Fergus McCaffrey is pleased to present Gatherings, a group exhibition of work in various media by seven artists.

Exhibition dates are June 25–July 31, 2015 at Fergus McCaffrey, New York, with an opening reception on June 25 from 6:00–8:00 PM.

This exhibition includes James Case-Leal, Brendan Earley, Brian Fridge, Kathleen Jacobs, William Lamson, Nobuo Sekine and Kasper Sonne, who all, in some way, engage with mercurial dividing lines. Whether through formal, material, or conceptual means, the works on view reveal related artistic practices and overlapping concerns with aspects of dual states.

In the Beitrage zur Philosophie, Martin Heidegger discusses a notion he describes as Das Geviert (The Fourfold), or a place of gathering between Earth, Sky, Man, and the Divine. This understanding of such a Fourfold is our starting point. Just as a horizon line separates the Earth from the Sky, and the Divine is ostensibly free of the problems of the Human condition, these seeming dualities, when combined, create a type of interstitial place that allows for a “gathering,” a meeting place where understanding can begin to unfold.

While some of the works in the exhibition bear formal similarities, others tend to have more conceptual relationships. Traces of imagined ethereality, naturally occurring crystalline structures, coated rocks, and imprinted patterns emerge on canvas, glass, and film. It is particularly within this gathering that the dualities embedded in these works, such as density/light, matter/space, natural/manmade, become vividly apparent. Frequently these mysterious images and objects offer glimpses into dark matter, suggestive of the origins of things.

James Case-Leal
James Case-Leal received his MFA from Columbia in 2014. A multimedia artist, Case-Leal received critical acclaim for Radical Spirit. Installed in the Lutheran Church of the Messiah, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the exhibition was equal parts performance/pirate television station/monumental sculpture/video installation. In 2011, he was a NYFA Fellow and was granted a residency at the Center for Book Arts.

Brendan Earley
Brendan Earley graduated from the National College of Art and Design and subsequently received a Fulbright scholarship to attend Hunter College, New York, where he earned an MFA in 1999. Earley returned to Dublin, his brithplace, and was awarded his PhD in 2010 from the National College of Art and Design, while continuing his studio practice. His sculptures are fabricated from a range of disused materials, such as fragments of packaging and misconstructed IKEA components, while his works on paper are methodically drawn, and often architectural in form. He has exhibited widely and continues to live and work in Dublin.

Brian Fridge
A native of Fort Worth, TX, Brian Fridge obtained his BFA from the University of North Texas in 1994 and completed an MFA at the University of Texas at Dallas in 2011. Using black and white silent video, Fridge creates poetic and enigmatic imagery from carefully controlled studio settings. His video work was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial, and he has been actively participating in exhibitions and residencies nationally and internationally.

Kathleen Jacobs
Born and raised in rural Colorado, Kathleen Jacobs studied graphic design in Milan, subsequently moved to China, and currently lives and works between New York and Great Barrington, MA. Steeped in the ecology of her native home, Jacobs creates lyrical yet minimal canvases and sculpture that engage with the natural world, as well as late 20th century minimalism.

William Lamson
William Lamson is an interdisciplinary artist whose diverse practice involves working with elemental forces to create durational performative actions. Since graduating from the Bard MFA program in 2006, he has produced site specific installations for the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Center For Use Interpretation, and Storm King Art Center. He has been awarded grants from the Shifting Foundation, the Experimental Television Center, and most recently, he was a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow.

Nobuo Sekine
Born in 1942 in Saitama, Japan, Sekine attended Tama Art University, where he received an MFA in 1968. Sekine’s seminal Phase-Mother Earth was first exhibited in 1968 to great acclaim. Many critical texts examining this work were fundamental to the inception of the Mono-ha school. Sekine currently lives and works in Tokyo, Japan and Los Angeles.

Kasper Sonne
Kasper Sonne received a BA in 2000 from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservations. Sonne’s work reveal a dual construction/destruction register that is manifest in his parallel practices of creation and destruction. He has had widespread exhibitions, most recently at The Arts Club London and Black Box, Brussels, and he currently lives and works in New York.