ParisScope is currently hosted by MIXED GREENS:
531 WEST 26TH STREET, FIRST FLOOR, NEW YORK

Projective City is pleased to announce {RE.SIDE…} yet again, an exhibition of new, large-scale sculptural works by artist Sanam Enayati. Enayati’s installation for Paris-Scope is in conjunction with the exhibition Crossing the Line: Contemporary Drawing and Artistic Process, curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah and Dexter Wimberly, on view at Mixed Greens Gallery in New York City. In addition to this being Enayati’s first exhibition with Projective City, this is also the first time Paris-Scope has been included as part of an exhibition at a separate location.

Enayati references mark making and other traditionally drawn imagery through her use of thread, filament, and other knitted elements. Her newest body of work investigates the physicality of basic human emotions.  By identifying one emotion and letting it transform and overlap with another, Enayati seeks to create a new, non-familiar space/reality through a series of “feminine” and “domestic” processes, repetitive movements, and obsessive behaviors.  {RE.SIDE…} yet again fills the gallery space with a knitted mass and precariously large knitting needle, all washed in pink light. The placement and atmosphere creates a simultaneously warm and anxious experience for the visitor.

Sanam Enayati was born in the United States and raised in Tehran, Iran.  She holds a BFA from the Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago, IL, an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in NYC, and a Masters of Fashion Design focused on sociology and psychology from Istituto Marangoni in Milan, Italy. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

April 25 – July 3, 2013
Opening: Thursday, April 25, 6pm

ParisScope is currently hosted by MIXED GREENS:
531 WEST 26TH STREET, FIRST FLOOR, NEW YORK

“Nothing could be more familiar than love. Nothing else eludes us so completely.” – Jeanette Winterson

Sookoon Ang returns to Projective City with an immense solo project. Utilizing the unique exhibition space to its full potential, Ang has transformed her typically quite small and delicate sculpture into a colossal new experience.

A loaf of bread, banal and dull, grows ever older in the middle of the gallery. As it ages, its inner forces slowly begin to transform it: We’re all familiar with phenomena of mold. Yet here the bread has instead produced a crystal, an immense crystalline structure, the clean chemical opposite of a mold spore. This juxtaposition of the simple and familiar with the strange and beautiful is complicated further by the bread’s fundamental importance as a source of sustenance and the crystals’ relative lack of utility. Elegant and poetic, Ang gently blows of spark of natural wonder into the necessary breadness of life, encouraging us, perhaps, to think that not all oldies are moldies, and that our daily magic is just as important as our daily bread. Taken in conjunction with the works’ title, the piece is even more potent. As Winterson reminds us, love IS both familiar and elusive, banal and brilliant, necessary and superfluous. Or put another way, hard to gain and hard to hold.

Sookoon Ang has exhibited very widely throughout Europe, Asia, and the US, most recently in Art Incubator 4 in Singapore and “Absurdistan” at OV Gallery in Shanghai. She has participated in residencies around the world, including the ISCP, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Changdong National Art Studio in Seoul. She currently bakes her bread in both Singapore and Brussels.

February 13–April 20, 2013
Opening: Wednesday, February 13, 6-8pm

ParisScope is currently hosted by MIXED GREENS:
531 WEST 26TH STREET, FIRST FLOOR, NEW YORK

Golden stalactites hang from the roof of a glowing grotto, reaching ever so ponderously, impossibly, slowly to meet their stalagmite counterparts. The stalagmites are, in turn, formed by the preposterous labor of billions of water droplets, drizzling down the stalactites and falling to the cavern floor. With each drip, micro-milligrams of golden limestone accumulate to form perilous towers, stretching up to touch their creators and eventually joining them in a single column. The grotto itself is no longer a mere cave, but has been gilded and transformed through human activity for undisclosed ends. What rituals or obscure cosmic rites were performed in this transmogrified gloom? What are we to make of the mysterious axe? Against the backdrop of a gargantuan timescale, the scene suggests wealth, ambition, and opulence, but also gloom, doom, and decay.

