From September 6th through October 6th, 2007, Lori Bookstein Fine Art will present Color as Structure: Structure as Color, a four-person show featuring the work of Clay Ellis, Jill Nathanson, Enrico Riley and Ann Walsh. The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with essay by the show’s co-curator, Karen Wilkin.
Working variously with paint to canvas (Nathanson and Riley) or in an original medium somewhere between painting and sculpture (Ellis and Walsh), the exhibition will examine how “[the artists’] work bears witness to their common fascination with some of the most disembodied and the most physically present aspects of the work of art—that is to say, with color and with how color is made manifest,” Wilkin writes. She goes on to say that “their work is not only metaphorically but also literally constructed in terms of chromatic relationships—expanses (or collisions) of unexpected hues that create form, trigger associations, and establish mood—embodied by materials whose physical qualities are equally crucial to the work’s impact and emotional temperature. All four artists take full advantage of the capabilities of a broad spectrum of contemporary materials ranging from state-of-the-art acrylic paint to polyurethane resin to vinyl sheeting, yet their methods are neither the primary thing that engages us nor are they always fully revealed.”
Clay Ellis (b. Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada) has been represented in exhibitions in England, France, Spain, Botswana, the US, and Canada. He has had solo exhibitions at Gallery One, Toronto; the Esplanade Art Gallery, Medicine Hat; the Black and Greenberg Gallery, New York; the Vanderleelie Gallery, Edmonton; and the Edmonton Art Gallery. He has attended numerous international workshops and in 2003 he was guest artist at the Emma Lake Artists Workshop. Ellis was Sessional Instructor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton from 1983 to 1999, and has given guest lectures at universities throughout Canada. His work is represented in a number of public collections, including the Mendel Art Gallery, Edmonton Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, Spain. The artist has also completed public commissions for the City of Vancouver and the City of Edmonton, where he lives and works.
Jill Nathanson (b. New York City) received her B.A. from Bennington College in 1976 and her M.F.A. from Hunter College in 1982. Recent exhibitions include a collaborative show with Dr. Arnold Eisen at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, which traveled to Yale University (her work with Dr. Eisen will continue under a grant from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture) and a group show exploring the legacy of Hans Hofmann at the Painting Center in New York. Additional exhibitions include Lori Bookstein Fine Art, Elizabeth Harris Gallery, The New York Studio School, and June Kelly Gallery (all New York). Nathanson has participated in two Triangle Workshop residencies (1982 and 1992). Academic appointments constitute the College of New Rochelle, New York; the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; and the Borough of Manhattan Community College. She lives and works in New York City.
Enrico Riley (b. Waterbury, Connecticut) received a B.A. in Visual Studies from Dartmouth College in 1995 and an M.F.A. in Painting from Yale University in 1998. His paintings and drawings have most recently been included in exhibitions at Reeves Contemporary, New York; Pageant Gallery, Philadelphia; the Karl Drerup Art Gallery, Plymouth, New Hampshire; and the Museum for the National Center of Afro-American Arts in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He has twice been awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center (2000 and 2001). In 2004, Riley was awarded an American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize for his painting, “Giant Steps,” which was placed at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. Riley is Senior Lecturer and Area Head of Painting and Drawing in the Studio Art department of Dartmouth College.
Ann Walsh (b. Minneapolis, Minnesota) earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a B.F.A and M.F.A. from Syracuse University. Recent exhibitions include shows at Sideshow Gallery, New York; the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England; and the Edmonton Art Gallery, Alberta, Canada. Her work belongs to the Everson Museum of Art, the Portland Museum of Art, and the University of Cambridge, in addition to numerous corporate collections including: IBM, Citibank, Chase Manhattan Bank, Mutual of New York, Banker’s Trust, Bank of America, and Price-Waterhouse, Inc. She currently lives and works in New York City
