Opening reception: September 12, 2024
Location: 195 Chrystie Street, NYC 10002
Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am – 6 pm, Saturday 12-5 pm & Sunday by appointment
Contact: caroline@voltzclarke.com | 917.292.6921

Press Release

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present Eternal Current, an exhibition of new paintings by New York artist Field Kallop. Kallop’s third solo show with the gallery will feature a dozen works that Kallop has created during the past two years, including several at a new, larger scale for the artist.

Kallop’s luminous, saturated paintings claim space in the wide-open field of geometric abstraction, across a terrain reaching from ancient sacred geometries to the hard edges of color theory. The works in Eternal Current gesture simultaneously toward scientific illustration, mystical visions, and color field painting. They invite us to reconsider the dichotomy between science and spiritualism: each is a quest to understand that which we can’t observe, and to image the unseen. So to ask whether Kallop’s paintings are rooted in transcendentalism or mathematics, in color theory or in tantra, we can simply answer: yes.

Kallop always begins her compositions with a grid, over which she lays a second-order set of geometries: circles, arcs, waves, and rays. These shapes are carefully drawn in a diagrammatic process. But within a system governed by self-imposed rules, Kallop finds room for painterly incident and idiosyncrasy: a wavering human hand is always detectable just beyond the relentless precision of her work. Her simplified forms are rich with symbolic potential, but the paintings foreground the perceptual possibilities of painting.

Kallop uses acrylic paint in highly diluted washes with a diffuse quality almost like watercolor. This method allows her to paint in multiple, diaphanous layers, suspending particles of pigment in glazes to give each color depth and dimension. Sometimes the paint is left translucent enough that the raw canvas shows through beneath it, and sometimes it’s built up in so many layers that it practically glows. Her palette is prismatic, using the colors of pure light across the visible spectrum.

In Cosmic Rhythm (II), each square of a grid is divided diagonally, giving each square the appearance of a folded and unfolded piece of paper. This grid makes up a color spectrum - not a mere color chart, but a vibrating, pulsating field of light. Punctuating this grid are a number of half-circles, alternating on either side of diagonal axes. These half-moon forms call to mind planetary rotations and an unseen order inherent in the natural world.

In Deep Transit, a large circle touches each of the four sides of the canvas, either filling the picture or opening a portal within it. A vertical stack of circles makes a column down the painting’s center, while shimmering rays radiate out from either side. Tiny white dots bifurcate the central form and

create an inner circle – suggesting data markers on a chart, or points on a map. Like much of Kallop’s work, the painting asks both to be read like a cypher and experienced like a phenomenon.

The title Eternal Current is taken from poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s First Elegy. Elsewhere in the Elegy, Rilke exclaims: “how little at home we are in the interpreted world”: a fitting prompt to experience these dazzling, mysterious paintings on their own terms.

— Mamie Tinkler, 2024

Kallop received her Master of Fine Arts from The Rhode Island School of Design in 2011, and her Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University in 2004. A recipient of multiple awards and residencies, Kallop has been an Artist in Residence at The Andy Warhol Preserve in Montauk, NY, and has exhibited widely, most notably at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, PA. A New York native, Kallop currently lives and works in downtown Manhattan.

Selected Works

Dates: September 4, 2024 – September 10, 2024

Location: 195 Chrystie Street, NYC 10002
Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am – 6 pm, Saturday 12-5 pm & Sunday by appointment
Contact: caroline@voltzclarke.com | 917.292.6921

 
Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present Phenomena/Noumena, a solo show, by Paul Costello.

Press Release

Artist Paul Costello’s project Phenomena/Noumena specifically uses photography to challenge what is perception, what is reality, and what is spiritual. “I am interested in the exploration of light and time that reveals both wonder, uneasiness, and unexpected narratives.” To the 18th-Century philosopher Kant, phenomena are things as they appear in our sensory experience. It’s the world we experience via our perception. On the other hand, noumena are things as they are independent of our sensory experience, and they are not directly accessible through our senses or understanding. Noumena exists beyond the realm of human perception. It is unknowable but real.

Following the success of the Phenomena/Noumena exhibit at artist Dawn Dedeaux’s Camp Abundance in New Orleans, the show will open in New York at Voltz Clarke Gallery on September 4th, for a limited run. These images are intended to be symbolic and ethereal. The protagonist is light, and the antagonist is time. The dimensions of the cube are built on the principles of sacred geometry, thus the cube inherently carries with it a spiritual overtone. The narrative is created through the juxtaposition of this spiritual form and its tenuous placement within geological formations and abandoned landscapes. This creates a kind of portal that is intended to emotionally draw you in but emits something deeper and challenges our concept of reality.

Paul Costello set out to challenge himself both technically and conceptually as shooting in the dark is a seriously complicated gambit. It boils down to the ratio between the available light and the amount of light that the cube can emit. There are only 10 to 15 minutes each day when the ratio of light is right, so only one picture can be attempted each day. On a conceptual level, Costello endeavored to experiment with a subject that is not entirely tangible, reduced to its essence, where everything is stripped away except shape and light. In the end, our understanding of the world around us remains elusive whether approached through the lens of science, art, spirituality, or philosophy. Embracing the unknown becomes a profound acknowledgment that, in the face of light and time, we are continually confronted with the mystery of existence.

Paul Costello graduated from New York University with a degree in Photography in 1993. He moved to New Orleans, Louisiana in 2010 where he currently lives and works. Phenomena/Noumena will be his first exhibition with Voltz Clarke Gallery.