Citing a range of source material for inspiration (the elaborate maquettes found in the Garnier Opera House in Paris, the tinfoil grandeur of the Ladurée macaroon shop in London, the unfinished Crystal Grotto in Surrey’s Painshill Park, and the Rocky Mountains of her native Canada), Watson has gooped, dripped, and oozed her sloppy materials all over the Projective City gallery, transforming the main exhibition space into an epic faux grotto. The cave is golden, luxurious, and rich, but it is a shabby luxury—a deliberately staged elegance at once natural and artificial, ceremonial and banal. Watson’s use of everyday materials (even in large quantities) evokes the pleasure of artistic play, and her light handling of complex themes generates an atmosphere at once solemn and absurd.

Watson has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in London, Paris, Berlin, Toronto and her native Calgary, where she is also the head curator at Pith Gallery. Her admittedly “ham-fisted,” playful approach to materials is unapologetically demanding of her viewers, who are invited to stretch their imaginations to meet hers, perhaps not unlike the stalactites and stalagmites in her current installation.

Projective City has set out to have the largest prime number known to humans read out loud by all and sundry. The result will be equal parts of enormous folly and poetic triumph. We might also succeed in making the world’s longest “art video”!

Click here to see all our videos so far!

If you are interested in participating, we will send you one page of text and instructions on how to submit your video. Read as many as you like! We have lots. As in tens of thousands. Why not throw a prime number party? Get a crowd of your closest pals together, maybe make some popcorn, find yourself a webcam, and see what it feels like to stretch out into numerical immensity.

Please contact projectivecity@gmail.com to request your page!

To learn a bit more about the rationale for this project, have a look at this statement by gallery director and project manager Benjamin Evans:

The loneliest number we know

November 15 – January 5, 2013
Opening: Thursday, November 15, 6-8pm

ParisScope is currently hosted by MIXED GREENS:
531 WEST 26TH STREET, FIRST FLOOR, NEW YORK

In 1792 Spanish explorer Alessandro Malaspina sailed north from California on the Vuelo Nube in search of the secret entrance to the legendary Northwest Passage. Believing he had found it, he sailed deep into an inlet, all the way to Haenke Island before realizing he was headed for a dead end. Bitterly frustrated, he named the area “Disenchantment Bay”, and the area has since become a site of contradictory legend among residents of Whitehorse and Juneau.

Having stumbled upon a postcard depicting some fishermen exploring an iceberg in Disenchantment Bay, itinerant artist Louise J. Berg started a multi-year quest to learn about the place, its people and its stories. Awed by the stark beauty of the environment and intrigued by the symbolism of a bay of disenchantment, she has drawn on her research and on the unyielding wonder of the North to epically transform the Projective City gallery. Berg’s ambitious installation is both a reinvention of the northern landscape and a poetic reenchantment of the natural world. Regenerated etchings of the Aurora Borealis cascade above bottomless icebergs which float uneasily in the gallery-sized pool, while an enormous lodestone struggles to find the north as Berg creates an immersive landscape transcending any particular space, myth, or personal identity.

Berg also uses the name of the place to reference the aporetic notion of disenchantment in general. Max Weber’s description of “the disenchantment of the world” brought on by the secularizing effects of capitalism, rationalism and modernity became a central problematic motif for a generation of European intellectuals and has if anything increased in its importance today. Berg’s evocative work highlights the hope but also the difficulty of seeking magic in an ever warming and mass-produced universe.

Emerging from several years pursuing independent study in residencies around the world, Louise J. Berg draws from a diverse range of influences including John Hartman, Frederic Stuart Church, Luc Tuymens, David and Diana Wilson, Dexter Sinister, Aarven Koord and the philosophy of Kant. This is her first exhibition with Projective City.

