Press Releases

Jun

2015

GLAZED and DIFFUSED

Glazed and Diffused will be on view at Ferrin Contemporary’s gallery space at 1315 MASS MoCA Way in North Adams from June 20 through August 16, 2015. This survey exhibition will focus on a select group of international artists chosen for their use of fired clay and glaze pigment to convey abstract content. Their sculpture, objects, vessels, tile, and site-specific installations reveal intended, abstract results using fluidity, abstraction, and color theory.

Exhibiting artists will be Raymon Elozua, Peter Christian Johnson, Jun Kaneko, Jae Yong Kim, Steven Young Lee, Lauren Mabry, Sara Moorhouse, Ron Nagle, George Ohr, Peter Pincus, Robert Silverman, Linda Sormin, Toshiko Takaezu, Beatrice Wood and Betty Woodman.

Click here to read more or download press release.

May

2015

Melissa G. Post appointed director

In May 2015, Melissa G. Post joined the team of FERRIN CONTEMPORARY and CYNTHIA-REEVES at their shared gallery space on the campus of MASS MoCA in North Adams, located at 1315 MASS MoCA Way. As director, Post will be managing the galleries and expanding their presence through education, public relations, sales, and marketing in the galleries.

Click here for full press release.

May

2015

CYNTHIA-REEVES presents Daniel Kohn

Daniel Kohn: Networks, Maps, and Territories

May 9–June 14, 2015

at 1315 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA

Networks, Maps, and Territories features paintings inspired by the Daniel Kohn’s inquiry into genomics, which he pursued for ten years at the Broad Institute of MIT/Harvard in Cambridge, MA. These paintings build on the investigation of genomics to explore the world of the network — a prime lens in contemporary science — and evoke, by extension, the organically occurring manifestations of fractals in our natural world.

Click here to read full press release.

Apr

2015

Ferrin Contemporary presents: FAMILY AFFAIR

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 16, 2015

For more information, contact
Ferrin Contemporary

Presenting leading international ceramic art for sale

Leslie Ferrin, Director
413-446-0641, info@ferrincontemporary.com

FAMILY AFFAIR: Sergei Isupov, Kadri Pärnamets, and Roosi Isupov

CUMMINGTON, Mass. — Family Affair will be on view at Independent Art Projects in North Adams, from April 25 through May 25, 2015. The show features painted porcelain sculptures created by Sergei Isupov, Kadri Pärnamets, and Roosi Isupov.

Sergei Isupov and Kadri Parnamets and their five-year-old daughter, Roosi Isupov, spend half their year in Estonia and half in the United States. They speak Russian, Estonian, English, and a visual language rich with complex imagery. Their artwork speaks in a universal language of art and reveals courageous inquiries into what it is to be human—intense explorations of self, relationship, and family. This show, Family Affair, presents the art produced in their shared studio during the last seven months in Cummington, where they live and work at Project Art.

Sergei Isupov creates complex three-dimensional forms enveloped with detailed paintings representing his unabashed investigations into internal and interpersonal relationships. Isupov further explains, “I am a student of the universe and a participant in the harmonic chaos of contrasts and opposites: dark – light; male – female; good – evil. Working instinctually and using my observations, I create a new, intimate universe that reveals the relationships, connections and contradictions as I perceive them. I find clay to be the most versatile material and it is well suited to the expression of my ideas. I consider my sculptures to be a canvas for my paintings. All the plastic, graphic and painting elements of a piece function as complementary parts of the work.”

Kadri Pärnamets presents exquisite paintings of iconic images on three-dimensional cloud forms. Focusing on gesture and expression, Pärnamets selects known classics of female beauty by painters from both the European Renaissance and the Impressionist era. From childhood to the present, Parnamets’ life has been intimately connected with women in paintings in nearby museums and within books. She studies and reflects on the women’s expressions and the contexts where they have been frozen in time. She continues to visit these women during the different periods of her life. Now, as a mother and wife, she identifies with the more mythical female figures that reflect the human attributes of sacrifice, service, and devotion, qualities that are seen in the portraits of Venus and Lucretia by Cranach, in the bathers and nudes of Manet, and in the religious images of Saint Agnes.

Roosi Isupov depicts scenes from her life on plates; capturing the delights of her multi-cultural, art-filled days. Her scenes highlight who she sees and meets while walking around the village, commemorates events that take place and show relationships between her and the people in her immediate world.

