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Tawan Wattuya

Tawan Wattuya NYC Lodge Gallery

Rogues Gallery: Monsters, Villains & Hellbent Politicians

January 10th, 2018 — February 4th, 2018
Opening Reception: Wednesday, January 10th, 7pm-9pm

Tawan Wattuya NYC Lodge Gallery

The Lodge Gallery is proud to present Rogues Gallery: Monsters, Villains & Hellbent Politicians, Tawan Wattuya’s first solo exhibition in the United States.

Wattuya’s exhibition will be accompanied by catalogue materials with an essay by Paul D’Agostino. You can read the essay below.

***

 

Rogues Gallery: Monsters, Villains & Hellbent Politicians

New paintings by Tawan Wattuya

 

Before you are so many faces you’ve seen so many times before.

You recognize some of them. You might recognize most of them. It’s unlikely for you to recognize all of them, for some of them have facial features that have shape-shifted in certain ways that leave them partly morphed — if not gradually, strangely ever-morphing — into arguably more monstrous, more horrid, more day-glow lurid, or simply weirder versions of themselves via physiognomic hybridizations with the visages of others of kindredly villainous ilk.

They are a rogues gallery of proverbial good, bad and ugly, albeit by and large lacking any and all good.

This somewhat humorous, somewhat serious, somewhat shocking, altogether creepily ominous merging of murkily meta-facial imaginings is what came about when Thai artist Tawan Wattuya brought into conceptual confluence two of his most enduring interests and sources of inspirational inputs in a search for subjects for his solo exhibition at The Lodge Gallery, the artist’s first solo show in the United States following many others in Thailand and elsewhere.

So then, his interests and inputs? The monsters and weirdos of primarily classical cinema, and the monsters and weirdos of contemporary politics. In this semantic context, only for the latter group, the politicians — most especially those who have most atrociously invaded our minds and newsfeeds in 2017 — does the expression ‘monsters and weirdos’ rank as understatement, if not indeed a generously kind one. In contrast, in this bizarre visual and thematic context, the ‘monsters and weirdos’ of cinema — here facing off against the more consequentially despicable characters with political mandates — begin to seem awkwardly friendly, maybe even lovable.

Considered collectively, however, Wattuya’s rogues begin to seem endlessly, newsworthily questionable.

For example, who appears more ‘dracular’ here, a draconian despot like Bashar al-Assad or Dracula himself? Who better embodies sliminess and living death, a blood-sloppily reptilian zombie or Robert Mugabe? Who seems more childishly, lethally maniacal, ‘playful’ little Chucky or ‘Rody’ Duterte? Who might be better at encouraging local populations or entire geographical regions to hide in fear or flee: King Kong, Frankenstein’s Monster, Freddy Krueger or Aung San Suu Kyi?

As you continue to look around and pose yourself such questions, you begin to realize that the politico-cinematic monsters whose likenesses are most fully converged are the ones who seem most hellishly denatured, repulsively demonic, devilishly absurd.

And of course, once you’ve fully examined this lineup of rogues so totally bereft of do-gooders, you will have recognized quite immediately, and many times over, the face and coiffure of a certain world leader who has spewed Godzilla-tons of fire this year.

And you’ll recall that we’re all in hell.

Or, to be a bit less alarmist, we’re at least pretty close.

And by that I mean that in this chaotic meantime we all share and perhaps collectively abhor, we might at least find an aesthetically pleasing sense of darkened joy in Wattuya’s wonderfully imagined, crazily populated, jubilantly colorful, comically hellbent limbo.

Limbo?

Yes.

Sad!

— Paul D’Agostino

***

Tawan Wattuya was born in 1973 in Bangkok, Thailand, where he currently lives and works. He is known primarily for his vibrantly colorful and expressive paintings in watercolor and ink, and for choosing often politically relevant, sometimes controversial subject matter. His international exhibition record of solo shows, group shows and art fairs is extensive, and his paintings are held in many collections. He was one of the artists in a two-person show at The Lodge Gallery in 2016, and he has had work in recent exhibitions at Sundaram Tagore, in New York City, and at Saatchi Gallery, in London. In Thailand, Wattuya has exhibited at Toot Yung Art Center, The Art Center of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok Art & Cultural Center (BACC), HOF Art Gallery, WTF Gallery, Tang Contemporary Art, Gallery D-9, Ratchadamnoen Contemporary Art Center, and Numthong Gallery. He has also shown in a number of galleries in Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia and France.

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The Outer Boroughs: Brooklyn, Queens & The Bronx

Laura Shechter

November 17, 2017 — December 17, 2017

Opening Reception: Friday, November 17, 7pm-10pm

Derek Buckner, Todd Gordon, Valeri Larko, Tun Myaing,
Laura Shechter, Pamela Talese,
and John Wellington

curated by Jason Patrick Voegele 

 

Laura Shechter
Laura Shechter

[click to download press release]

 

The Lodge Gallery is proud to present The Outer Boroughs; Brooklyn, Queens & The Bronx, a group exhibition exploring the transformative cultural history of New York through contemporary urban landscape painting. Curated by Jason Patrick Voegele, featured artists include: Derek Buckner, Todd Gordon, Valeri Larko, Tun Myaing, Laura Shechter, Pamela Talese, and John Wellington.