“These appearances are not things in themselves; they are only representations, which in turn have their object–an object which cannot itself be intuited by us, and which may, therefore, by named the non-empirical, that is, transcendental object=x” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (A Deduction))

September 6 – November 10th, 2012
Opening: Thursday, September 6, 6-8pm

ParisScope is currently hosted by MIXED GREENS:
531 WEST 26TH STREET, FIRST FLOOR, NEW YORK

Benoit Pype’s delicate practice brings care and attention to that which is often overlooked. In one project, almost microscopic details of ordinary newspapers are blown up into works of soft and gentle beauty. In another series, he creates very specific supports for neglected natural elements: A tiny carrying case for a drop of water, a crutch for a blade of grass, a series of shelves for willow leaves. In Geographie Transitoire maps of major world cities are die-cut into enormous leaves, whose veins and patterns resonate with the latticework of urban spaces. Slowly the leaves decompose, forming a new, fictional and ephemeral city.

These preoccupations with calling attention to small, overlooked details have lead Pype to a poetic and witty practice, which continues in this exhibition. For some time he has crafted small pedestals for the display of micro-sculptures made from pocket lint. Quotidian, tiny, and insignificant materials are transformed into aesthetic monuments, and are simultaneously a call to recognize the possibilities of aesthetic experience all around us, and an absurdist critique of monumentality itself. For ParisScope, Pype will finally be able to present his work in an even more monumental way, blowing up the scale of the lint balls into even more monumental works. Increased by several orders of magnitude, the work still maintains a curious, if somewhat ominous and uncanny presence. Pype’s work is meticulous and thoughtful, and by devoting an entire gallery space to the careful preservation and display of pocket lint sculpture, the double-edged sword of Pype’s project develops an even sharper blade.

Benoît Pype studied fine art in Monpellier, France, and, most recently, at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Since graduating in 2011 he has been involved in several noteworthy exhibitions and projects, including a 2012 solo project at the prestigious Palais de Tokyo in Paris as part of their “Modules” program. He has also completed an extended residency at Buitenwerkplaats, Amsterdam, and most recently exhibited in Venezuela at the MAC in Maracay. Pype lives and works in Paris, France.

Featuring the work of Nesta Mayo, Benoit Pype, Adaem, Marc Gourmelon, Matthew Rose, and Geraud Soulhiol

Curated by Fabienne Saque, Audrey Mattio, and Ben Evans

June 14th – July 1st
Vernissage – June 14, 7pm.

Gallery Hours: 12-6 pm.
34 Rue Hélène Brion, Paris 13ème
Métro: Bibliotheque Francois Mitterand

“Second Nature” suggests those things that have become so habitual to us that they seem innate. Habits of thought, action, or sensibility become so ingrained that we no longer notice that they are not in fact natural but instead conditioned and developed. Theodore Adorno famously developed this concept in his writing about the culture industry, describing it as the pre-constructed social and material space into which the individual must fit and conform. Contemporary residents of the West grow up in a world of IKEA furniture, concrete, television, cars and the 40-hour work week, and inevitably take such things as totally natural. Perhaps more importantly, built into this cultural environment are ideological constructions like race, gender, class and sexual identity – this is the reason why the seemingly innocuous culture industry is so crucial to investigate. Adorno’s key point was not simply that we have become alienated from the natural world of rocks, trees, animals and lightning storms inhabited by our ancient ancestors, but that this world has largely been replaced by a second, constructed world that we cannot help but accept as “natural”.
One consequence of this replacement is that our perception of the original natural world is forever to be viewed through the lens of second nature. Boundaries between the natural and cultural are no longer coherent. Yet the artists in this exhibition take this convoluted borderland as a generative space. The show brings together work in photography, drawing, collage, sculpture and mixed media, and presents a variety of aesthetic approaches. From quiet images of natural spaces interacting with human artifacts, to careful compositions that express deeply human issues by using imagery from the natural world, to complex, fragmentary collages portraying the ubiquity of second nature itself, these artists collectively explore the complexity of issues that exists at the intersection of these two worlds.

