Grayson Chandler: Planting Traces Opens April 20
OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 5 PM- 7:30 PM, NOW ACCEPTING RSVPS VIA EVITE/ WALK-INS WELCOME
Planting Traces, the title of Grayson Chandler’s 2024 Spring solo, alludes to the manner of abstraction that permeates his artwork. Embedded in his process is the idea of allowing subliminal matters the space and time to grow into something more observable, so that something more illuminating may take root. This preoccupation with observation stems from a belief that meaning emerges out of mindful cooperation with one’s surroundings, and that as one becomes more mindful of their environment, a sense of destination is nurtured.
Planting Traces suggests a connotation of passage and growth, imbibing the artwork with an undercurrent of cause and effect. Yet, despite these cyclical overtones, Chandler’s work remains uninhabited by chronological order. Instead, his work echoes outside of history, arousing a place that seems suspended in its own time. What ultimately germinates between Chandler’s artwork and those it attracts, is a place where viewers are given room to grow mindful regarding the nature of their own perception.
Artist Statement
Fascinated by the intrinsic order and beauty of nature, My work attempts to capture and abstract its character in a manner that is uncanny, yet familiar. Deeply curious about the forces that govern human reason and faith, my work probes the amphibious network linking logic, intuition, consciousness, and emotion. Through this perspective, we are encouraged to draw upon our own experience as a means of shaping the border between real and imaginary. Moreover, we are encouraged to explore how the shape of our experience shapes how we see, and how what we see is largely colored by what we can recognize. Within this aesthetic, the spectator is invited to enter a space that meditates on the means through which we conceive and distill meaning and sensation from space and form.
Biography
Born in Houston, Texas 1994, Grayson Chandler’s exposure to the visual arts began from a young age. Since graduating with a BFA from the University of North Texas in 2018, Chandler has been selling and exhibiting his paintings in Texas, and abroad. His early success can be demonstrated through numerous solo and group shows, garnering his artwork a rapidly growing admiration from significant collectors and Houston institutions alike. His 2022 solo IN VIA, at Deborah Colton Gallery, saw his work acquired into the MFAH’s permanent collection. Other notable shows include a 2021 Solo at Pearl Fincher Museum in Spring, Texas, as well as his upcoming solo at the Jung Center in 2024. In addition to his own professional practice, Chandler also serves on the board of the Visual Arts Alliance (VAA) — an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization seeking to provide educational and career opportunities for serious practitioners of the visual arts within the Houston community.
REBECCA SHKEYROV’S KEPT UNDER HER WING AT CURRENT MIDTOWN
OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 5:30 - 7:30 PM.
MEET THE ARTIST BEFORE SHE EMBARKS ON A YEAR IN PARIS
WALK-INS WELCOME/ OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
LOCATION:
CURRENT MIDTOWN APARTMENTS
221 MONTICELLO AVE, WILLIAMSBURG VA 23185
DO NOT PARK IN RESIDENT PARKING. PARKING IS AVAILABLE AT EARTH FARE OR BEHIND SAL’S BY VICTOR
Exhibit runs April 10 – May 9, 2024
Synesthesia
Location:
SATÉ, A New American Experience
694 Town Center Drive, Newport News, VA 23606
Phone number
(757) 330-2299
Psychological Landscapes Revisited
Often calling to mind stills from 1920s-era cinema, Matney's photos capture the figure in various states of contortion and relaxation, creating an illusion of continued motion. READ MORE
A FOCUS ON VIRTUAL EXHIBITS
Show
Smoke Screen
September 26 – November 27, 2023
Presented by Matney Gallery
Press Release
"Smoke Screen", Rob Carter's exhibition in Richmond, Virginia, was predominantly made up of photography. The city is home of Altria parent company of Phillip Morris USA, and Virginia owes its existence to Nicotiana Tabacum, a remarkable plant that continues to plague and pleasure humans all over the world. The success of tobacco has been maintained by obfuscation regarding the health impacts on users, but even as we peer through the smoke, nicotine remains an irresistible commercial product. The exhibited photographs capture the story of tobacco from seed to cigarette as an allegory for our addiction to fossil fuels, and the political and marketing tactics employed by multinationals who keep us hooked on their suicidal products. The exhibition explored the ironic absurdity of society’s apparent death wish, the beauty and grandeur of bright leaf tobacco plants, and the beguiling quality of smoke. VIEW EXHIBITION
Eva Series: Mark Miltz
September 30 – November 30, 2023
Presented by Matney Gallery
Press Release
This series of works features the integration of Japanese pop cultural images (anime) into traditional western fine art objects. The pieces rely on both the contrasts inherent in the disparate source materials and the interplay between these contrasting cultural symbol systems for their content. In effect, the works are translations. They attempt to emphasize a commonality of experience through the mediation of the native symbol systems of the viewers, whether western or Japanese. By using Japanese elements in western motifs, I am exploring the ways in which the assimilation of content is affected by its form.
The works overall deal with universal issues of love, alienation, sacrifice, and the crucible of adolescence by using that most universal of images, the human body. The body (often at life size) facilitates a metaphysical link between individual viewer and art.