Paris has it’s arrondissements, Shanghai has it’s municipal districts, and New York has Manhattan and it’s outer boroughs. Beyond the historically Manhattan-centric perception of New York as the epicenter of the art world, this exhibition focuses on the cultural history, transformative energy, and transgressive aesthetic of select creative communities within Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx.

Although each borough represents a unique and differentiated pride and history, all the neighborhoods represented in this exhibition follow a similar repeating cycle of discovery, overdevelopment and decline. Both the blight of urban decline and the variant results of urban renewal are on display. In some works we observe the kind of redevelopment that often creates booms in commercial value, safety and convenience while in others we witness the heavy loss of cultural integrity and the sacrifice of traditional creative output in favor of more subversive and territorial markings.

The works in this exhibition are formidable testaments to the only unchanging constant in New York which is change itself. Here, through the beauty of each urban landscape we witness the ongoing dynamic between nostalgia and growth. We witness the skin of the city shifting. Waves of residents once abundant are now gone or replaced; meanings vanish and new meanings are culled out of the flux. As the familiar expires and historic communities loose grip on their neighborhoods to the tune of post industrial triumph and gentrification, this is perhaps a perfect moment to pause and take account of the great creative energies that are born of New York’s outer boroughs in transition.

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Dana James

Dana James “Hollywood” (2017, ink, dye, oil, encaustic, pigment on canvas 72" x 60”)

Sometimes Seen Dreams

October 18th, 2017 – November 12th, 2017

Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 18th, 7pm-9pm

 

Dana James “Hollywood” (2017, ink, dye, oil, encaustic, pigment on canvas 72" x 60”)
Dana James “Hollywood” (2017, ink, dye, oil, encaustic, pigment on canvas 72″ x 60”)

 

[click to view exhibition catalogue, with essay by Paul D’Agostino]


The Lodge Gallery and DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary are proud to present Sometimes Seen Dreams, a one-person exhibition of paintings by Dana James, opening Wednesday, October 18th, and on view through November 12th.

“In her most recent suite of mixed media paintings, Dana James employs alluringly deliquescent strata of oils, inks, dyes, encaustic and pigments in the creation of landscapes, seascapes, skyscapes and spacescapes that whisk you away into the turbid beyonds of ambiguously horizoned, chromatically enchanted elsewheres. […]

These fresh and assertive paintings are James’s strongest work to date, and they are arresting and transporting all at once. If colors dream, this might be what they dream. Perhaps James sometimes sees these dreams.”

– Excerpt from Paul D’Agostino’s essay in exhibition catalogue.

Dana James currently works in Bushwick, Brooklyn. A daughter of artists, James graduated with a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2008 and has since then exhibited extensively both in and out of New York. James has had solo exhibitions at Envoy Enterprises (New York, NY), JAG Modern (Philadelphia, PA), and Union Gallery (New York, NY). Upcoming one-person exhibitions include shows at Silence is Accurate (Cape Town, South Africa), and DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary (Brooklyn, NY).

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Latent Content Analysis

Ryan Scully

September 6, 2017 – October 6, 2017

Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 6, 7pm-9pm

James Adelman, Allison Berkoy, Arturo Brena, Peter Daverington, Yun Sung Jang, Marshall Jones, Fay Ku, Huston Ripley and Ryan Scully

curated by Jason Patrick Voegele

Ryan Scully

 

The Lodge Gallery is proud to present Latent Content Analysis, a group exhibition exploring the symbolism of dream states and the mysterious workings of the unconscious mind.

Dreams and nightmares are so deeply rooted in our living experience that we often use these words to describe the events, goals, fears, and possibilities of our lives. In order to explore the unique symbolic language of dreams, artists, shamans and scientists often refer to the various layers of dream interpretation by differentiating between manifest and latent content. Whereas the manifest content of a dream may be interpreted as the literal narrative recalled by the dreamer, latent content is the deeper symbolic meaning and underlying purpose of the phenomenal experience. Latent content analysis is then the attempt to de-cypher or translate these deeper symbolic meanings.

Artists and have often utilized this form of analysis to explore both dream states and consciousness through symbolic metaphor, visual analogy and dream imagery. Psychologists describe this research as “dream work“. A presupposition of dream work is the argument that each person has his or her own unique dream “language”, based on the subjective experiences of their upbringing and ongoing lives. Any given place, person, object or symbol within the manifest content of a dream, differs in its latent content analysis from dreamer to dreamer.

As dream workers, artists manifest objects and images that may have surface interpretations disguising deeper objective meaning or are designed to trigger uniquely alternate states of consciousness in each individual. In this way the artists featured in Latent Content Analysis, present us with the opportunity to challenge our subconscious levels of awareness and enjoy both the outer world of our shared experiences and the mysterious inner world of our own symbolic language.

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Unnatural Selection

Tara de la Garza - Unnatural Selection - Lodge Gallery

Tara de la Garza

 June 15th, 2017–July 9th, 2017

Opening Reception: Thursday, June 15th, 6pm-8pm

Tara de la Garza - Unnatural Selection - Lodge Gallery 

The Lodge Gallery proudly presents West Coast artist Tara de la Garza’s second solo show with the gallery, featuring large format multimedia works pieced together from various natural history images, creating a taxonomy of puzzling hybrid species.