Opening reception: June 13th, 2024
Location: 195 Chrystie Street, NYC 10002
Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am – 6 pm, Saturday 12-5 pm & Sunday by appointment
Contact: caroline@voltzclarke.com | 917.292.6921

Press Release

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present Dear Life, a solo show by Stephanie Patton

In the unprecedented and current uncertain times, one may often wonder, “What’s next”? The exhibition, Dear Life, tries to make sense of the world today through a variety of relief sculpture, photographs, and video. The solo show focuses on the intensity of what we, as a society, have experienced in recent years, what we can’t “unsee,” and the internal struggles we face to process and heal together.

Humor plays an important role in Stephanie Patton’s work. The sculptor often uses it as a way to communicate challenging experiences and emotional concerns, including mental and physical health, healing, and protection. Mattress quilting suggests ideas related to birth, death, intimacy, relationships, illness, and rest. Coupled with words or phrases, which often have multiple meanings, the quilted fabric is meant to bring a humorous yet poignant conceptual message to the viewer. Patton is interested in using these text pieces as a way to reflect upon self-preservation as well as the incredibly fast, unpredictable and often tumultuous current climate. She also uses vinyl in her sculptural reliefs for its physical properties as well inherent ‘protection’ references to mental and physical health. The impenetrable nature of these pieces offers a comforting and self-protective physical and emotional awareness to the viewer. Patton’s work often addresses psychological themes while exploring the relationship between humor and personal therapies in addition to investigating aspects of human emotion.

Born in New Orleans, LA, Stephanie Patton is a multi–media artist. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the University of Louisiana in Lafayette and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Patton has shown her work nationally and internationally including shows at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Elizabeth Houston Gallery and Voltz Clarke Gallery in New York; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Louisiana ArtWorks, the Contemporary Art Center and Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans, LA; the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, LA; the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, the Galveston Art Center in Texas and Galerie Patricia Dorfmann in Paris, France.

Patton has received several grants including a Career Advancement Grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts in 2009 and 2012. She has been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center, the Santa Fe Art Institute and the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. In 2019 Stephanie was a South Arts Fellowship Recipient for the state of Louisiana and a Finalist for the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art with The Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, SC.

Selected Works

Dates: May 9th – June 8th, 2024

Location: 195 Chrystie Street, NYC 10002
Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am – 6 pm, Saturday 12-5 pm & Sunday by appointment
Contact: caroline@voltzclarke.com | 917.292.6921

Press Release

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present April Showers, a solo show by Bradley Sabin.

Bradley Sabin, a Louisiana based sculptor and passionate gardener, finds inspiration in nature and the world around him. The lush scenery from his New Orleans hometown informs his intricate wall installations and standing abstract objects. His sweeping sculptures combine hundreds of ceramic blossoms, carefully created and glazed, sometimes as many as 1,400 for a single project. He thoughtfully plans the composition in which the blooms, each screwed individually into a wall surface, are arranged. Sabin’s art has been installed in both galleries and personal homes across the country.

Each unique handmade flower is equally important to the whole. Rough, sugary textures coat the sturdy stems which support velvety and visceral petals. These vibrant yet tentative blooms give way to the reward of smooth, fleshy, glowing fruits. Luxuriating branches grow not heedlessly but according to some fractal instinct across walls similar to a flamboyant rococo fantasy rewedded to its honest organic roots. Whether they are plant or animal, some fleshy creature of the coral reef, Sabin’s forms translate nature to speak to the interior, to the human, to bridge inside and outside and transform geometric spaces to something living, hand-touched and alive.

Bradley Sabin received his Master of Fine Arts in ceramics from Louisiana State University in 1996 after completing his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He now lives and works in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Selected Works

Installation

On View: September 22nd, 2022, 6 – 8 pm  – November 12th, 2022
Location: Voltz Clarke Gallery, 195 Chrystie Street, New York, NY, 10002
Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am–6 pm, Saturday 11-5 pm & by appointment
Contact Info: Juliette@voltzclarke.com, 917.292.6921, Voltzclarke.com

Press Release

In her new paintings, Kallop, whose practice explores universal and fundamental forms and patterns, trains her focus on circles. Discs and spheres are omnipresent in the natural world and we have focused our attention on them since the beginning of recorded history. We have an innate predilection for circular forms and we have always imbued them with meaning. Circles are integral to the studies of math and science and in various cultures they are associated with the divine. These elementary forms represent unity and harmony, but they are also dynamic and unstable. They are simple and complete, yet they signify eternity and infinity. It is these inherent dualities that most interest Kallop, and in these paintings she sets out to examine, synthesize and balance the opposing principles embodied by these familiar forms.

The circles in Kallop’s recent works expand and contract, rotate and orbit. Kallop begins each piece by painting a grid structure, creating an ordered space that grounds the curvilinear forms to follow. Delicate scrims of color accumulate and overlap, generating a sense of luminosity and dimensionality. Concentric circles, serpentine curves and undulating waves emerge from the layers of paint beneath. Finally, shimmering details of gold and silver leaf are carefully placed. The circular forms seen throughout these works conjure celestial bodies, divine forces and portals to other realms. While these captivating paintings are full of movement, the experience of looking at them is one of silence and calm; they provide a meditative space to ponder our existence on this planet and our place in the cosmos.

Kallop’s ordered arrangements call to mind mathematical diagrams and astronomical charts. While these works possess an underlying rigor, there are other influences at play, which infuse them with a distinct richness. Kallop’s fascination with ancient petroglyphs, Buddhist mandalas and Indian Tantra drawing is palpable, as well as her long-standing affection for textile practices such as sewing, weaving and quilting. With her use of organic shapes, geometric symmetry and vivid color, Kallop situates herself within the lineage of modern female painters like Georgia O’Keefe, Agnes Pelton and Hilma af Klint. Kallop synthesizes these varied interests and influences into a unique visual language that investigates the connections between science, spirituality and art. 