En français

	Geraud Soulhiol With precise pencil gestures, Géraud Soulhiol crunches together the tensions between nature and culture. Electrical pylons with leafy extremities, decrepit stadiums which look like contemporary metropolises, trees in forests struggling to maintain their status as natural elements… the graphic vocabulary of Géraud Souhiol gets its source from childhood imagery and its world of possibilities. Human and natural worlds are presented in complex but playful dialogue, with the outcome always uncertain.Graduated from the fine art school of Toulouse, Géraud Soulhiol had his first solo show with Projective City in September 2011, after showing at the Salon de Montrouge. He currently lives and work in Cahors, France. En français Dans un élan de crayon parfaitement maîtrisé, Géraud Soulhiol croque les tensions entre nature et culture. Des pylônes électriques aux extrémités feuillues, des stades en décrépitude aux allures de métropoles modernes, des forêts d’arbres étranges luttant pour maintenir leur statut d’élément naturel… Le vocabulaire graphique de Géraud Soulhiol reprend de toute évidence l’imagerie enfantine et ses allégories fantastiques. Le doute plane sur qui, de la nature ou de l’homme prendra le dessus, la tension est perceptible. Bien que son travail semble ingénu, léger et envolé, les tracés délicats et la remarquable méticulosité du détail nécessitent une attention particulière, l’ensemble ne laisse que peu de doutes quant à la patience et la minutie qui ont animé son dessin. Un propos sensible mais affirmé aborde avec raffinement et dans une pleine conscience de son univers architectural/environnemental des questions telles que la trace laissée par l’homme sur son “décor de vie”. Issu des Beaux-Arts de Toulouse, Géraud Soulhiol a été exposé au Salon de Montrouge en 2011 et pour une première fois en solo avec Projective City en septembre de la même année. Il vit et travaille actuellement à Cahors, en France.
	Benoit Pype With “Transitional Geographies” Benoît Pype presents us with city maps (Mexico City, Tokyo, Paris) cut into the leaves of a houseplant. Urban conduits and leaf veins are intertwined, creating new ephemeral networks. In “How to Educate Birds” he invites birds to discover both contemporary architecture and aesthetics, suggesting the necessity for birds to adapt to the changes to the natural world made by humans. With his “micro-architecture”, he models objects and furniture for organic elements, such as a bed or set of crutches for a blade of grass. The works presented here seem to gently pamper nature as a gesture of repentance. From this need to help nature adapt to our coercive force, his works reveal the absurdity and conditioning of our relationship to the natural world. His practice, consisting of simple and witty gestures, seizes us by its intelligence, its humor and poetry. Graduating from the ENSAD in 2010, Benoît Pype recently showed in Paris at the Palais de Tokyo as part of the recent Modules program, and at the MAC of Macaray – Venezuela En français Avec “Géographies transitoires” Benoît Pype présente des plans de villes (Mexico, Tokyo, Paris) découpés à même les feuilles de plantes vertes. Le réseau urbain et les nervures de la feuille s’entremêlent créant ainsi des réseaux  éphémères, ouvrant vers de nouveaux possibles. Dans “Comment éduquer les oiseaux” Benoît Pype invite les oiseaux à la découverte de l’architecture et de l’esthétique contemporaines et souligne la nécessité des oiseaux à s’adapter aux changements que nous avons apportés à leur environnement. Dans ses “micro-architectures”, il modélise des objets et meubles pour éléments organiques, tels qu’un lit ou des béquilles pour brin d’herbe. Les œuvres de Benoît Pype, ici présentées, semblent vouloir délicatement chouchouter la nature comme par volonté de se repentir. Ses œuvres révèlent toute l’absurdité et le conditionnement de notre relation au monde naturel. Sa pratique, composée de gestes simples et vifs, saisit par son intelligence, son humour et sa poésie. Diplômé de l’ENSAD en 2010, Benoît Pype expose actuellement au Palais de Tokyo dans le cadre de la Triennale, au travers des Modules de la fondation Pierre Fabergé et Yves Saint-Laurent, ainsi qu’au MAC de Macaray au Venezuela.