The work sits in an uneasy juncture between biological diversity and unchecked genetic modification.

It is a depiction of a fantasy sci-fi world, sans humans, where nature evolves chaotically but wholeheartedly. In a time when history and data are blatantly falsified, when we learn not to trust what we see, these works tune us into the impossible harmony of form.

De la Garza’s work taps into the primal joy we experience when seeing harmony in nature and our natural curiosity when we encounter something that challenges our assumptions. When an octopus reminds us of intestines we make connections between all living things.

Tara de la Garza is an Irish/Australian multidisciplinary artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally with the The Lodge Gallery NYC, San Diego Art Institute, No Longer Empty, Chashama, Figment, MassMOCA, and Aggregate Space Gallery. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tara studied a BFA at Curtin University in Australia. Her last show at The Lodge Gallery also included an intervention so believable that gallerists were chasing people down the street. She promises to be better behaved this year. De la Garza is also the creative director of The Frank, a contemporary art pop-up in Silicon Valley, SF.

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Foofaraw & Spleen

Heather Morgan "Make Life Beautiful"

Heather Morgan and Paul D’Agostino

May 10th, 2017 – June 11th, 2017

Opening Reception: Wednesday, May 10th, 7pm-9pm

 

Heather Morgan "Make Life Beautiful"

 

The Lodge Gallery and DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary are proud to present a two-person exhibition featuring Heather Morgan and Paul D’Agostino, opening Wednesday, May 10th and on view through June 11th, 2017.

Heather Morgan is known for her expressive, sometimes self-effacing self-portraits that toy with notions of intimacy and exhibitionism at once. Her most recent body of work, however, shows the painter taking turns both inward and outward—inward to the mind and heart, that is, and outward in terms of subjects. Still juicily painterly and rendered in a limited palette of warm grisaille, Morgan’s newest compositions portray not her physical self, but rather a suite of characters—musicians and writers, by and large, from the current to the canonical—who feed her soul and inform her creative practice. Literary icons like Baudelaire and Artaud are in her esteemed, passionately rendered mix of subjects, but so are less recognizable ‘saints and sinners’ you might nonetheless identify as rock stars. In these rich depictions, Morgan conjures and communes with the specters of those who most inspire her. They are luminous homages full of tenderness and sincerity.

Heather Morgan received her BFA from Boston University and her MFA from Yale. She has had solo shows at Jack the Pelican in New York, and at Ladengalerie in Berlin, and her work has been in group exhibitions at Steven Harvey Fine Arts, DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary, and Charlie James Gallery, among others. Her work is represented by DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary, where she will have a solo exhibition in 2018.

Alongside Heather Morgan’s calmly spirited portraits will be works by Paul D’Agostino, an artist who shares Morgan’s passions for literature and interdisciplinary inspiration, and whose works are always informed by matters of language, storytelling and translation. Foofaraw & Spleen will feature a selection of his works on paper, drawing primarily from The Produce Chronicles, With Flowers, D’Agostino’s ongoing series of individually narrated, vignette-like watercolor renderings conceived as a book project. The couple dozen sheets chosen for the show—out of around 140 the artist has completed to date—evidence the range of humor, sentimentality and sometimes raunchy buffoonery that characterize the project. 

Paul D’Agostino is an artist, writer, translator and curator based in Bushwick, Brooklyn. In recent years he has had solo shows at Life On Mars Gallery, Weathervane, Pocket Utopia Gallery and Norte Maar, and a two-person show at Slag Gallery. He has also shown work in many of group exhibitions in the US and abroad. His next solo show will be at ART 3 Gallery in September 2017.

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FOREVER

Forever Lodge Michelle Doll

curated by Akeem K. Duncan

 

Forever Lodge Michelle Doll

 
The Lodge Gallery is proud to present, FOREVER, a group exhibition focused on the fleeting eternity of human emotions and the resulting memories and experiences that seem to last longer than we do. A lover’s embrace or quarrel. the scent of a relative, a joke shared between friends… these moments are forever; contributing to the ongoing jouska within. Even when you “forget,” dormant memories and experiences seem to activate themselves on their own, almost instinctually and often without warning. 
 
Featuring pieces by Michelle Doll, Arcmanoro Niles, and Daliah Ammar, FOREVER requires each painter to dig down into the depths of their own emotions, as well as the emotions of others, and come up with something that can withstand the eroding sands of time. 

Curated by Akeem K. Duncan of QUIET LUNCH, FOREVER is a testament⏤not just to the concept of forever in general⏤but a delicate, innate forever that exists in a way that cannot be described through words alone. Nonetheless, through the visuals of Doll, Niles and, Ammar, we will quickly uncover that forever is now.

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INFINITE DARKNESS

March 15, 2017 – April 9, 2017

Opening Reception: Wednesday March 15th, 7pm to 10pm

The Lodge Gallery is proud to present Infinite Darkness, a group exhibition featuring artists Paul Brainard, Miriam CarothersSeldon Hunt, Josh Graham, Roxanne Jackson, Frodo Mikkelsen, Brian Montouri, Leonard Reibstein, Sigrid Sarda, and Aaron Zimmerman.