Kallop received her Master of Fine Arts from The Rhode Island School of Design in 2011, and her Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University in 2004. A recipient of multiple awards and residencies, Kallop has been an Artist in Residence at The Andy Warhol Preserve in Montauk, NY, and has exhibited widely, most notably at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, PA. A New York native, Kallop currently lives and works in downtown Manhattan.

Selected Works

PLATFORM is the e-commerce destination for new works by today’s most sought-after contemporary artists. At the beginning of each month, PLATFORM releases a new limited-time selection of artworks to buy now, selected in partnership with David Zwirner and sourced from the country’s most exciting independent galleries.

Daniel Adenitan

Holland Cunningham

On View: September 1st - September 18th 2022

Location: Voltz Clarke Gallery, 195 Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002

Hours: Monday - Friday, 10 am - 6 pm, Saturday 11 - 5 pm, & by appointment

Contact Info: Juliette@voltzclarke.com, 917.292.6921, Voltzclarke.com  

Press Release

This September, Gallery RED and Voltz Clarke are pleased to welcome Elena Gual for her first solo exhibition in the United States.

ELANA GUAL  Born 1994 - Mallorca, Spain Graduate - Florence Classical Arts Academy (2016)  From a charcoal drawing to thick and expressive impasto brushstrokes of homemade oil paint applied to the canvas with a palette knife, Gual's oeuvre spans from portraiture and landscapes to abstract works. Her first solo exhibition in the US highlights the unique and natural beauty of the female body.28-year-old Elena Gual’s Mediterranean homeland connects her to family memories while providing continuous inspiration for the perfect light and colors in her paintings. At a young age, Gual traveled the world and met many women who she conveys in her works and who profoundly inspire her. Driven to highlight the unique and natural beauty of the female body and culture, Gual creates vivid portraits of diverse women and strongly believes all bodies are beautiful, despite size, color or age.Gual was born in Mallorca and trained as a classical painter at the Florence Academy of Art, followed by the prestigious Central Saint Martin’s and Royal Academy in London. The female figurative artist currently splits her time between Madrid and London, while frequently returning to Mallorca where she keeps an additional studio. Elena Gual’s academic studies allowed her to be extremely versatile and experimental with various mediums, such as charcoal drawing and oil painting, although she most frequently employs palette knives, which has become her signature technique. Gual first started using this tool due to a strong allergic reaction to turpentine, a necessary product used to clean paint brushes.  Drew Aaron, Gallery RED’s founder, followed Elena Gual’s career for two years before representing her exclusively in 2021, during the time of her first sold-out exhibition in London.Since Voltz Clarke shares the same passion for international, emerging artists as Gallery RED, joining forces with Aaron to introduce Gual to the US market is a fluid partnership.  

About Elena GUAL 

Represented worldwide by Gallery RED, Elena Gual (born 1994, Mallorca, Spain) is currently based between Mallorca, Madrid and London.A social media sensation, Gual boasts over 270k followers on Instagram (@elenagual.art) and has traveled the world, meeting many women who have inspired her work. Working initially from both memory and original photographs, Gual begins with a charcoal drawing before she starts to apply thick, impasto strokes of homemade oil paint onto the canvas with a spatula or palette knife. Her work ranges in subject matter from landscape and abstract paintings to depictions of the female form and vivid portraits of women. Gual graduated from the Florence Academy of Art in 2016 and has spent time at Central Saint Martins and the Royal Academy in London. Her work is held in prominent private collections around the world.

www.elenagual.art-@elenagual.art

About Gallery RED

Gallery RED is a contemporary art gallery based in the heart of Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Founded by entrepreneur Drew Aaron, a global collector of contemporary art, Gallery RED has quickly grown to encompass twelve unique spaces across Spain, presenting art, fashion and iconic design while offering art advisory and investment services. In addition to showcasing established artists, from Andy Warhol, Jean Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Gerhard Richter and Keith Haring, Gallery RED has developed a reputation for building the careers of top emerging Spanish artists, including Antonio Ballester Moreno, Elena Gual, Ruben Martín de Lucas, Lidia Masllorens, Ivan Montana and more.www.galleryred.com-@galleryred_This exhibition is aligned with NEDA (National Eating Disorder Association). NEDA is the largest nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting individuals and families affected by eating disordersand serves as a catalyst for prevention, cures and access to quality care. Through their programs and services, NEDA raises awareness, builds communities of support and recovery, funds research, and puts vital resources into the hands of those in need.  

On View: May 12, 2022 – July 2022
Location: Voltz Clarke Gallery, 195 Chrystie Street, New York, NY, 10002
Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am–6 pm,  Saturday 11-5 pm & by appointment
Contact Info: juliette@voltzclarke.com, 917.292.6921, voltzclarke.com 

Press Release

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present The Need, a comprehensive solo show featuring new works by artist Maru Quiñonero.

Maru Quioñero’s passion for volume, shape, texture, color and material has driven her to define compositions that visualize her own creative universe. Her Color and Vacuum series has been in development since 2017, serving to facilitate a conversation between color and emptiness. Through these extensive monochromatic studies, Quiñonero explores form beyond plastic expression, tapping into a process of possibility that continually draws from her lived experiences. The Need is the latest iteration of this venture, consisting of a capsule collection of works revolving around red and pink hues.

The need of colour.

Caitlin Moran writes on the fifty-one page of her book ‘How to be famous’ the following quote by Carson McCullers: “The way I need you is a loneliness I cannot bear”.

I wrote it down on October fourteenth, 2020 in order to not forget it. I would probably read it the night before. I am sure that I underlined it and folded the top corner of the page so as to find it easily at any time. Since then, it has been
there. Spinning in my head for almost a year. Moran uses the quote when talking about the relationship that her main young
character has with a platonic love. It is all a matter of feelings. Art helps me to go through my emotions, in an eternal search that I still do not understand. But that is what it is all about. So I want to talk about this unbearable need.

