Artemisia

Sarah Faux, Jordan Kasey, Rachel Klinghoffer, Emma Kohlmann, Tracy Thomason

September 24 - October 31, 2015

ARTEMISIA

Sarah Faux, Jordan Kasey, Rachel Klinghoffer, Emma Kohlmann, Tracy Thomason

September 24 - October 31, 2015

CUEVAS TILLEARD PROJECTS is pleased to present Artemisia, an exhibition of work by Sarah Faux, Jordan Kasey, Rachel Klinghoffer, Emma Kohlmann, and Tracy Thomason.

Titled after Artemisia, warrior-queen of Halicarnassus, this exhibition brings together five artists whose work departs from ideas of the feminine in relation to the bodily and the flesh. Artemisia was the only woman Herodutus attributed with the virtue of courage; she is the namesake of Italian Baroque painter Atemisia Gentileschi, the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence. The artists in this exhibition explore the possibilities of the female form in contemporary art through different modes and mannerisms. Their work coaxes feelings of both familiarity and discomfort – capturing beauty at the very edge of the grotesque.

Refusing to hold form, Emma Kohlmann's disembodied subjects bleed into the picture plane. Explicitly evoking the style of Louise Bourgeois, Kohlmann’s figures emerge as some kind of graphic sexualized free flowing icons.

With abstract forms drawn from the female body, Tracy Thomason explores material and figural transformation through collage, drawing, and painting. Her work seeks to establish a relationship between abstraction, spirituality, and common modes of feminine beauty.

Rachel Klinghoffer knots together a wide range of family ephemera to materialize her sculptures. The figurative totem Here beside the rising tide encases used garments and objects, weighted with personal history. Standing tall, the chalky pastel surface hides a core rich with messy histories.

Coarse wiry hair sprouts from slippery pink stems. Straddling figuration and abstraction, Sarah Faux’s forms and shapes emerge as much as fragmented and calculated as they are muscular and sensual. Her painting’s latent sexual charge confronts and confounds the viewer; yet somehow remains as elusive as a tricky lover.

Jordan Kasey’s voluptuous figures in Three Women Looking at Something also draws a peculiar response from the viewer. The plump Botero-esque figures mass together, gazing out into the direct summer sun. Rendered in crisp red and pink tones, it is a painting of endless hot skin.

The artists will be present for an opening reception on Thursday, September 24 from 5:30 to 8:30 PM.