From the moment we enter into the world we are immediately set upon with trials that transform us from infancy into individuated selves, with unique perspectives and a sense of belonging, or not belonging, in the world. The resistive, the disobedient, the forsaken, and the marooned all find little reprieve from alienation. Few kindred spirits join them on the journey back to the primordial darkness from which we all are born and to which we all will one day return. To exhaust the existential madness the artists in this exhibition seek to fill the great mystery with a higher purpose.

Heavily inspired by metal, punk and various other genres of transgressive music, Infinite Darkness explores the darker side of art and philosophy through political, popular, and sub-cultural influences. Together, the artists form a fellowship of outliers and black sheep who offer critical insight into contemporary American society.

 

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John Wellington

John Wellington “Bathing Diana (with Guards),” 30 x 48 inches, oil on aluminum

Temple Tomb Fortress Ruin

January 25, 2017 – March 5, 2017

Opening Reception, Wednesday, January 25, 7pm – 9pm

 

John Wellington “Bathing Diana (with Guards),” 30 x 48 inches, oil on aluminum
John Wellington “Bathing Diana (with Guards),” 30 x 48 inches, oil on aluminum

 

The Lodge Gallery proudly presents Temple Tomb Fortress Ruin, a solo exhibition by acclaimed artist John Wellington. For decades, Wellington has harnessed a deep curiosity about the precarious state of our so called progress, addressing legends of lost worlds, passing empires, false prophets, unlikely heroes, and the allure of idolatry in the subject-matter of his work. Wellington’s compositions are rendered in a mythic and poetic vernacular and his worlds and images are loaded with layers of painted metaphor. These allegories are carefully refined through a visual alchemy that transforms objectified female figures into warriors and goddesses or spiritually enlightened beings into simple fallible men. Technically executed in the traditions of old master painters and inspired by religious icons, pop icons, cinema and global politics, there is a timeless relevance to his work that seems to be at once full of lessons from bygone generations and pre-cautious predictions of possible future worlds. 

In this exhibition Wellington explores preconceptions of traditional masculine/feminine stereotypes and reimagines military style ruins as prized trophies and symbols of impenetrable psychological retreat. As the world enters into an period of enormous transformation and a new generation of dangerous demagogues have emerged to deliver promises of further political chaos around the globe, Wellington’s art seems all the more relevant and meaningful. In this context his work challenges the viewer to question preconceived notions of permanence and the complicated intersection of Eastern and Western cultural philosophy. 

John Wellington’s paintings have been in numerous exhibitions and art fairs in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and Paris. In addition to exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and The Arnot Museum in New York, his work is in the permanent collection of many prominent institutions and private collections throughout the United States, Asia and Europe. Wellington has taught traditional painting techniques at The New York Academy of Art and privately in his atelier for two decades. He also lectures and teaches painting workshops across the county.

 

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Ayakamay

Captive Train_reck

January 4th, 2017 – January 22nd, 2017

Opening Reception: Saturday, January 7th, 7pm – 9pm

 

ayakamay_lollipop

 


The Lodge Gallery is proud to debut new video, print, and live performance works by Ayakamay in her new solo exhibition, Captive Train_reck. Ayakamay’s work tackles the blurred lines of commercial marketing with traditional gender and cultural perceptions. In this, her latest body of work, her focus centers around creating what the artist describes as,  “an irritating and uncomfortable attraction… to take in something which one doesn’t want to watch, and in doing so opens oneself up to a new world view.” 

There is a whimsy and humor to many of the works, the effect of which is sometimes subtle, as in the Japanese text that frames the stationary figures in Beer Girl, and other times overt as in her self portrait as a Japanese pop-culture idol. In this piece titled Idol Worship, whatever humor there is in a plastic, camera-ready smile serves only to underscore the artists philosophy. As Ayakamay explains, “society is not always simply divided by right and wrong or dark and light. It is the beauty of the taboo grey area that these pieces examine and celebrate.” 

During Ayakamay’s performance, audience members may be recorded in the documentation of these special moments.

Ayakamay combines image-making with fantastically constructed but intimate live experiences. The staged, costumed worlds of studio photography and videography are combined with interactive performances engaging the unpredictability of encounters with strangers and exchanges of physical senses and emotional states. Ayaka’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Japan.

 

Performances:
Saturday, January 7th, 7pm
Wednesday, January 11th, 8pm

 

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Doug Young

Doug Young • The Lodge Gallery • NYC

General Dynamics

November 16, 2016 – December 28, 2016
Opening Reception, Wednesday, November 16, 7pm – 9pm

 

 

Doug Young • The Lodge Gallery • NYC

 

The Lodge Gallery proudly presents General Dynamics, a solo exhibition of works by Doug Young. In his second solo exhibition with The Lodge Gallery, Young explores the ego of man and the arrogance of governmental power. This recent body of work investigates the radical politics of our age and the coinciding precarious state of our natural environment. Vacillating through time from the unpeopled war rooms of the Cold War and the Vietnam War to the Philae spacecraft narrowing in on an ancient rogue comet, we are guided though a deposition of perceived reality. There is a feeling of anxiety about the consequence of our human urge to dominate but also a youthful faith that all is not irrevocable as long as these moments of belief are not fleeting.