When colour becomes a necessity.

On August eighth, just a few months ago, I wrote: “I need to do something very red and very pink”. And there was the note. On my iPhone notes. Small matter. It was just more a reminder of the colour scheme than anything else. Ten words
without intention. Ten.

A digital colour note that I would need later at my studio. I am always writing down sentences, ideas, concepts, words. I put them together with some concern because lately my thoughts are easily derailed. So much information, so many channels, so many interlocutors and messages create a mental mess and sometimes I am not able to go back to a
simple sentence. “It is really curious to note how fragile the memory is”.

Letter from Marcel Duchamp to Marcel Jean, March 15, 1952, New York. That is why, a few days later, when I wrote down another small thought, I stopped at that sentence. But I did not see the colours, I just saw the need. Why did I use that verb? Where does this state of need come from? Since then, I have not been able to stop thinking about this aphorism of mine. Almost a
judgement, “I need to do something very red and very pink”. A sudden and compelling urge for colour.

I am not here to discover anything new by affirming that artists have always looked outwards to paint, to reflect their reality, their society, their time. And they have not stopped since. All persons, whether artists or not, are beings who absorb what surrounds them.

Whether we like it or not, we are permeable to everything that coexists with our reality.

The intention of revealing the inside from the outside is the recurring idea that haunts me.

I often think about the idea that everything changed with modern and contemporary art. When artists looked inwards to express their surroundings. Until then imitating reality was the norm and, in a way or another, that was what art used to pursue.

But there comes the moderns and the avant-garde and the contemporaries, and they begin to express existence in response to their own reality. They articulate their own language and with their personal codes they are able to interpret
what they see and what they feel. Their individualism defines them. Is it the moment when the artist became a narcissist?

I think it is important to invite people to look at the abstract work without prejudice and simply for pure enjoyment. This is how it should be. Without so much analysis. And it is essential to educate the gaze to achieve it. It would be necessary to appreciate the details of each era, the fragments and the distinctive features of each society and recognize the different modes of expression of the history of humanity. But apart from all this cultural baggage that helps us to contextualize, each reading will inevitably be conditioned by the intonation of the person looking at the artwork. Does the one who watches then become the focus? More than the work, more than the artist? I am a full time artist. And as I am very self-demanding, I believe that I must use all the resources available to understand why I am doing or not something. It is the only way to grow.

I do not like to improvise at work. I cannot leave something so serious to the unexpected. But I care for spontaneity and freshness. The naturalness. I do not want a vice in the line, nor going just to the familiar. I try to execute something that I have previously seen in my mind, but I do not necessarily have to go through the sketch. Not that. Sometimes I hate it. But there are endless days in
the studio that I cannot find any other way. And I bend. It is hard to lose this battle because I have a lot of confidence in my intellectual work, the idea is already inside me but sometimes it is my hand that does not know how to execute it.

Those days of brain-hand disconnection are few and as I like to see the bright side of everything, I try to learn from that break that I indulge myself. This sentence from Bachelard now comes to my mind: “One can study only what one has first dreamed about” The psychoanalysis of fire. But what is the purpose of creating? What for? For whom?

There is no answer or other solution than honesty. I just pretend to be honest. With myself. Looking for honesty to find order. And I find honesty in the blunt forms of colour that I can imagine and build up in my head. I perceive them loaded with meaning and morality. I let myself be carried away by thought and reflection, getting lost in the aesthetic reasoning. Making the words pictorial. And then everything fits. It is not so much about thinking, but about feeling.

But do we think with ideas or words? Thinking about thinking, I have to inquire about metacognition. I recently heard Juan José Millás assure that “the word is the organ of sight”. And then I thought, we see the ideas. And then we put words to them. And following this, in my case, I put colour on them. I cannot stop wondering if Robert Mapplethorpe was referring to this when, worried by a mental block, in total lack of inspiration, he told Patti Smith at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, “The old imagery doesn’t work for me”.

Selected Works

Souls and Spirits
Opening: Wednesday, April 6th, 6-8pm

On view: April 6—May 6, 2022
Gallery Location: Voltz Clarke Gallery, 195 Chrystie Street, New York, NY, 10002
Hours: Monday – Friday: 10 am – 6 pm, Saturday: 12 pm - 5 pm, Sundays by appointment
Contact Info: juliette@voltzclarke.com, 917.292.692, voltzclarke.com

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present SOULS AND SPIRITS, a group exhibition curated by Paul Conliffe. 

In SOULS AND SPIRITS Voltz Clarke celebrates the diversity of emerging artists based in Africa. The works centralize around cultural and personal identity, vibrancy, and innovative use of material. The chosen figurative artists establish various layers of Black excellence, and display evidence of a uniquely rich cultural heritage. The figurative paintings battle stereotypes regarding the concept of Blackness with innuendos of hope, resiliency, and strength.

Daniel Adenitan is based in Lagos, Nigeria and received his BSC in creative arts from University of Lagos. Adenitan aims to represent the originality and cultural richness of Black African identities. His flattened forms and selective detail, accented with gold, create vivid compositions that convey Black royalty.

Modeling paste figures emerge from the high-contrast black canvases made by Richard Adusu, who is based in Ghana. Adusu highlights iconic figures in Black history and everyday people, like friends and family, in a celebration of Black excellence and resiliency. Dappled smears of paint explore the figures’ beauty, imbuing the works with a vivid kinetic energy, and the textured surfaces reflect the rockiness of everyday life.