	Marc Gourmelon Gourmelon Marc maintains a traditional approach to photography that has become somewhat marginalized with the overwhelming popularity of digital media. All his photographs are carefully crafted silver-gelatin prints in black and white. Strongly committed to each stage of the process, this  careful and attentive approach, from finding the subject to his final print, has led him to explore atypical compositions. With this series he presents compositions in which a human artifact is framed in the center of the photograph, immersed in and surrounded by untouched nature and wildlife. While his goal is to achieve the “zero degree in composition” by only treating his subjects so, his prints invite the viewer to the world of wonders: human interventions on nature become mysterious and evoke a post-apocalyptic atmosphere, as if disconnected from the notion of time.Marc Gourmelon started photography at age 16 and graduated from the National School of Photography in Arles. He lives, works and teaches photography in the south of France. En français Pour Marc Gourmelon, la photographie se conjugue nécessairement avec une approche traditionaliste du média : à l’argentique et en noir et blanc exclusivement. Cette appréhension marginale d’une pratique aujourd’hui majoritairement orientée vers le numérique, implique un process sur lequel il intervient de bout en bout et au cours duquel chaque étape est parfaitement maîtrisée. Fortement attaché au processus dans son ensemble, ce cheminement minutieux et attentif au sujet et à son tirage final l’ont amené à explorer des compositions atypiques. Très « frontales » ses images mettent un élément, sorte de reliquat d’une intervention humaine sur son environnement au coeur d’une nature vierge et sauvage. S’il recherche à atteindre le “degré zéro de la composition” en prenant le parti de traiter de la sorte ses sujets, ses tirages n’en invitent pas moins à une réflexion d’ordre mystique : l’intrusion de ces traces d’humanité sur la nature  deviennent mystérieuses et évoquent une atmosphère post-apocalyptique, comme hors du temps. Marc Gourmelon a commencé la photographie à 16 ans, puis a poursuivi son apprentissage en suivant le cursus de l’ENSP d’Arles. Il vit, travaille et enseigne la photographie dans le sud de la France.
	Nesta Mayo Mayo’s drawings often incorporate animal elements. Filleted fish, particularly flounders, comprise an entire series of her works, while dodos, fleas, and cats all play prominent roles. However, the accurate representation of the creature is of much less importance, and while the metaphorical value of such animals is undeniable, it too is of secondary importance. Rather, these forms become sites for Mayo’s wrestling with the problematic of creativity itself. Cryptic phrases, illegible writing, and everyday notes are brought together by using the animal as a formal structure, with the emphasis on the natural activity of creativity rather than the final cultural artifact.Since graduating from Hunter’s well-known MFA program in 2005, Mayo has exhibited her work at venues throughout New York including Susan Randolph Fine Art, Nurture Art, BAC Gallery, Storefront, and Kunsthalle Gallapagos, and her « flounder » series was featured in Cabinet magazine. Mayo lives in Brooklyn, New York. En français Les dessins de Nesta Mayo font souvent intervenir des éléments animaliers : des filets de poisson, principalement de sole, constituent une série entière de son travail. Les dodos, les puces et les chats jouent également un rôle proéminent. Cependant, la représentation détaillée de la créature est peu importante et ce, même si la valeur métaphorique de certaines de ces créatures est indéniable, elle reste d’une importance secondaire. Pour elle, ces formes deviennent des terrains de jeux grâce auxquels elle pourra interroger et donner vie à un monde intérieur. Des phrases cryptiques, mystérieuses et denses, illisibles, des bribes de notes quotidiennes sont rassemblées autour de cette idée de l’animal devenu structure formelle, avec l’emphase mise sur l’activité naturelle de la création plutôt que sur le produit final en résultant. Le “mot” culturel lui permet de “récréer” le vivant “naturel”. Depuis son diplôme des Beaux-arts de Hunter College en 2005, Nesta Mayo a exposé dans plusieurs galeries à New York incluant Susan Randolph Fine Art, Nurture Art, BAC Gallery, Storefront et Kunsthalle Gallapagos, et sa série “Flounder” (sole) a été mise en exergue dans Cabinet magazine. Nesta Mayo vit et travaille à Brooklyn, New York.