Doug Young’s use of hooked rugs, reverse painting on glass, and woodworking derive from American modes of creative labor and the popular cultural traditions of transient craftspeople. There is a balance of hard and soft at work that is expressed through the craft of these pieces and mirrored in the socio-political themes of the subject matter. The use of hooked rugs evokes a Yankee ingenuity that pairs well with a with the highly industrial automotive paint reverse rendered on glass. The hand-made graphite painted frames that adorn each piece reinforce the iconic images and infers a monolithic uniformity that underscores the weight of each topic.

Doug Young has exhibited extensively throughout New York and Chicago. He holds a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Pratt Institute. His sculptures, hooked rugs, and reverse paintings on glass evoke time-honored traditions of folk arts and Americana. In 2001 Young was awarded by the Guinness Book World Records for the longest nonstop banjo performance in history. In conjunction with General Dynamics, Young’s carved pine sculpture, Chains, is currently on view at Van Doren Waxter Gallery, NYC through January 7, 2017.

 

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Point of Origin

curated by Dina Brodsky & Trek Lexington

October 13th, 2016 – November 13th, 2016

Opening Reception Thursday, October 13th, 7-9pm

 

denis_sarazhin_palette_4

 

Every artist has a unique mind, and a deeply personal, often idiosyncratic studio practice. Some adhere to strict routines, and others work for weeks or months, then pause completely in order to reflect, incubate an idea, or travel and take in new experience. One way to get a glimpse into the artist’s mind, as well as into their practice is the painter’s palette – a tool that has been around for centuries, as painting itself has gone through myriads of transformations through the years. It is both practical and intimate, acquiring layers of paint as well as memories, reflecting intent and execution, storing the ghosts of paintings that have long since left the studio.  The palette is the point of origin from which ideas become realized and paint is transformed into a reflection of the human experience. Whatever shape or form the surface or substrate takes, it all begins when brush meets palette.

Curated by Dina Brodsky and Trek Lexington, and featuring work by over fifty artists from around the world, the artist’s palette takes center stage as not only a point of origin but as a work of art itself. Artists who have created work for this exhibition include:

Liz Adams-Jones, James Adelman, Steven Assael, Daniel Bilodeau, Luis Borrero, Dina Brodsky, Charis Charmichael Brown, Diana Corvelle, Benjamin Craig, Cara DeAngelis, Michelle Doll, Daniel Doubrovkine, Heidi Elbers, Christian Fagerlund, Julien Gardair, Angela Gram, Nick Gebhart, Alonsa Guevara, Joshua Henderson, Justin Hopkins, Caitlin Hurd, Kieran Ingram, John Jacobsmeyer, Yunsung Jang, Marshall Jones, Alex Kanevsky, Kit King, Evan Kitson, Maria Kreyn, Shawn Krueger, Amber Lia-Kloppel, Tim Lowly, Daniel Maidman, Brian Mashburn, Anna Mogilevsky, Cory Morgenstein, Tun Myaing, Per Elof Nilsson Ricklund, Corey ‘Oda’ Popp, Kim Power, James Raczkowski, Matt Rota, Nicolas Sanchez, Denis Sarazhin, Victoria Selbach, Josh Suda, Maria Teicher, Emilio Villalba, Melanie Vote, John Wellington, Timothy Wilson and Miles Yoshida

Instagram Preview: @palettepainting_2016

Dina Brodsky is a contemporary realist miniaturist, painter and curator. She was educated at University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the New York Academy of Art, where she received her MFA. She lives and works in New York City, and has exhibited both nationally and internationally.

Trek Lexington is an NYC based curator, writer and an international man of mystery

 

 

kieran-ingram_palette-painting_web_small

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With the Thickness

Lizbeth Mitty Chandelier Cold Day, 2015, 24x24, oil on canvas

Lizbeth Mitty & Farrell Brickhouse

September 7th, 2016 – October 9th, 2016
Opening Reception, Wednesday, September 7th, 7pm-9pm

 

Lizbeth Mitty Chandelier Cold Day, 2015, 24x24, oil on canvas

The Lodge Gallery is pleased to present With the Thickness, a two-person exhibition of paintings by Lizbeth Mitty and Farrell Brickhouse, on view from September 7 through October 9, 2016.

Lizbeth Mitty transforms variably industrial or residentially clustered urban settings into richly textural celebrations of color and light. Farrell Brickhouse crafts compositions brimming with narrative implications, at times peopling them with mythological or otherwise allegorical figures. One painter portrays the quotidian trappings of humanity’s places, placements and traces in sublimated states; the other envisions suggestive moments from the tales and metaphorical ties that make something about human existence transcend time. What these artists share is a palpable love for employing paint as a constructive material for building layered surfaces, rather than merely as a colorful means of depiction. They also share decades of devoted practices aimed at ever greater realizations of the same.
Paul D’Agostino

Farrell Brickhouse War of the Worlds, Russell's Yard Series- 2015, oil on canvas, 20" x 14" diptych.

Farrell Brickhouse was born in New York City in 1949 and attended Queens College of the City University of New York. In 1971 he spent a Summer at Skowhegan School. Brickhouse’s first NYC one-person exhibition was in 1978 with the pioneering gallerist Julian Pretto, followed by two solo exhibitions with Max Protetch Gallery and then 4 one-person exhibitions with the Pamala Auchincloss Gallery in NYC. Recently Brickhouse has had solo exhibitions with John Davis Gallery in Hudson, NY, Fred Giampietro Gallery in New Haven, CT, and Life on Mars Gallery in Bushwick, NY. Brickhouse is also an Educator and has been an Instructor of Painting at The School of Visual Arts since 1980.

