Mu Pan's vibrant work is a masterpiece of storytelling, refracted through the artist's Taiwanese upbringing, his American schooling, and the world of his fertile imagination. His epic myth-meets-reality paintings captivated our judges with their beauty, detail, humor and intelligence. As Pan says, "To me, there is no true story or fiction...This is going to be the story of myself."
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Graphic, gritty, with a lingering beauty that digs under your skin. Our 3rd Ward Open Call judges were awestruck by the socially-engaged work of Maurice Mbikayi, whose mixed media works combine history, technology and identity with a rare intelligence and wit.
Based in Cape Town, Mbikaya draws his inspiration from provocative socio-political boundaries. The result is an eclectic body of work consisting of paper, large-scale installations and site-specific performances. His work has been critically acclaimed by the art community in South Africa, and now Mbiyaki will bring his exhilarating vision to 3rd Ward.
Dagmara Genda spent her 3-month residency creating a new body of work to present in The Gallery at 3rd Ward.
Her Show, Building Disaster features a large-scale, site-specific installation made of intricate hand-cut glossy vinyl that takes over an entire hallway in 3rd Ward. Other works are achieved through repeatedly layering rounds of wallpaper-like painting and drawing. Both painstaking methodologies confuse spatial relationships and create a visual tension with texture and a weighty world turned upside-down. By juxtaposing poverty and opulence, destruction and elegance, Genda has created a cacophonous riot that thrills.
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Our eighth Solo Show Artist Duo, Carrie Shaltz + Zach Hyman met last fall and became fast friends through their love of photography and adventure. In December, the two embarked on an 1100 mile road trip that began in San Francisco, included Bakersfield, Mojave, Death Valley, Las Vegas, and concluded in Los Angeles. Equipped with 2 digital cameras, the two photographers turned the lenses on each other to create dreamlike images representing the agony and ecstasy of a forbidden love affair set in the barren and abandoned landscapes of Western America. The entire project was strictly spontaneous - no location scouting, no assistants, no crew, and most importantly... no rules.
3rd Ward sent them on a road trip where they created PREYGROUND: a lush exploration of our natural, “wild” selves in a society that suppresses that exact behavior. Nude, masked, and with zero inhibitions, Carrie and Zach explore natural and man-made landscapes in striking, stylish tableaus that juxtapose animal physicality with the everyday.
Our seventh Solo Show Artist, Justin Colt Beckman is a city boy with a country boy's heart. He uses photo-based works, film/video, sculpture, installation, and new-media to engage in rural activities vicariously through his art-making. His work explores and presents ideas surrounding the urban/rural dichotomy and its many associated stereotypes, while simultaneously questioning the relevance of these terms amidst the ever-increasing strength of the technological revolution and the rise of globalization.
After completing his residency at 3rd Ward, we will present Mr. Beckman’s work in the gallery at our Morgan Avenue location. Please stay tuned for the date and time.
A very special thanks to our incredible judges and the many talented artists who participated in this open call!
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Johanna Heldebro was selected from hundreds of artists by Judges Priska C. Juschka (Priska C. Juschka Art), Kelsey Keith (Flavorpill) and CK Swett (Christie's). Her compelling body of work To Come Within Reach of You (Gunnar Heldebro, Hässelby strandväg 55, 165 65 Hässelby, Sweden) chronicles the life of her father who disappeared two years prior. After searching his name on the internet, Heldebro traveled to Stockholm, Sweden to obsessively follow him, creating a series that refigures comfortable notions of adult identity. Her work is at times as coldly detached as it is uncomfortably personal.
http://www.johannaheldebro.com/
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Our first International Solo Show Artist, Netherlands native, Pim Palsgraaf, turned our gallery into an apocalyptic aftermath with a taxidermied raccoon, pheasant and deer each sprouting buildings made from found objects. These dispirited creatures were accompanied by dark canvases depicting the distentigration of buildings in eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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Our fourth Solo Show Artist presented The New World, a part fact, part fiction visual retelling of history through historical-documents-turned-30 ft.-panoramic-collage. In this world, church spires become stalactites, a Native American poses as the Greek God Pan, and stone lions are swept downstream. Plus portraits of merged and hybrid faces; half parlor game, half grotesquerie.
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Judges Clay Rockefeller & Anita Durst selected Sean from hundreds of applicants to 3rd Ward's Fall Open Call. In November of 2008, Sean Fader presented pieces from his collection I want to Put You On, Tell Me How to Put You on, in which he appears zipped into the bodies of people whom he admires & covets.
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In June of 2008, 2008 Spring Solo Show Winner & Brooklyn local, Jeremy Leichman presented Suits, a reconstruction of the “corporate machine” with sculpture, lights and motors, from the perspective of an unfamiliar civilization.