Sergei Isupov and Kadri Pärnamets are represented by Ferrin Contemporary, which specializes in ceramic art circa 1950 to the present. For more than thirty years, Ferrin Contemporary has been the preferred source for artwork by established and emerging artists and designers whose primary medium is clay, for private collectors, institutions, and the media. Click here to view more of Isupov’s work. Click here to view more of Pärnamets’ work.

Ferrin Contemporary will present this exhibit at Independent Art Projects which is located at 1315 MASS MoCA Way, on the campus of MASS MoCA, in North Adams. The gallery is open May–November, Wednesday–Sunday, 11–5 pm.

Mar

2015

April 2014: Dawn Black’s Incitements of Folly

North Adams, MA — Independent Art Projects is pleased to announce CYNTHIA-REEVES’s exhibition Incitements of Folly, a new show of touching works on paper and paintings by Baton Rouge artist, Dawn Black. Opening with an artist reception from 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 4th, the exhibition runs through Sunday, May 3rd.

Black work examines the practice of masquerade and its role in relation to conceptions of identity and power. The artist depicts people from various sources, societies and time periods in gouache, watercolor, and ink on paper and is particularly interested in the various permutations of social practices that engender power hierarchies. Her compositions are influenced by eastern perspective, theatre, and myth making in general.

“I think of the limitless bank of images that pervades our lives as a collective unconscious. A shared state, we all contribute and are part of it. I cull these images through random web searches, visits to public archives, and perusing periodicals to intuitively select figures of interest. I decontextualize the figures by moving them from their original context to a vacant piece of paper in order to provide absolute focus on their identities and roles in society.” — Dawn Black

FOR MORE INFORMATION CLICK HERE.

For further information on Shona Macdonald, please visit the online gallery at cynthia-reeves.com or contact the gallery at 212 714 0044. Please note that Independent Art Project is open on Saturdays, and by appointment.

Mar

2015

February 2015: Shona Macdonald: Uncanny Valley

North Adams, MA — Independent Art Projects is pleased to announce CYNTHIA-REEVES’s mid-winter exhibition Uncanny Valley, a show of innovative works on paper and paintings by New England-based artist, Shona Macdonald. Opening with a reception from 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 28, the exhibition runs through March 29.

Uncanny Valley is a new series developed from 2013-2015 that explores how human intervention interrupts the landscape. Macdonald deciphers those interruptions in illustrative and figural forms: tarps covering over-wintered plants, reflectors resembling eyes, hay bales becoming teeth. Viewing the landscape for its cultural, rather than organic, geography was first explored by American writer, J. B. Jackson, (1909 – 1996), who also coined the phrase “vernacular landscape”. Macdonald seeks to visually depict the cultural geography that Jackson references and, specifically, the place where she resides, New England.

TO READ MORE CLICK HERE.

Jan

2015

January 2015: CYNTHIA-REEVES opens Tomas Munita & Lionel Smit

North Adams, MA — Independent Art Projects is pleased to announce the opening of its 2015 exhibition season with an international focus on cultural and socio-political issues through the work of Chilean photographer, Tomás Munita, and South African artist, Lionel Smit. Opening Saturday, January 10, at 1315 MASS MoCA Way, on the campus of MASS MoCA, the exhibition is presented by IAP co-founder CYNTHIA-REEVES, and it runs through February 22.

Tomás Munita lives in Santiago, Chile, but travels the world in search of experiencing and capturing on film war, famine, flood, and political and cultural upheaval. Yet, the images produced contain an interesting juxtaposition, a narrative layer that seems to preserve the “human-ness” of these very challenging tableaus. Additionally, the overall composition is beautifully composed and captured, as if it was a scene taken from a medieval painting.

Lionel Smit, whose work is extensively exhibited worldwide, continues to focus on the graceful and proud visage of the Malayan peoples of South Africa. Accumulation of Disorder, on view at Independent Art Projects, is an installation comprising forty busts cast in resin and fiberglass, each uniquely hand-painted, gathered in a circular formation. Collectively, they evoke a sense of quiet witnessing.

TO READ MORE AND DOWNLOAD THE PRESS RELEASE CLICK HERE.

Please note Independent Art Projects gallery is open on occasional weekends and by appointment during the month of January and February. For further information on Tomás Munita and Lionel Smit, please visit the online gallery at cynthia-reeves.com or contact CYNTHIA-REEVES at 212.714.0044.