Lizbeth Mitty
was born in New York to a family of artists, inventors and actors. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in both the US and abroad and is held in numerous private and public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The US State Department and Trierenberg Holdings AG (Austria). Lizbeth Mitty is a recipient of the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Grant, and has an MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Lizbeth presently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

 

The Lodge Gallery, founded by Keith Schweitzer and Jason Patrick Voegele, is located at 131 Chrystie Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It is the exhibition venue of Republic Worldwide and serves as both an art space and a gathering place for hearty discourse and experimentation.

 

:izbeth Mitty Detroit Nocturne, 2016, 12x72, oil on canvas

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A Peculiar Nature

Tawan Wattuya Pig Lodge Gallery New York

Sirikul Pattachote & Tawan Wattuya

August 3rd, 2016 – September 4th, 2016
Opening Reception, Wednesday, August 3rd, 7pm-9pm

Tawan Wattuya Pig Lodge Gallery New York

The Lodge Gallery is pleased to present A Peculiar Nature, a two-person exhibition of works on paper by Sirikul Pattachote and Tawan Wattuya. The show, Tawan Wattuya’s first major exhibition in New York and Sirikul Pattachote’s second featured show with The Lodge Gallery, is on view from August 3 through September 4, 2016

Wattuya explores humankind’s basest behaviors and instincts through his bold depictions of dogs, pigs, and wild animals. Pattachote examines our more intimate moments, feelings, and relationships within her personified portraits of flowers. Shown together, the works offer starkly contrasting reflections of ourselves, the dichotomies of humanness. Raw versus refined, ferocity versus civility, instinct-driven versus meditative, the works traverse our inner divide.

Sirikul Pattachote Lodge Gallery New York


Tawan Wattuya
is a Thailand-born, Bangkok-based artist known for his unique approach to watercolor and thought-provoking subject matter. Wattuya’s choice of watercolor as a medium is a deliberate attempt to convey the speed, dynamism, and complex contrasts of contemporary society. His works have been exhibited extensively in Bangkok, Singapore, Beijing, Paris, Tokyo, Brisbane, and Brussels. Wattuya earned his BFA from Silipakorn University of Art and Design (Bangkok).

Sirikul Pattachote is a Thailand-born New York artist and earned her BFA from Silipakorn University of Art and Design (Bangkok). Her artwork is inspired by nature, where she draws upon memories and the experiences of her surroundings in everyday life. The ephemeral quality of life and matter is a central theme in her work. Through her paintings, she attempts to record and preserve certain memories and impressions that highlight the potential good that lies in everyone and everything.

The Lodge Gallery, founded by Keith Schweitzer and Jason Patrick Voegele, is located at 131 Chrystie Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It serves as both an art space and a gathering place for hearty discourse and experimentation. 

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UNINTENDED ARCHEOLOGY

Levan MindiashviliUta Bekaia

May 25th, 2016 – July 10th, 2016

Opening Reception: Wednesday, May 25th, 7pm-9pm

 

Levan Mindiashvili Uta Bekaia UNINTENDED ARCHEOLOGY

Levan Mindiashvili is a Georgian-born, Brooklyn-based visual artist primarily interested in exploring the complex relationships between communal and private spaces. This, Mindiashvili’s second major exhibition at The Lodge Gallery, features works from his current ongoing project entitled “Unintended Archeology of (un)Place” and expands upon his paintings through installation and sculptural objects. Mindiashvili’s paintings – rigorously rendered in several layers of acrylic paint and gel medium – mimic vintage, pixelated photography and questions our perception of the past and ‘taught’ history. While paintings keep ‘loyalty’ to their source material (the artist’s own snapshots from travels to his native Georgia), the sculptures, on the other hand, are summarized images of experiences and memories from the many places he has lived. Some details might allude to a particular aparment in Brooklyn or a house in Tbilisi, but they are merely hermetic remnants of what once might have been a home. Rendered in pigmented plaster, they visually and superficially mimic a steady, permanent concrete, yet the fragility of his chosen material outlines the temporal and ephemeral nature of the notions of ‘place’ and ‘home’ in today’s society.

This exhibition is created in collaboration with Uta Bekaia. Both artists share same cultural background, and furthermore, the same concerns regarding identity and historical memory, but they employ two different starting points in their practice. While Mindiashvili is concerned with the intellectual knowledge and limitations imposed by society and culture, Bekaia is interested in genetical, biological memory.

The artists have also conceived a performance entitled If You Lived Here You Would Be Home Now, which will be performed by Japanese/American butoh dancer Azumi Oe on the day of the opening. The resulting residual remnants of the performance piece will become part of the installation, and remain on view for the run of the show. 

Levan Mindiashvili received his BFA in sculpture from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts and realized post-graduate studies in Crossed Media Arts at The National University of Arts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Among his awards should be mentioned Commission Grant for Public Art Projects from National Endowments for Arts, New York 2014 and Emerging Artist of 2011, Movistar Arte Jóven, 2011 Buenos Aires, Argentina. His work has been included in recent group exhibitions at Tartu Art Museum, Estonia; Brooklyn; Hathaway David Contemporary, Atlanta; ODETTA, Brooklyn; RichMix, London; Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi; Recent solo exhibitions include “Studies For Unintended Archeology”, The Vazquez Building, Brooklyn; “Borderlines”, The Lodge Gallery, New York; “Urban Identities”, Kunstraub99, Cologne.

