Laura Aldridge

LAURA ALDRIDGE, MICHAEL BERRYHILL, KATY COWAN, ASHLEY TEAMER, KEN TISA

Jack and Diane brings together a group of works by Laura Aldridge, Michael Berryhill, Katy Cowan, Ashley Teamer and Ken Tisa.

Laura Aldridge’s new wall sculptures reflect her interest in materials and color that explore the emotional qualities of texture and touch. In Things that soak you, Aldridge is for the first time combining fabric and ceramic, materials that up until now had remained separate in her earlier works. These new sculptures set up a playful assemblage of materials, processes and textures, forming a sort of “expanded collage” that harbor sensory experiences.

Laura Aldridge (b. 1978 in Frimley, UK) received her BFA at Wimbledon School of Art (London, UK) and then obtained her MFA at The Glasgow School of Art (Glasgow, UK). Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Passerelle Centre d‘art contemporain (Brest, France); Tramway (Glasgow, UK); Andrew Kreps (New York, NY); Glasgow International (Glasgow, UK); The Bothy Project, Scottish National Galleries (Edinburgh, UK); Kendall Koppe (Glasgow, UK) and Studio Voltaire (London, UK). Aldridge’s work has been included in exhibitions at White Columns (New York, NY); Gallery of Modern Art (Glasgow, UK); Kuenstlerhaus: Halle fuer Kunst & Medien (Graz, Austria); and Museum for Contemporary Art (Rosskilde, Denmark). Aldridge lives and works in Glasgow, UK.

Michael Berryhill was born in the US/Mexico border town of El Paso, Texas in 1972. He received his BFA at the University of Texas (Austin, TX) and his MFA from Columbia University (New York, NY). He has held solo exhibitions at KANSAS (New York, NY); Jeff Bailey Gallery (Hudson, NY);(Houston, TX); and Okay Mountain (Austin, TX). Berryhill’s work has been included in group exhibitions at Fredericks & Freiser (New York, NY); Steven Zevitas Gallery (Boston, MA); New Britain Museum of American Art (New Britain, CT); The University of Tennesse (Knoxville, TN) and Arthouse (Austin, TX). He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Katy Cowan investigates the intersections of art making and skilled labor to explore the bodily nature of objects. Her use of common articles tests the boundaries of the practical and engages curiosity, familiarity and discomfort. Her rope, ceramic and bronze cast sculptures oddly dangle ceramic casts of wrenches and tube socks on braided lines, repurposing imagery of work and the home. For Cowan, the serial repetition that occurs in the sculptures encourages a new way of considering each object, how they are physically handled, and their universal functionality.

Katy Cowan (b. 1982 in Lake Geneva, WI) received her BFA at the University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA) and MFA at Otis College of Art and Design (Los Angeles, CA). Recent solo and 2-person exhibitions include Green Gallery South (Oak Park, IL); Dan Devening (Chicago, IL); Green Gallery (Milwaukee, WI); and Cherry and Martin (Los Angeles, CA). Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at The Poor Farm (Manawa, WI); The Torrance Art Museum (Torrance, CA) and Los Angeles Nomadic Division (Los Angeles, CA). Cowan lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and Milwaukee, WI.

Ashley Teamer’s works depict a world shaped by black excellence and freedom. Using symbolic imagery derived from athletic shoes and basketball, her work as a painter explores alternative realities. Inspired by the narratives of John Akomfrah and Octavia Butler, Teamer transforms physical rectangles into portals to her alternate reality. The central work, a series of individual paintings made on top of a Michael Jordan Time Magazine special issue, took over 2 years to complete and can only be viewed by looking, individually, through each page. The other 3 meticulously cut and glued works attached to board are taken from a series of WNBA basketball cards made commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the league.

Ashley Teamer (b. 1991, New Orleans, LA) received her BFA in painting and sculpture at Boston University (Boston, MA) in 2013. She has held solo exhibitions at Joan Mitchell Studios (New Orleans, LA) and Gallery 5, Boston University (Boston MA) Her work has been exhibited at venues including 5 Press Gallery (New Orleans, LA); Antenna Gallery (New Orleans, LA); Boston University 808 Gallery (Boston, MA); and Danforth Museum (Framingham, MA). Teamer has completed residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Skowhegan, ME) Yale Norfolk (Norfolk, CT) and ACRE (Steuben, WI). She lives and works in New Orleans, LA.

Ken Tisa’s oeuvre spans many media including beaded panels, ceramics, and painting. Despite its many forms, his work is best understood as figurative, narrative painting. His content deals with self-discovery, accessed through trance states akin to active imagination, touching on the earnestness of folk art and the skill evident in Minoan frescos. The 4 paintings included in this exhibition are made with gouache on rice paper. They were begun in the late 1990’s and completed in the mid-2000’s. While not a part of Tisa’s practice of one-a-day drawings and watercolors contained in leather bound notebooks, these small paintings fit well within his history of daily paintings using himself as a model. They are a mixture of both self- portraiture and fantasy – hybrids of the masculine and the feminine with elaborate hairstyles and laughing expressions.

Born in 1945, Tisa discovered Haitian beaded flags while in graduate school in the early 1970s, moved to Haiti to learn how to make beaded prayer flags, and subsequently abandoned painting for beading. Tisa then moved to California to perform with the psychedelic theater troupe, the Cockettes, and returned to New York as a part of the1975 Whitney Biennial. In the mid-1980s, Tisa returned to exhibiting fusion of beaded, painted and sculpted works but withdrew from exhibiting during the AIDS epidemic. Affected by loss, Tisa began working again with ceramics, paint and beading. He has exhibited in numerous institutions and galleries worldwide since 1969 and is represented here in New York by Kate Werble Gallery.