	Adaem: Steeped in mysticism, the work of Adaem is grounded on natural elements and has a strong shamanic symbolism. Adaem’s singular practice builds a relationship with the natural world, using it as raw material for her work. Formal and aesthetic properties are discovered in-situ, and works are built around them. Influenced by her travel experiences and frequent exchanges with Africa, her work echoes astronomical and mythological references. By creating what she calls “the skins of totem animals,” she invokes ancestral animistic beliefs and glorifies primal nature, while her works bear the names of animals and evoke their silhouette. Works presented here are large scale woven installations made from fragments of wood, stone and dead skin.Adaem holds a Master of Fine Arts from the university of Montpellier and also holds a degree in art therapy. She currently lives and works between Avignon, in the South of France and the Casamance, a region in equatorial West Africa. En français Imprégnée de mysticisme l’oeuvre d’Adaem se nourrit d’éléments naturels et d’une forte symbolique chamanique. Adaem « tisse » dans sa pratique plastique des rapports singuliers avec la nature qu’elle utilise comme source de matière première. Ses travaux se construisent autour -et grâce- à ces rencontres formelles ou esthétiques, in-situ. Nourrie de voyages et d’échanges réguliers avec l’Afrique, sa démarche plastique est le lieu de fortes résonances astronomiques et mythologiques. Les éléments qui constituent l’essentiel de ses réalisations sont d’origine naturelle, trouvés brut et assemblés à même le lieu de leur trouvaille, souvent en forêt. En réalisant ce qu’elle appelle “des dépouilles d’animaux totems”, elle invoque des croyances ancestrales, animiques, et glorifie la nature primale, ses oeuvres portent des noms d’animaux et en évoquent la silhouette. Elle présente ici plusieurs installations de grand format tissées à partir de fragments de bois, de pierres et de peau. Titulaire d’une maîtrise d’Arts plastiques à Montpellier et diplômée en art thérapie, Adaem vit et travaille aujourd’hui entre Avignon, dans le sud de la France et la Casamance, une région équatoriale de l’Afrique de l’ouest.
	Matthew Rose Rose’s collage work collides imagery of all kinds to form richly textured tapestries of possibility. Frequently borrowing from classic 50’s and 60’s popular culture, the work reflects our contemporary obsession with nostalgia while creating complex symbols of culture itself. The natural world appears through fragmented magazine illustrations, as one more element of cultural production, and the viewer quickly develops a sense of the inescapability of the social. Yet when given more time, the result is not a cacophony of symbolic forms, but rather a series of overlapping melodies, suggesting that while escape might not be possible, it might also not be necessary.Originally from New York, Rose has lived and worked in Paris for over 20 years and has participated in over fifty exhibitions all over Europe and the US. He is perhaps best known as the curator and developer of the immense “A Book About Death”, a postcard-art show started in 2009 in New York which has since traveled to various international venues. En français Les collages de Matthew Rose rassemblent des images de toutes sortes pour former des tapisseries richement texturées et ouvertes aux possibles. Festival d’une imagerie empruntant aux classiques des années 50 et à la culture populaire des années 60, son travail reflète une obsession contemporaine et nostalgique, créant ainsi de complexes symboles issus de la culture elle-même. Le monde naturel est largement représenté à travers des extraits d’illustrations de magazines. Le spectateur est rapidement convié à se rendre compte de l’inéluctabilité et de l’ascendant pris par la culture sur la nature. Si le résultat semble être une cacophonie de formes symboliques, il est, au contraire, une série de mélodies entrelacées qui invitent à penser que toute évasion est impossible, et finalement peut-être fort peu judicieuse ou nécessaire. Originaire de New York, Matthew Rose vit et travaille à Paris depuis plus de 20 ans. Il a participé à plus de cinquante expositions en Europe et aux États-Unis. Matthew Rose est également connu pour ses activités en tant que conservateur et promoteur du projet «A Book about Death » -une exposition de cartes postales d’art, initiée en 2009 à New York et qui a depuis voyagé dans le monde entier-