Ikeorah Chisom Chi-FADA is a figurative painter based in Owerri, Nigeria. He combines charcoal, pastel, and acrylics in many of his mixed media works, creating vibrant depictions of everyday life. His works illuminate the richness of Nigerian culture.

Joshua Donkor is a UK based artist combining western styles with imagery from Ghanaian culture through photo transfer in conjunction with oil portraiture. The transfers swim beneath the painted figures, revealing messages of black identity and history.

Sanya Gbemileke raises figurative and floral compositions from the canvas surface with acrylic and enamel. Experienced with large-scale mural paintings, Gbemileke often explores bold mark making and textures in his work.

The colorful paintings of Timi Light use distortion to convey an impression of peace, hope, and love. Vivid green highlights and fractured compositions allude to the flourishing gold bracts of tree limbs which, though creating a pattern of fragmented forms, is still full of life. Light invites viewers to complete these compositions with their own connotations of resiliency.

Fabric cut-offs pieced together Nusenu Prince Mawuli’s sustainable canvases. Jute textures and vibrant patterns allude to the cultural importance of African fabrics. Mawuli is based in Ghana where textiles are given as a rite of passage, which Mawuli uses to convey both pain and joy. The cultural significance of textiles pairs with environmentally conscious modes of making in Mawuli’s works.

A Fine Art graduate from The Polytechnic of Ibadan, Olawale Moses’s figurative charcoal drawings showcase Black beauty through hyperreal detailing and emphasis on a dance between light and the figure. Moses emphasizes the cultural importance of hairstyles as a signifier of familial background, status, spirituality, and other forms of social and personal identity.

Lagos, Nigeria born Oscar Ukonu, creates large-scale ballpoint pen drawings of hyperreal figures exploring gender, socio political status, and religion, through the multilayered experience of African identity. Selective rendering and emphasis bring Ukonu’s compositions to life.

Curator Paul Conliffe is a Brooklynite living in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and grew up submerged in a rich culture of the arts. He was fascinated by his father’s drawing process as a child and continues to take interest in artistic practices through art collection. He specializes in African art and would like this show to reveal the creativity and beauty developed by these emerging African artists.

Founded in 2002 in New York City, Voltz Clarke Gallery maintains a roster of emerging and mid-career artists focusing on introducing international artists to the New York and wider US market. Founder Blair Clarke believes one should cast the net wide in order to identify new talent. In a market, which is increasingly globalized, she is intrigued by the rich diversity in work found often in unexpected places. Clarke’s experience combines over eighteen years of East coast gallery associations and curatorial projects. In 2015, after thirty years of experience at Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses, Alistair Clarke joined the gallery as President.

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present Jacinto Moros, Maru Quiñonero, & Jason Trotter at Intersect Palm Springs opening Thursday, February 10th.

Location: Palm Springs Convention Center | 277 N Avenida Cabelleros Palm Springs CA 92262
Opening Night Preview (VIP/All Access Pass required): Thursday, February 10, 2022 5:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Fair Dates: 
– Friday, February 11, 2022 11:00 am – 7:00 pm
– Saturday, February 12, 2022 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
– Sunday, February 13, 2022 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
– VIP Brunch Sunday, February 13, 2022 10:00 am – 11:00 am

Jacinto Moros, Maru Quinonero, and Jason Trotter eachshare a strong interest in playful shapes, dynamic form, and vivid color. Distinguished by their unique backgrounds, specialized training, and distinct use of material, these works interact effortlessly to showcase high energy and expressive emotion. Moros’ wooden structures dance alongside the delicate hand of Quiñonero’s pastels and Trotter’s razor sharp compositions.

Intersect Palm Springs is a boutique fair that brings together a dynamic mix of modern and contemporary art, and is activated by timely and original programming. The fair has traditionally occurred in conjunction with Modernism Week at the Palm Springs Convention Center, and presents post-war and contemporary art. Formerly known as Art Palm Springs, it has been running since 2012.

Jacinto Moros was born in 1959 in Cetina, Zaragoza, Spain and is best known for his innovative use of the sculpture medium. By creating friction between his chosen material and their resulting forms, Moros develops a rhythmic weightlessness in space, as seen through his wood work and embossed monochromatic reliefs. The artist has been exhibited internationally, including the New Museum in New York City, the Sculpture Center, and the Smithsonian Institute, among others. Moros is also found in many private collections worldwide. He currently lives and works in Madrid, Spain.

Maru Quiñonero’s passion for volumes, shapes, textures, colors, and different materials inspire her to define compositions that visualize her own creative universe. Her Color and Vacuum series has been in the development stage since 2017 and focuses on creating a conversation between color and emptiness with a recent extensive study of colors– blue in particular. Quiñonero is a self taught artist who breaks conventional boundaries through her own capacity to imagine and express what she feels inside. She is based in Madrid, Spain. 

Jason Trotter is an American artist known for his bold geometric abstracts rendered in acrylics. The Los Angeles based painter explores contrast and balance using a hard-edge technique that produces sharp lines with abrupt transitions between color fields. His process requires him to work on a flat surface to tape off shapes, and then build up multiple layers of paint with a brush before applying the final coat with a palette knife for ample texture. He focuses on triptychs that are assembled and framed as one piece. This multi-panel approach allows for a more dynamic effect than the traditional compilation.While Trotter’s colors are chosen intuitively, his compositions are inspired by lines and forms observed in daily life with the intention of evoking an instinctual, physical reaction from observers rather than interpretive analysis.

Opening Reception: Sunday, January 16th, 3-5pm
Dates: January – Fall 2022
Location: The Colony Hotel, 155 Hammon Ave, Palm Beach, FL 33480
Hours: Monday – Sunday, 10 am–6 pm, and by appointment

Press Release

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present The Pilgrimage, a comprehensive solo exhibition featuring new works by artist Khalilah Birdsong.