Uta Bekaia Georgian Born, New York based multimedia artist. He had studied Industrial Design at Tbilisi Mtsire Academy. He debuted as an artist at AMA (Avant-Guard Fashion Assembly) with a sculptural performance. He creates multimedia performances and installations inhabited with wearable sculptures, exploring his historical cultural background, genetical codes and cycles of the universe. His works were included in Istanbul 14th Biennial and Kiev 2nd Biennial. He currently presented performance pieces “Vestiphobia”, Ideal Glass, New York; “Fua Sia Tata Sia”, The Movement Theater, Tbilisi; and Tbilisi City Parade “Berikaoba”.

 

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PAUL BRAINARD

VOLTA NY 2016
 
Gallery Exhibition: ”Paul Brainard: ROASTED“
February 24 through April 3
Opening Reception, Wednesday, February 24, 7-9pm
The Lodge Gallery, 131 Chrystie Street, NYC

 

and

 

 
Solo Artist Booth: Paul Brainard
VOLTA NY 2016 – March 2 through March 6
Opening Reception, Wednesday, March 2
6-8pm (VIP), 8-10pm (Public)

Pier 90, West 50th Street at 12th Avenue, NYC
Booth X9

The Lodge Gallery is proud to present Paul Brainard: ROASTED, opening at the gallery on February 24th, and Paul Brainard: VOLTA NY 2016 opening March 2nd.

Paul Brainard: Roasted is a group exhibition celebrating an artist and curator who has impacted the careers and influenced the studio work of many of today’s most relevant contemporary artists. In the spirit of the Friars Club Roasts, each participating artist has made new work “roasting” Brainard with artwork paying tribute to or poking fun at him. All attendees at the opening will have a chance to “roast” Brainard with a toast sponsored by Peroni Italy. Doors open from 7pm to 9pm with a reception following after at Fig. 19.

Set to run through Armory Arts Week, Paul Brainard: ROASTED will feature over 30 artists from New York City, Los Angeles and Europe including Ron Amstutz, Michael Bevilacqua, Miriam Carothers, Michele Colomer, Carl D’Alvia, Daniel Davidson, Pia Dehne, Dawn Frasch, Rebecca Goyette, Duncan Hannah, Karen Heagle, Volker Hueller, Liz Insogna, Aaron Johnson, Irena Jurek, Erika Keck, Emily Noelle Lambert, Hayley McCulloch, Frank J Miles, Heather Joy Morgan, Nick Naber, Hyun Jin Alex Park, Kanishka Raja, Walter Robinson, Tom SanfordHazel Lee SantinoSamantha Keely Smith, Alfred SteinerUlrike Theusner, Lane Twitchell, Frank Webster, Doug Young, Aaron Zimmerman.

VOLTA NY 2016

Additionally, The Lodge Gallery will be presenting a solo booth (X9) of Paul Brainard’s work at VOLTA NY 2016 featuring original drawings and sculpture. VOLTA NY 2016 opens to the public on Wednesday, March 2nd (8pm) at the west side piers adjoining the main Armory Show (Pier 90, 92, and 94) and will be on view through Armory Arts Week, concluding March 6th.

Paul Brainard’s works are made up of portraits of friends, family and people from his life, imagery from advertising, the internet, celebrity culture, celebrity counter-culture and American puritanical religious imagery. A common aesthetic theme throughout Paul’s work is a dark and cynical sensibility that stems from the artists existentialist and absurdist philosophy. Formally, the drawings are rendered in a constant state of flux and are woven together from moments of expressive bursts and carefully calculated precision. There is an overt rebelliousness in both the execution and the subject matter of his work that services the viewers imagination with recollections of a kid in the back of a high school classroom, clad in a leather motorcycle jacket, carving away his frustrations and his fantasies into a desktop with a switchblade. Through a malestrom of drawings and scrimshawed desk sculpture, the artist channels a rebellious spirit against media-saturated contemporary American society. Brainard’s CV is extensive, including fall 2003’s “Kult 48 Klubhouse”, a seminal takeover of Deitch Project’s Brooklyn space (curated by Scott Hug), to “Heathen Fundamentalist”, a group exhibition in ode to Phillip Guston at The Lodge Gallery this past summer.

 
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Frank Porcu

Frank Porcu at Lodge Gallery

Relics; In Pursuit of Mastery

February 5th – February 19th, 2016

Opening Reception Friday, February 5th, 7pm -9pm
Performance begins at 7pm

Frank Porcu at Lodge Gallery

[link to Press Release]

As a sculptor, painter, educator, writer and lecturer, Frank Porcu has spent over two decades studying and mastering the logistical function and structure of human body, coupled with Florentine Neo-Platonism. Renown for his ability to illuminate the anatomy of the human form and effortlessly render the fundamental principles of anatomical form making, Porcu has built a unique and alternative career in the arts while pursuing an uncompromised vision. In addition to his studio work which includes private sculpture and drawing commissions including celebrities such as Tony Bennett, he is universally lauded for the passion and imagination that goes into his distinct lecturing style and the drawings he creates in the process.