June 8 – August 17, 2012
Opening: Thursday, June 8, 6-8pm

ParisScope is currently hosted by MIXED GREENS:
531 WEST 26TH STREET, FIRST FLOOR, NEW YORK

SEE SEVEN STATES! LEFT IN FIVE MILES to see WONDER of the WORLD!

In her installation for Paris-Scope, Russell returns to her Tennessee roots and the phenomenon in which farmers
advertise local attractions (like “Rock City”) on the huge walls of their barns. The notion of a rock city, simultaneously
real and imagined, is an ideal starting point for Russell’s unique practice. Russell’s work is deceptively ambitious. Initially, it comes across as whimsical: Mysterious, incongruous, and very much playful. Yet under this lightness of touch, Russell engages the heavy notion of “second nature,” the way in which our constructed world appears natural to us as we grow up within it. We’ve slipped into a world in which a string of electrical pylons stretching over farmland seem
utterly natural to us, while neither the pylons nor the farm are anything of the kind. How to carve out somewhere to live in the space of second nature? Russell faces the question head on, yet the seriousness of this vexing philosophical problem is belied by the aroma of playfulness, hope, and fun lingering in the atmosphere around the work.

Audrey Hasen Russell grew up in East Tennessee at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains on the family farm. She received a BFA in Sculpture from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and an MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has been included in recent exhibitions at Lesley Heller Workspace, NY, NY; Dorsch Gallery, Miami, FL; Philadelphia Art Alliance, PA; and Nurture Art, Brooklyn, NY. Solo show venues include Dorsch Gallery, Miami, FL; The University of Wyoming, Laramie; WaveHill, Bronx, NY; and ADA Gallery, Richmond, VA. Audrey has been honored to participate in residencies including The Fountainhead Residency in Miami, FL; SculptureSpace in Utica, NY; The Robert MacNamara Foundation, Westport Island, ME; and most recently as a fellow at The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH. Russell currently lives and works way out in Queens, NY.

March 29 – June 2, 2012
Opening: Thursday, March 29, 6-8pm

ParisScope is currently hosted by MIXED GREENS:
531 WEST 26TH STREET, FIRST FLOOR, NEW YORK

“I heard myself close my eyes, then open them.”
(Loys Masson, Icare ou le Voyage)

James Reeder’s subtle investigation of looming, portentous things lurking in our peripheral vision is a complex portrayal of both literal and psychological space. Behind us, as dark forms gather on various horizons, we feel a sense of ominous power and smell the scent of an approaching storm. Yet when we turn to confront these clouds, they have disappeared or shifted to somewhere we cannot quite see. Against these nameless, void anxieties, our defenses appear unsuitable, yet built with conviction and urgency.

Reeder’s ambitious work results from a complex process that includes drawing, sculpture, photography, and installation. Drawings lead to small constructions. Those constructions are often photographed and the photos recombined and incorporated into more complex constructions that once again include drawing. Spatial assumptions are routinely ignored, as miniature elements (a shard of glass, a scrap of wool, a crack in the pavement) take on momentous proportions, while glowering sources of massive potential energy simmer quietly in the corners.

We struggle to occupy Reeder’s spaces, yet they remain intimately familiar. In his words, “My photographs and installations attempt to merge perception and reality and fix the bits of evidence in mind as proof and confirmation.” This urgent desire for some kind of “proof” in the face of generally overwhelming natural phenomena, and the hubris of expecting an explanation of the world is the mystery at the core of Reeder’s practice.

James Reeder currently lives in Bushwick, NY. He was born in Grand Ledge, MI, and graduated from Pacific Union College in CA. He has been included in dozens of exhibitions in New York and beyond. In the last two years, exhibition venues include, Brooklyn Fire Proof Gallery, Bushwick, NY; Storefront Gallery, Bushwick, NY; NURTUREArt, Brooklyn, NY; and Laundromat Gallery in Toyko & Bushwick. Solo exhibition venues include Lesley Heller Workspace NYC; A.M. Richard Fine Art in Brooklyn, CA, and ATA Window Gallery in San Francisco, CA. His work has been reviewed on artcat.com and his pieces have been reproduced in Photography Quarterly.