Khalilah Birdsong creates large-scale abstract paintings and installations that combine physicality of medium with 

finely calibrated balance. Her process employs loose, free gestures and has deep roots in her surrounding environment. Whether it means hunkering down in the North Georgia mountains, living in the rainforests of Maui, Hawaii or starting her MFA at Goldsmiths in London, Birdsong makes a point to surround herself with nature and fervently explore its influence.

“I am interested in survival and resurgence. Distress and weathering are palpable on the canvas, but so is resurgence. I build layers up and then take them away to create a painting that is, ultimately, whole. The process of layering and stripping builds contusions, bumps and raw ridges, but also reveals patches of older, more forgotten colors. Every painting is an experience through process, which translates to the canvas to create a story that can only be experienced visually. My process is strenuous to the medium. Through it, my paintings achieve resolution.” 

Birdsong has participated in solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Japan, Germany and Italy. Her paintings are held in numerous private and corporate collections, including that of former President Barack Obama, where they are currently under consideration to hang in his Presidential Library. While fiercely unique in both concept and process, Birdsong’s style echoes the greats, including Alfred Leslie, Joan Mitchell, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Jack Whitten and, of course, Gerhard Richter. 

In 2019, Birdsong was named by Contemporary Art Curator Magazine (London, England) as one of the “100 Future Contemporary Artists in the World”. That year, she also participated in the XIIth Florence Biennale where she exhibited four large-scale paintings and installations. In 2020, Birdsong was awarded a Hambidge Fellowship for the Creative Arts & Sciences. She currently resides in London, England, where she recently began her matriculation at Goldsmiths, University of London to pursue her Masters of Fine Art.

The Colony Palm Beach | This winter, The Pilgrimage will explore Birdsong’s signature medium in a manner that effortlessly complements the ebb and flow of seasonal migrations to Palm Beach. Voltz Clarke Gallery has been exhibiting at The Colony since 2017, inviting hotel guests, visitors, and locals alike to explore a rotating selection of contemporary art at this iconic property just steps from Worth Avenue and the Atlantic Ocean. Hours of operation for ‘The Solarium’ are 10am to 6pm seven days a week, or by appointment via the Guest Services Department at The Colony. 

Selected Works

Installation

On view: January 8th – March 18th, 2022
Gallery Location: Voltz Clarke Gallery, 195 Chrystie Street, New York, NY, 10002
Hours: Monday – Friday: 10 am – 6 pm, Saturday: 12 pm - 5 pm, Sundays by appointment
Contact Info: juliette@voltzclarke.com, 917.292.692, voltzclarke.com

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present FLOW, a two-person exhibition featuring new works by artists Bradley Sabin and Lucy Soni.

Both artists fervently explore the intersection of the organic with the constructed; the coordinated and the accidental; hard and soft. Such juxtaposition of medium and subject matter takes on a complimentary effect, emphasizing the ever-moving forces and gentle rhythms that contribute to the flow of everyday life. There will be a Public Opening Reception with the artists on Friday, January 7th, 2022. 

An avid gardener and sculptor, Bradley Sabin finds inspiration in his natural surroundings. FLOWS’s program is an extension of his trademark ceramic installations, including new floral shapes and custom glazes inspired by the artist's personal gardening practices in New Orleans.

Unlike other ceramicists, Sabin works within the natural structure of exhibition spaces, tying these architectural environments into his complex and organic installations. It is through these breathtaking wall adornments and stand-alone sculptures that Sabin draws parallels between maintaining a flourishing garden and sustaining organic human relationships. Such a connection emphasizes the level of care and commitment needed to nurture positive outcomes, long-lasting success, and honest beauty-- both in nature and in day to day life.

Bradley Sabin received his Master of Fine Arts in ceramics from Louisiana State University in 1996 after completing his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He now lives and works in New Orleans, Louisiana.

British artist Lucy Soni lives and works in London, where she produces modern, large-scale paintings that originate from small scribble studies. Her work consistently explores the collision of the natural with the architectural, the revelatory effect of incongruous forms, and art as a conduit for memory.

Interested in the offhand, the accidental, and the compulsive, Soni’s processes play out, equally meticulous, repetitive, and oriented, towards a flat and impeccable surface. Her compositions start as scribbles on paper that communicate a sense of urgency. Through tracing, enlarging, and layering, Soni transfers these forms to canvases on a much larger scale. This process produces carefully balanced paintings which unite impulsive mark-making, popular culture, and high art. “Making art is an attempt to unravel and communicate what can’t always be put into words.” Says Soni. “My paintings are exercises in patience, accuracy and taste, seeking to celebrate color and form, embracing the absurd pursuit of unattainable perfection.”

Lucy Soni was born in Kent in 1973 and lives and works in London. She graduated in 1997 with a BA in Painting from Chelsea College of Art London. Her shows include John Moores Painting Prize, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 2018; Pillow Talk, Uniqlo Tate Lates, Tate Modern, 2018; An Evening of Performances + DRAF 10th Anniversary, KOKO, London, 2017; Mega Hammer, Glasgow International 2016 and Changing Atmospheres, 2021 Hestercombe Art Gallery, Somerset Her work can be found in public and private collections in the UK, Hong Kong and the USA. Soni curates shows independently in her home, an ongoing project entitled Why Don’t You…?HQ, which was included in Art Licks Weekend 2015 - 2019 She also exhibits as part of ‘Blink’ an artist let platform set up in 2021.

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present Soft Landing, a comprehensive solo show featuring new works by artist Stephanie Patton.