Trained in fine art and stereoscopic medical dissection and as an instructor of lab anatomy at Columbia University, he has taught courses and lectures at: Pratt Institute, The New York Academy of Art, & The Art Student’s League. Porcu has honed his skills and natural charisma into educational performances that often transcend the classroom and embrace larger audiences ranging from business executives to patrons of the New York Gallery scene.

In Relics; In Pursuit of Mastery, Porcu presents us with an array of drawings from past projects and lectures. There is a trapped energy in the quick precision of the drawings that makes them engaging and complete works of art on their own as much as they function as illustrations of form and scientific and philosophical method. These works were created within what Porcu calls “the social collaboration between the audience and himself.” In addition to the “Relics” of past projects, guests at the opening reception will be treated to an hour long performance by the artist who will be demonstrating in chalk and effectively creating the final work in the exhibition before and with his audience.

Frank Porcu is an artist and anatomy instructor based in New York. A past student of Salvatore Montano and Alfred Cardenas, Porcu earned his BFA from Pratt Institute and MFA from The New York Academy of Art. He is the recipient of the James Amster Memorial Award from The National Arts Club and has exhibited extensively throughout North America and Europe. This is his first solo exhibition in Manhattan.

The Lodge Gallery, founded by Keith Schweitzer and Jason Patrick Voegele, is located at 131 Chrystie Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It is the exhibition venue of Republic Worldwide and serves as both an art space and a gathering place for hearty discourse and experimentation.

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BETWEEN US

December 15th, 2015 – January 24th, 2016

Opening Reception: Tuesday, December 15th, 2015

John Belardo “Leviathan”

Artists: John Belardo, Dina Brodsky, Maya Brodsky, Cara DeAngelis, Michelle Doll, Peter Drake, Alonsa Guevara, John Jacobsmeyer, Laura Karetzky, David Kratz, Benjamin Martins, Margaret McCann, Jean-Pierre Roy, Melanie Vote, Mitra Walter

curated by Benjamin Martins and Melanie Vote

The Lodge Gallery is proud to present Between Us, an exhibition of works by four generations of New York Academy of Art (NYAA) alumni and faculty. The exhibition frames the Academy as a family with close bonds and generational debate and consists of works that express the relational dynamics present within all families. There exists a unique kinship at the Academy, an almost fraternal commonality, and an ongoing intergenerational discourse.

At the vanguard of figurative and representational art for over four decades, The New York Academy of Art was founded in 1982 by artists, scholars and patrons of the arts, including Andy Warhol. The Academy has since developed into a non-profit cultural institution housing the nation’s first graduate school of figurative art, a continuing education program, the region’s most in-depth figurative art library, an extensive exhibition and lecture series, and iconic New York City events such as Take Home a Nude and Tribeca Ball.

“There are a number things that make the Academy unique. The quality of the education that is offered is unparalleled, the professional opportunities that are generated for our students are mind-boggling and the work students are producing is fresh, vital and contemporary.” – Peter Drake, Dean of Academic Affairs, NYAA

During the opening reception a book signing for the Academy’s book, The Figure, which celebrates the impact the Academy has had on contemporary art, will take place with many of the contributing editors and artists participating including Jean-Pierre Roy, Peter Drake, Margaret McCann, and John Jacobsmeyer. “The Figure (published by Skira/Rizzoli) is an ambitious and overdue tome that fills a void: if you haven’t noticed, contemporary representation is coming on strong. The figure is the greatest subject of all — it will live as long as we do — and this stimulating book reminds us… If there ever was an art book that needed to become a major exhibition — or a maybe a salon — The Figure is it” (Hyperallergic). To conclude the exhibition, a salon evening will be held in January featuring a panel discussion and offering many of the artists in the exhibition with an opportunity to speak about the influence of the Academy and the relevance of representational and figurative art in a creative climate that has turned in their favor.

 

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Reverence & Reverie

Matt Hansel “The Tickler”

November 6, 2015 – December 13, 2015

Opening Reception Friday, November 6th, 7-9pm

Matt Hansel “The Tickler”

[link to Press Release]

Artists: Matt Hansel, Christian Rex van Minnen, Elizabeth Livingston, Kent Henricksen, Jansson Stegner, Peter Daverington, Allison Sommers, and Kate Clark.

The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence
– T.S. Eliot

Artists of the European Renaissance grasped to collect shards of art history in order to repurpose them for their own use. They played off of familiar, classical motifs, responded to new developments, and imbued their work with mythic popular imagery to weave, what was then, a contemporary perspective into their sophisticated compositions. While they used stories and images from the past to question then contemporary cultural norms and values, they worked to build a new way of thinking by building upon the lessons learned from their classical heroes. In doing so, they transformed both the known and the unknown into foundations that would resonate through time.

The annals of art history are rich with movements that either grow out of conflict or are born in reverie for a more enlightened age. For the artists in this exhibition, reverent derivation has become the skeletal framework around which they each embark upon journeys of innovation and invention and build their contemporary practice. The exhibition, as a whole, speaks to a larger conversation about where we came from, who we are and where we might be going.

In the spirit of history repeating itself but never the same way twice, The Lodge Gallery is proud to present Reverence & Reverie, on view November 6 through December 13, 2015

Opening Reception Sponsored by:
Peroni Logo Blue Ribbon