The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program Open Studios 2009

The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program Open Studios 2009

The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation
20 Jay Street, Suite 720
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Opening Reception: Friday, April 24, 5 – 9 pm
Honoring Barbara T. Hoffman, Esq.

Phong Bui Interview with Alex Katz: Saturday, April 25, 12 – 2 pm
Saturday, April 25, 2 – 6 pm
Sunday, April 26, 2 – 6 pm

The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program will present Open
Studios 2009 from April 24, 2009 – April 26, 2009. Open Studios 2009
marks the second year of The Space Program in its DUMBO location
(Brooklyn). The program, founded in 1991, was housed in Tribeca until
2006 and relocated in 2007 to DUMBO. The Foundation offers rent-free
studios to seventeen artists. The artists would like to welcome the
press and the public to view their recent work. The artists were
selected from a pool of more than 900 applicants by a panel of
distinguished artists: Matthew Deleget, Richard Haas, Mary Lucier,
Harriet Shorr and Sarah Sze.

The 2008/2009 Space Program participants are:

Kim Beck makes drawings, prints, paintings and installations that
survey peripheral and suburban spaces. She has exhibited work at the
Walker Art Center, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Hallwalls Contemporary
Art Center, Printed Matter, and Smack Mellon.

Erik Benson builds urban landscape paintings informed by the Everyday.
His work is currently included in the Tenerife Biennial (Canary
Islands).

Michael Paul Britto is an art renegade, who was born in Brooklyn and
currently lives and works in New York City. Britto's goal is to use
his art to give voice to marginalized communities and foster
understanding in mainstream society.

Bibi Calderaro is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is shown
internationally. Curious about intersubjectivity and the possibilities
of communication, she questions boundaries – of subjects, of
disciplines, of knowledge – to create tensions, to problematize, to
simplify, to yield new layers of perception and thought. She
critically employs a range of media, such as still and moving images,
sound, objects, writing, and performative actions.

Michelle Carollo was born in New York and studied at San Francisco Art
Institute (MFA, Painting) and Stony Brook University (BA, Studio Art).
She plays with the idea of making a painting in space. Her interest is
in translating illusionary space, like that found in painting, into
physical space, like that found in sculpture.

Rob Carter makes stop-motion animation, time-lapse video and
photographic ‘re-constructions’ that spotlight iconic and political
structures in our urban environment, especially sports stadia,
skyscrapers, churches, and other historical landmarks. In 2008, he
became a West Prize finalist, attended the Art Omi residency and
opened solo exhibitions in Madrid and Rome.

Cora Cohen is a New York-based abstract painter whose opulent yet
gritty paintings draw on contemporary urban and philosophical sources.
Their complex visuality invokes aspects of American modernism, and
their gnarled materiality recalls European Art informel. She has shown
widely in the United States and Europe.

Colette is working on a series of new portraits ,in an installation
recalling” home.”. She has just completed a short film on the
demolition of her “legendary atelier” and is also creating a series of
paintings and photo works related to the street tableaux performed
during the demolition. She has recently returned from Berlin where she
was featured in “React- feminism “for her ground breaking street-work
performances of the 70's; participated in” Interieur Exterior “at the
Wolfsburg museum, and had a video presentation among her works at the
“Colette Lounge” in the LowenPalais.

Franklin Evans is an artist whose psychedelic, formal, conceptual,
maximalist, literalist painting installations and collaborations
explore the boundaries between painting and performance and the static
and the dynamic. His work has been exhibited in New York at The
Drawing Center and El Museo del Barrio, among other places, and he has
had solo exhibitions in New York, San Francisco, Milan, and Toronto.

Christopher Gallego was born in New York. As a representational
painter drawing inspiration from the familiarity of his studio, he
searches for a grace and presence dwelling within "ordinary" things,
which he feels transcend the ordinary. He has exhibited at Hirschl and
Adler, Seraphin Gallery, The New Britain Museum of American Art and
the Arkansas Arts Center.

Ezra Johnson makes videos and paintings. His work is shown by Nicole
Klagsbrun Gallery in New York.

Kakyoung Lee creates moving images combining drawing, printmaking, and
sound, based on her cyclical daily life. She holds MFAs from Hong-Ik
University, Seoul and Purchase College, and has been a resident at
MacDowell and Yaddo. Her works have been exhibited widely in the USA
and Korea including The Drawing Center and MOMA in New York.

Katinka Mann's work is primarily in relief sculpture and handmade
paper. The sculpture’s physical lightness contrasts with the look of
weight and solidity. Although the bas reliefs are very thin, they do
not interfere with depth perception. Implied movement helps create
spatial illusion. Many paradoxes blur the distinction between reality
and image.

Kristine Moran’s abstract paintings take their cues from film,
literature, mythology and modern and contemporary art. Moran will have
her first New York solo exhibition this June at the Nicelle Beauchene
Gallery and will be part of the upcoming exhibition Paint at the
Saatchi Gallery, London, later next year.

Eric Sall, an artist born and raised in South Dakota, makes abstract
paintings that are informed by a wide range of influences including
dreamy sunsets, graphic logos, junk piles, symmetrical patterns, and
monumental forms. He is the recipient of several awards and
residencies from notable foundations including the Joan Mitchell
Foundation, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Virginia Museum
of Fine Arts, The Charlotte Street Foundation, and the Roswell
Artist-in-Residence Program.

Diane Wah is an artist from Queens, NY whose work explores the
intersection between traditional photography and popular culture.
Making use of various elements including photography, typography and
graphic design, Wah explores various notions of gender, racial coding
and cultural theory.

Frank Webster – “In the landscape of extinction, precision is next to
godliness.” —Samuel Beckett

Marie Walsh Sharpe, a Colorado Springs, CO philanthropist, created the
Foundation before her death in 1985 to benefit visual artists. The
Foundation’s Artists Advisory Committee, comprised of: Cynthia
Carlson, Chuck Close (emeritus), Janet Fish, Philip Pearlstein, Irving
Sandler, Harriet Shorr, and Robert Storr, initiated and developed The
Space Program in 1991 as a service to artists to meet their needs for
workspace. In 2006, Phong Bui, Matthew Deleget and Tara Donovan were
added to the Artists Advisory Committee.

The Space Program is funded by The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation
and a Consortium of funders: Basil Alkazzi, The Milton and Sally Avery
Arts Foundation, Inc., The Robert Sterling Clark Visual Arts Space
Award, The Richard Florsheim Art Fund Awards for Older Artists, The
Robert Gould Foundation, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, The Judith
Rothschild Foundation, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual
Arts, Inc.

The Space Program is located at 20 Jay Street, Suite 720, 7th Floor
and may be reached by subway F to York Street, right on Jay Street,
walk downhill 3 blocks, on the corner of Plymouth and Jay; or subway
A/C to High Street, cross Cadman Plaza, walk down Cadman Plaza West to
Washington Street, right on Front, left on Jay.