Stephanie Patton’s new series explores her signature themes through sculpture, photography, and video in a manner that reflects contemporary subject matter centered around the human condition, mental health, and physical healing. Soft Landing embodies these concerns while alluding to the idea of easing back into life in a gentle and safe way. Through her powerful wording and use of material, Patton invites the viewer to inspect these concepts through a lens of comfort and self-preservation.

Patton states that humor plays a vital role in her work, functioning to encourage the examination of deeper concepts.

“My work often addresses psychological themes while bringing attention to critical issues,” she explains, “including an exploration of mental and physical health while reflecting on the relationship between humor and personal therapies.”

Over the course of her artistic career, Patton has found that creating humorous objects breaks down social barriers and carves out space for open, genuine dialog.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Stephanie Patton studied painting at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and continued on to receive her MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996. She has exhibited widely in galleries across the US in addition to museums such as the McNay Art Museum, New Orleans Museum of Art, Cornell Art Museum, Carnegie Art Museum, El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.  

Opening Reception: First week of November
Gallery Location: The Colony Palm Beach, 155 Hammon Ave, Palm Beach, FL 33480
Hours:  Monday – Friday, 10 am–6 pm, and by appointment
Contact Info: saraht@voltzclarke.com, 917.449.9936, voltzclarke.com

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present Variations by Joshua Avery Webster. The series consists of Webster’s signature linear paintings in color combinations inspired by and for the gallery at The Colony Palm Beach.

One of Joshua Avery Webster’s many sources of inspiration is his vast experience with design: working daily with colors, form, typography and motion, his design work and paintings influence each other. In addition, his education in architecture provided him with a love of three dimensions, texture, and scale that he also incorporates into his artwork. Webster is always looking for ways that all of these experiences, pursuits and skills can work to inform one another, and possibly, in the future, be combined.

Webster chooses to leave the meaning of his works open for interpretation so not to impose a specific idea on to his viewers. He explains this further in his quote about his practice:

“I don’t like to attach a story or narrative. I feel that is unnecessary and takes away from my work, influencing the viewers’ experience and understanding of the paintings. Everyone should bring their own thoughts to my work, not mine. My thoughts are personal and my experience unique. So should be everyone else’s. Additionally, their experience and thoughts are likely to change over time and that is perfectly appropriate.

I will say that color, form and texture are three of the most significant considerations in my process, which is very organic. I typically begin with one color and go from there, never knowing where I will end up. That journey is possibly more important to me than the end result as it is wholly mine and something no one else can ever begin to know.”

Joshua Avery Webster lives and works in Newark, New Jersey. Webster earned his Masters of Architecture at Tulane University and a Masters of Communications Design at Pratt Institute. He has also studied at the University of Sydney in Australia and the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Opening Reception: September 30th, 2021
Gallery Location: 195 Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002
Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am–6 pm, Saturday 12 pm – 5 pm
Contact Info: Juliette@voltzclarke.com, 917.292.6921, voltzclarke.com, info@monicakingprojects.com 516.738.0217

New York, NY   Voltz Clarke Gallery and Monica King Projects are pleased to collaborate this September with a two-person exhibition: Lauren Ball and Mike Hansel: Synergy.  These artists, working from New York City and Middletown, Rhode Island share a vibrant interest in the collision of the organic with the architectural, the revelatory effect of incongruous forms, and art as a conduit for memory.  There will a Public Opening Reception with the artists on September 30th, 6-8 PM

Lauren Ball’s works presented in Synergy are from the artist’s new series, Invisible Touch, consisting of paintings that explore three-dimensionality and collective memory. The works incorporate modes of image making that the artist has explored for over a decade: drawing, collage, digital archival print, and painting. The artist’s present and past enter the work through the color sampling of personal and found photos, such as a photograph of her mother pregnant with her and her twin brother. The notion of individuality for Ball is of particular interest, as duality is inherent in being a twin. This personal trait manifests in Ball’s artwork through her history in creating multiple images via print, which inform her singular paintings. Ball’s works challenge spatial cohesiveness, which creates dynamism that calls the viewer to a social space in painting where the confluence of architectural and natural forms beckon our own memories to collide.

Mike Hansel’s work has become known for his ability to create highly crafted, organic pieces that contradict what we might expect from such rigid, industrial materials. Hansel uses sculpture as a means of pointing people away from what they take for granted towards an oddly humorous domain composed of vaguely familiar elements. They are re-invented associations made between careful observations and the half-forgotten elements of memory. Hansel’s new body of work in Synergy is filled with energy and optimism. 

“An interest in the elements of line, plane, and volume has led me to these gestural compositions that play with themes of balance, support, instability, and insecurity. The careful placement of form references the structure of the human figure while searching for spatial orientation that affects our perception of mass. The geometry of interacting segments of steel somehow establishes an unlikely duality with the soft organic patterns found in nature. These small compositions happen as three-dimensional drawings similar to Ball’s pensive process; part of an exploration for designs that can be realized at a much larger scale.”

IMAGE CAPTIONS

Lauren Ball, Ancestral Violet, 2021, acrylic, urethane, and archival pigment on linen, 65 x 65 inches (165.1 x 165.1 cm)

Mike Hansel, Indirect Connection, 2021, galvanized steel, urethane enamel. 43″(H) x 20″(W) x  20″(D). 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Lauren Ball is a New York-based artist residing in Brooklyn. Ball’s exhibition history includes solo shows at Gallery 80 WSE (New York, NY), Free Range Gallery (Chicago, IL), SideCar Gallery (Hammond, IN); and group shows at The Gowanus Ballroom (Brooklyn, NY), Tyler School of Art (Rome, Italy), University of New Orleans Gallery (New Orleans, LA), artLedge (Chicago, IL), and The Butcher Shop (Chicago, IL), as well as alternative spaces in New York, Chicago, and New Orleans. Digital media, the still life genre, portraiture, and 19th century Realism are reservoirs of visual inspiration. Ball’s work relies on the painting process, color, and surface as a site of layered excavation and creation to create an essential realism within the work. Ball’s work is a performance of visual associations and intuition. 