[Image: Tomás Munita’s photographs and Lionel Smit, Accumulation of Disorder, installed at IAP]

Nov

2014

November 2014: artKamp indigo mass + Anne Morgan Spalter

North Adams, MA — Independent Art Projects is pleased to announce two new exhibitions opening on November 22, 2014: artKamp: indigo mass, a collaborative contemporary ceramic installation presented by Ferrin Contemporary, and Modern Renaissance, Anne Morgan Spalter’s recent photo-based art installations, presented by CYNTHIA-REEVES.

artKamp: indigo mass is an exhibition of selected works created during artKamp — a two-week international residency featuring eight artists working collaboratively to create a unified tablescape. Individual works by artKamp artists, which include Ben Carter, Chase Gamblin, Alexandra Jelleberg, Frances Palmer, Bonnie Smith, Mara Superior, Vipoo Srivilasa, and Elenor Wilson will also be on view.

In Modern Renaissance, Spalter creates a unique spatial experience by integrating printed and moving imagery, using both traditional photography, as well as computational tools. Continuing her exploration of the modern landscape and its relationship to landscape works of the past, Spalter combines aerial urbanscapes with video works based on Renaissance painting and cathedral imagery.

Several artKamp’s artists and Anne Morgan Spalter will be attending the opening reception, and guide the public through the exhibitions on Saturday, November 22, 5-7 PM.

TO READ MORE AND DOWNLOAD THE PRESS RELEASE CLICK HERE.

[Image: Anne Morgan Spalter, Chandelier, 2014. Pigment print on Acrylic, screen, customs enclosure, file. 20 x 20 x 3 in. Courtesy of CYNTHIA-REEVES]

Oct

2014

October 2014: IAP first venue of “Made in China” series

North Adams, MA — Independent Art Projects is pleased to be the first venue hosting Made in China: The New Export Ware, an on-going series of exhibitions and public programs featuring international contemporary ceramic artists re-contextualizing traditional Chinese export porcelain production methods and visual vocabulary, curated by Ferrin Contemporary’s Director Leslie Ferrin.

The exhibition opens at IAP on Saturday, October 18, with a conversation between curator Leslie Ferrin and artist Vipoo Srivilasa, 5-7 pm. The talk is free and open to the public, and will be followed by light Chinese refreshments.

Featured artists Robin Best, Caroline Cheng, Sin-ying Ho, Paul Scott, Robert Silverman, and Vipoo Srivilasa are affiliated the old porcelain city of Jingdezhen and its Pottery Workshop factory in various contexts and channels. Jingdezhen is known as the “Porcelain Capital” because it has been producing quality pottery for 1700 years. The Pottery Workshop factory is an international ceramics center focusing on the development and enrichment of ceramics in China and abroad.

Sponsored as a guest lecturer by the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Ferrin traveled to China in June and July 2014 with the aim of gaining a greater understanding of the cross-cultural collaboration, production, and appropriation occurring in the New Export Ware movement. During her visit, Ferrin visited ceramic workshops in Jingdezhen and Chongqing, where — similar to the historical model of export ware — skilled Chinese artisans, produce contemporary works for Western markets under the direction of visiting Western artists.

TO READ MORE AND DOWNLOAD THE PRESS RELEASE PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Sep

2014

Autumn 2014: Gallery Talk & Exhibition Opening

North Adams, MA – Independent Art Projects (IAP) celebrates the fall season with installations of New York-based, Chinese artist Shen Chen’s atmospheric paintings, and up-and-coming American artist Lauren Mabry’s abstract-painting-inspired ceramic vessels from Thursday, September 25 through Sunday, November 16, 2014.

With the concurrent installations of Chen and Mabry’s works —respectively presented by IAP co-founding galleries CYNTHIA-REEVES and Ferrin Contemporary—viewers are invited to explore the artists’ divergent, yet equally process-driven approaches to color and brushwork as means of non-representational communication.

An opening reception will be held on Thursday, September 25, from 6 to 9 pm, in conjunction with downtown North Adams’ DownStreet Art festivities. The public is also invited to join artist Shen Chen on Saturday, October 4, at 3 pm for an artist talk.

All IAP events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

TO READ MORE AND DOWNLOAD THE PRESS RELEASE PLEASE CLICK HERE.