Sandra-Lee Phipps, Orchard Breath, (Rubus 2) from “Her Name is Vincent” series, 2019, Archival Pigment Print From unique Lumen photogram, 20 × 15 143/200 in | 50.8 × 39.9 cm. VIEW ON ARTSY
SANDRA-LEE PHIPPS LESSONS IN SURVIVAL VIEWING ROOM
Lesson in Survival Buried memories do strange things to confidence and creativity. The energy spent in survival mode darkens the palette, clouds vision. To counterbalance the weight of a season of heavy news and challenging life events, I began a personal project that evolved to be a study of light and the body. This work represents a challenge to the darkness of past experiences, buried thoughts.
Sandra-Lee Phipps, Beauchamp from Lessons in Survival Series, Isabel, 2019 VIEW EXHIBITION ON ARTSY
Brittainy Lauback, Mello Yello, 2012, 24 × 20 in | 61 × 50.8 cm, Edition of 15. VIEW WORKS ON ARTSY
INTRODUCING BRITTAINY LAUBACK
Not unlike the moment a cry gives way to a laugh, Brittainy Lauback’s work reflects the
emotionally chaotic reality that we experience daily. She received her BFA from the University
of New Mexico and her MFA from University of Georgia. Her work has been featured in the
traveling exhibition, Reckonings and Reconstructions: Southern Photography from the Do
Good Fund, Looking Male, at the La Grange Museum of Art and Bo Bartlett Center in
Columbus GA, and New Southern Photography at the Ogden Museum of Art in New Orleans.
Her first Monograph Infinite Bonheur is set to be published in 2023 by Fall Line Press. She
currently lives and works in Houston, Texas. READ MORE
FEATURED PROJECTS 2022
Three Excellences of Culture: Painting, Poetry and Music, the Work of Art Rosenbaum and Friends
Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts, Spring Texas
CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION
This fall the Pearl is proud to present, in cooperation with the Linda Matney Gallery in Virginia, a colorful exhibition featuring the narrative painter Art Rosenbaum; his wife, professional photographer Margo Newmark Rosenbaum; and the friends and former students they met along the way. The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday, September 24.
Art Rosenbaum paints images of Southern folklore in richly colored canvases that depict lively figures often dancing or holding musical instruments. After moving to Georgia, Art and Margo met musicians such as Ring Shouters on the Georgia coast, banjo and fiddle players in the mountains, faith-filled singers in African American churches, and old-school blues players. These musicians made their way into Art’s paintings as well as Margo’s photographs. “
A typical Rosenbaum canvas is fairly teeming with figures, many of them specific portraits, often including the artist himself,” writes painter Philip Morsberger. “Elements of landscape, of architecture, of still life (often musical instruments): all are presented in rich detail, but at the same time with bold and fearless brushwork. There is no dead space in a Rosenbaum painting. Something is going on everywhere one looks.”
Rosenbaum’s paintings are in many collections, including the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Georgia Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art. He also plays a variety of folk instruments, and his music will be part of the exhibition at the Pearl. Rosenbaum’s boxed set, Art of Field Recording Vol. 1: Fifty Years of American Traditional Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum won a Grammy for Best Documentary Recording in 2008.
Margo Newmark Rosenbaum has collaborated with Art over many years in documenting American traditional music. Her photographs have been published in several books by Art Rosenbaum as well as the New York Times, Newsweek, and The Old-Time Herald. Margo’s work has been widely exhibited and is part of many private collections.
Three Excellences of Culture will be featured in both the Main Gallery and the Cole Gallery at the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts this fall. Among the other artists whose work will be included are Howard Finster, who designed album covers for R.E.M. and the B-52’s; Len Jenkin, whose work includes scripts for Family, The Incredible Hulk, and the novel New Jerusalem; Michael Paxton, Bonnie Loggins, Dennis Harper, Kent Knowles, Scott Belville, Dilmus Hall. Zuzka Vaclavik, and Teddy Johnson.
The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday, September 24 with a members-only preview on Friday evening. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and admission is free. Please note that the Pearl will be closed September 4 – 23 for the exhibition change.
For more information, visit pearlmfa.org.
About
The Linda Matney Gallery is a Curator-driven art space in Williamsburg, Virginia. The gallery was founded by John Lee Matney to exhibit innovative and emerging artwork from both national and international artists and works by students and professors associated with top universities. With a focus on painting, photography, installation, video, sculpture, and performance art, the Linda Matney Gallery provides a unique opportunity for patrons to view some of the most significant pieces being created today.
The Linda Matney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery founded in honor of Linda Matney, who lost her battle with cancer in 2001. The gallery specializes in curating services for museum exhibitions and art collections, notably Southern figurative art and photography. We are exclusive agents in Virginia of the deeper catalogs of select contemporary artists, which we showcase in special previews of new and newly available work at our exhibitions. Our mission is to promote research-based contemporary art and support artists while providing quality art collecting experiences for our patrons.
