn and learn again.
With or without painting on the canvas, the process to cover and uncover part of the painting, bear witness to a fragmented reality, a precarious existence that is strengthened through a more extensive and complex vision of life, where all aspects from pain to joy are part of the same reality, the faces of the same coin.
This energy is made of a combination of spontaneity and strategy, that will flow to the “Unburden”, a wormhole (box) where the audience is free to release their “burdens” with words, drawings on note pads into the box. Embracing the dramatics of life is possible when the real communication with our inner being take place through the creative journey. At some point of living we need to reflect, unlearn what we have learned so that we can be ready for the next frontier of living with fresh insights to life.
Mike’s painting is best known for his innovative and inventive used of everyday used materials. He likened the canvas to time and space and he explored what it means to paint without the canvas. In the process of art making, everyday objects becomes a medium. A cloth hanger, masking tape, electrical cable ties became part of the installation. The works often has a 3 dimensional quality registering the flow and energy.
With his video installation works, the same theme of space and time are often explored. Some of the works also taps on audience participation. The audience then becomes part of the installation and only through that process, is the work complete.
The paradoxical concept of Mike Wong’s work is to exercise spontaneously within the complex of strategy.
Kevin Berlin: Woke Up On the Wrong Side of the Bed
April 11 - May 11, 2013
Opening reception: Friday, April 12th, 6-8PM.
(CHICAGO) - Kasia Kay Art Projects is pleased to present Woke Up On the Wrong Side of the Bed, Kevin Berlin’s second solo exhibition with the Gallery. This show follows a breakthrough year for Kevin Berlin with major shows in London, New York and Miami with Kasia Kay Art Projects Gallery. The exhibition features a selection of new large oil on canvas, the artist's most uncensored works to date.
Among the works are Berlin’s signature style, mostly black and white, cocktail party scenes such as “The Lonely Girl,” “Woke Up on the Wrong Side Of Bed” and the monumental canvas “The Striped Dress.” Highlights include a sneak preview of the artist’s new “Uncensored” series including several versions of his “F*** YOU” (expressed in English, Italian, and Russian languages) cigarette paintings, packs of Marlboro and Camel with a new interpretation of the warning label.
Kevin Berlin is an internationally recognized artist of enormous talent, with a great eye for bringing to light various intriguing global issues. Whether the subject is cash, cigarettes, cocktail parties, or tigers, his artwork engages the viewer with economic, social and political situations of the day. Berlin's unique style reflects his outlook as "witness" to global popular culture.
Berlin is also well known for his sculptural and performance work. The following are links to the artist’s performances featured by Kasia Kay Art Projects Gallery at various internationals art fairs:
"Miss Foreign Exchange International," Scope Miami 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0ZbhgFk2-w
"Secret Life Of Ballerinas," Art Chicago 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4l_uRbNBds
"Hamptons Gone Wild," Art Hamptons 2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAGMMx3qSBA
Kevin Berlin, a Yale University Alumnus continued his studies in 1988 at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. The artist has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Shanghai Daily, The Miami Herald, USA Today, MTV, Tokyo Television, BBC Radio, and over 40 television stations across the United States. The artist was honored by President Reagan at The White House as a Young Arts Presidential Scholar in 1983. Berlin's major solo exhibitions include shows in London, New York City, Chicago, Kiev, and Shanghai. His works are found in the collections of Kim Basinger, Luciano Pavarotti, David Letterman, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Dudley and Lisa Anderson, Quincy Jones, Buzz Aldrin, Henry Buhl, and General Motors Corp.
Luc Dratwa - NYC Tales
February 22 - March 30, 2013
Luc Dratwa - solo exhibition: NYC Tales
Opening reception: Friday, February 22, 6-8PM
CHICAGO, IL - Kasia Kay Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of “NY Tales”, the gallery’s first solo exhibition for Luc Dratwa.
Luc Dratwa is best known for his series of photographs taken from the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center with a view of the Empire State Building in New York City, as well as his series taken at the NYC subway. Dratwa captures familiar imagery and contextualizes his subject matter within a fragmented realm of New York City. In essence, he constructs a vision that is his own unique rendition of the city. Throughout his series of photographs, Dratwa catches people as they gaze at the astonishing views. The images consist of three planes: the character, the window and the city, brought together through Dratwa’s lenses. Within the series progression, the characters change and effect different tales of love and motion, but the point of view remains constant as an ode to his love of tamed space. Through this framing the audience is granted a perspective of view that becomes timeless.
The “Subway” series - which is devoted to the New York subway - illustrates more clearly than ever his concern for the perfection in construction which leaves nothing to chance. As the fruit of long hours of watching and waiting before the lens shoots that one image, “Subway” captures an underground world from which man is physically absent most of the time. At the same time, Dratwa captures a reality magnified by the poetry of the detail, a reality that generates a perfect balance, a harmony of lines, forms, rhythms and contrasts that is nothing short of faultless. “Subway” shows Luc Dratwa on top form as he masters a portrayal of image and color. This is driven by a total vision which proves that beauty is everywhere, even in the metal framework of a train carriage, the perspective of a tunnel and the light of a deserted platform.
Dratwa has a number of influences and believes that he draws inspiration and creative strength from the heritage of Baroque painters and in the work of Edward Hopper, Meyerowitz and even from writers. For Dratwa, every subject he tackles is as much a story as it is a photographic work. "I write stories, where others would translate them into music, poetry or novels. I tell my stories on photo paper".
Dratwa presented “Subway” in avant premiere at Lineart 2011. He received three awards including the Gallery Award and two “Art Lovers” Awards and has been featured in exhibitions in Rome, Paris, Tokyo and New York. Dratwa was born in 1958, and currently he resides in Brussels, Belgium.
Ewa Bloch: Rememberer
Dec. 14 - January 26
E/C Gallery
CONTEXT art miami
December 5 - 9, 2012
We are pleased to announce the gallery’s participation at CONTEXT ART MIAMI. VIP Private Preview on Tuesday, Dec. 4th, coinciding with the 23rd edition of Art Miami. CONTEXT is the newest cutting-edge addition to Art Miami Fair. Our featured artists include: Kevin Berlin, Luc Dratwa, and other artists.http://www.art-miami.com/