Voltz Clarke’s ​​Mike Hansel is a mid-career sculptor who lives and works in Newport, Rhode Island. After obtaining his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of Cincinnati, Hansel attended the University of Pennsylvania where he received his Master’s degree in sculpture. Hansel’s work can be found in private and public collections from Quogue, New York, and Newport, Rhode Island, to Los Angeles, California. 

ABOUT VOLTZ CLARKE GALLERY

Voltz Clarke Gallery maintains a roster of emerging and mid-career artists focusing on introducing international artists to the New York and wider US market. Founder Blair Clarke believes one should cast the net wide in order to identify new talent. In a market, which is increasingly globalized, she is intrigued by the rich diversity in work found often in unexpected places. In 2015, after thirty years of experience at Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses, Alistair Clarke joined the gallery as Co-Director.

ABOUT MONICA KING PROJECTS

Monica King Projects is a recently launched art advisory and nomadic exhibition platform.  In tandem with mounting creatively fluid exhibitions, Monica King Projects will also be hosting a year-round intimate artist residency and creative retreat at a two-acre forested cottage in Litchfield County, CT, serving as an incubator for artists to experience respite and unbridled creativity in these days of cultural and social redefinition in the world.  

Fair Dates: September 9— 12, 2021
Location: Pier 36, 229 South Street, New York, NY 10002
Hours: Thursday, September 9th, 6 — 10 pm: VIP and Fair Pass Holders  
Friday, September 10th, 11 am—7 pm
Saturday, September 11th, 11 am— 7 pm 
Sunday, September 12th, 12pm —  6 pm
Contact Info: Juliette@voltzclarke.com, 917.292.6921, voltzclarke.com 

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to exhibit in Art on Paper with Maru Qui​​ñonero.

“A play about blue in 5 acts” is a new body of work on paper by Maru Quiñonero, a Spanish painter who has been studying the color blue for years. “LO AZUL,” which translates to THE BLUE, is an ongoing project by the female abstract artist centering around the color blue. Through her studies of the use of color, this Spanish-based painter is looking to explore beyond mere plastic expression, thereby opening a whole new range of possibilities that draw from and add to her own deep feelings and experiences.

“Can you feel them? Colors? I do.

Since I was a kid I have felt colors far beyond the sense of sight. I have felt them by hearing words, or seeing them written.

A simple letter is not only a letter, but also a color.

Even in its sound I also feel a color

I always get lost trying to explain my synesthesia.

That is why I paint.

Because everything finds its place and its own time.

And this perception of colors of mine brought me to this point, to work on them emotionally. I don’t understand any other way to do it.

So this is my own language.

The one that allows me to express everything that I feel as an artist, as a person. A language of color.”

A request from Maru for you to take home:

“What does blue mean to you? There is no a wrong answer.

I have my blue ones and you have yours. And all are perfectly valid.

Think about your blue ones.”

Intersect Aspen 2021

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to exhibit in  Intersect Aspen with Khalilah Birdsong and Natasha Law.

Opening Reception: August 1 – 5, 2021
Gallery Location: Aspen Ice Garden | 233 West Hyman Avenue, Aspen, CO 81611
Show Dates: VIP Preview Brunch | Sunday, August 1, 2021 10:00 am – 11:00 am
– Public Opening Reception | Sunday, August 1, 2021 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
– General Admission | August 1 – 5, 2021, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm daily
– Khalilah Birdsong Artist Talk | August 2, 2021, 12:00 pm 
Contact Info: Juliette@voltzclarke.com, 917.292.6921, voltzclarke.com

Khalilah Birdsong’s abstract color studies act as a playful partner to Natasha Law’s more reserved abstracted female nudes. Birdsong’s layered works, constructed through the building up and removing of paint tell histories of forgotten colors as paint is added and stripped from the surface. In a contrastingly delicate process, Law uses high-gloss paints to depict the fleeting moments of the everyday woman using abstract shapes made of large and lustrous color fields. The artists use the abstract in contrasting ways; one to depict an almost sculptural visual chronology of colors through the tactical and arduous process of painting, and the other to highlight the delicate strength of women in the ephemeral moments of each passing day. 

Intersect Fairs

Intersect Aspen is an annual art and culture event in the heart of one of the nation’s most prestigious collector communities. Formerly known as Art Aspen, it has been running since 2010.

Khalilah Birdsong (b. 1977, Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, USA) is a visual artist who creates large-scale abstract paintings and installations. Khalilah lived in the rainforest of Maui, Hawaii from 2017-2019, where she painted fervently in nature and discovered a new meaning of life that translates throughout her artwork.  Birdsong currently resides in the mountains of North Georgia, USA. In the fall of 2021, Khalilah will be moving to England to begin her matriculation at Goldsmiths, University of London to pursue her Masters of Fine Art. Birdsong has exhibited with galleries in Atlanta, Georgia, Cincinnati, Ohio, New York, New York, Japan, Italy and Hamburg, Germany. Birdsong’s work can be found in President Barack Obama’s private collection, and is being considered to hang in his Presidential Library. Birdsong participated in the XIIth Florence Biennale in Florence, Italy exhibiting four large-scale paintings and installation work in the fall of 2019.  Natasha Law (b. 1970) is a United Kingdom native who continues to live and work in London since graduating from Camberwell College of the Arts. Law has been represented by Voltz Clarke for over a decade starting with her first solo show Stills at Diane Von Furstenberg in New York City, along with other shows in New York, Hong Kong, and London. She has exhibited internationally and is in a number of well-known private collections.