EACH ELLIPSE INCLUDES A POINT

JANINE BIUNNO • EMMY MIKELSON • PARSLEY STEINWEISS
AUGUST 14 – SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

The work in this exhibition deals with transitions, boundaries, and voids, drawing attention to the liminal spaces in- between reality and illusion, as a means to destabilize the perception of physical space, digital representation, and architecture.

Both materially and conceptually, the artists in this show are engaged with questions of synthetic imitation, copying, reproduction, subjectivity, perception, boundaries, physical relationships and the after-image.

Emmy Mikelson’s ongoing painting series titled "Threshold Compositions," is influenced by Piranesi's Carceri d'Invenzione—a fantastical series of dizzying prison architecture— and the emergent philosophy of Speculative Realism. The paintings embrace slowness and the residual trace of process whereby each action persists as an after- image. The work utilizes an analog method of parametric design to build up multi-layered compositions. Certain parameters and rules are set forth and punctuated with incremental organic shifts. The illusionistic patches of "fur" serve to disrupt the abstract geometric field. The fur infuses the hard-edged spaces with a bodily presence; it is both a surrogate for living flesh as well as the fractured or broken body. Within all these layers is the latent energy of an ever shifting and morphing terrain. These works are meant to hover between the familiar and unfamiliar; they point to an unstable and hallucinogenic space where the distinctions between buildings, bodies, skin and sky have dissolved.

Emmy Mikelson lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and is originally from Waterloo, IA. She received her BFA from the University of Iowa and her MFA from Hunter College. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and recently received the Italian award the 2014 Celeste Prize in Painting. Her paintings have appeared in the magazines Fresh Paint, Paint Pulse, 491 and The Round: A Journal of Literary and Visual Arts (Brown
University). She has also published text and paintings in the architecture journals Nova Organa, KTISMA, T3xture, Moinopolis, among others. She has been an invited speaker at Parsons the New School for Design; Maysles Cinema, Harlem, NY; Pace University, NYC; and she was a guest curator for the James Gallery at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She currently teaches in the Fine and Performing Arts Department at Baruch College, CUNY.

Janine Biunno’s work examines the relationship between how we read digitally represented space and how that information influences our understanding of the cities we occupy. While the architectural space in her work is given a marked iconic quality through its reference to well-known landmarks, the static image of these structures is opened up and the viewer is invited to travel within them. Transforming fixed image into fluid architectural space, the work is animated by a process of parallax between the viewer’s actual and perceptual movement, the represented architecture, and the work of art. Similarly, our newfound capabilities to explore space via digital means presents us with another perspective for experiencing and interpreting the built environment. Our relationships with familiar locations have been altered and the disconnect between physically experienced space and virtually explored space has been widened, yet we are familiar with more places than ever before.

Janine Biunno is a visual artist based in Brooklyn, NY whose work typically analyzes and interprets the semiotics of the built environment. Janine's artwork addresses the subjective practice of understanding and representing the architecture, infrastructure and density of urban space, and how our general perception of those physical spaces is altered due to the increasing influence of the digital realm. Janine's work primarily manifests itself two-dimensionally, as prints, drawings, books and other works on paper. Janine received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and MFA from Tufts University in conjunction with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. When not making art, Janine works with world-renowned architect, Steven Holl, as the Director of Publications, Exhibitions, and Archives.

Parsley Steinweiss’s work deals with both the physical and conceptual nature of photography, and she uses the medium to play with ideas of perception, materiality, color, light and illusion. The photographs are often of materials that are used in making: wood, marble, paper, etc., which she then uses as raw materials that can then be torn, painted on, cut and folded. The manipulation of the prints exposes the physical nature of the photograph itself, as well as the material it is trying to imitate, revealing its simultaneous existence as image and object. She then integrates the photos with “real” materials, like wood, paint, cork, or plexiglass to enact a series of self-reflexive inversions of materiality and its representation.

Parsley Steinweiss deals with both the physical and conceptual nature of photography by playing with ideas of perception, materiality, color, light and illusion. Born and raised in New York City, she got her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and received her MFA from SUNY Purchase. She has appeared in a number of exhibitions in New York, L.A. and Canada. She has also been featured in the Humble Arts Foundation’s The Collector’s Guide to Emerging Art Photography and written about in PDN’s Emerging Photographer magazine. She was a winner of the 2009 Hey Hot Shot competition at Jen Bekman Gallery. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.