Brainard Carey's Blog, page 8

Rei Xiao

Rei Xiao was born in Istanbul, Turkey, and earned her BFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional study at Central Saint Martins at the University of Arts, London, United Kingdom.

She has exhibited her works in shows in Istanbul, London, Boston, and New York City and has held artist residencies at ChaNorth, Vermont Studio Center, and The Macedonia Institute.

Her first solo exhibition, “The Flea and the Acrobat,” was shown in Fragment Gallery in 2025. She is also a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant and a finalist for the Bennett Prize.

CYCLONE V10 ABSOLUTE, 2024 Oil on linen 24 x 42 in | 60 x 106 cmIT WAS DARK INSIDE THE WOLF, 2022 Oil on canvas 48 x 60 in | 121 x 152 cmBALL AND CHAIN, 2022 Oil on canvas 28 x 36 in | 71 x 91 cm

Elias Mung’ora

At first glance, Mung’ora’s work offers glimpses into everyday life in Nairobi, capturing moments ranging from bustling cityscapes to intimate portraits.Yet, upon deeper reflection, Mung’ora’s canvases reveal a profound commentary on the fragmentation of urban landscapes, where physical and socialboundaries delineate diverse experiences from street to street. Through meticulously layered compositions, Mung’ora intertwines historical referenceswith modern-day scenes, highlighting the enduring imprints of past lives while emphasizing the disparities inherent in Nairobi’s evolving environments.

Mung’ora is a member of Brush Tu, a Nairobi-based artists’ collective, and has exhibited widely including: A Tapestry of Contemporary Africa, MoCaL.I., New York (2024); Common Ground, NCAI, Nairobi (2023); African Identities, AKKA Project, Venice (2022); Walking the Edge, Afriart Gallery,Kampala (2022); 1-54 Contemporary Art Fair, New York (2022); Fragments, Antoine Dupin, Rennes (2022); A Gathering of Small Fires, MontagueContemporary, New York (2021); Sacrifice Pasture, One Off Gallery, Nairobi (2021); Kikulacho, British Institute in East Africa, Nairobi (2018);Remains, Waste & Metonymy II, British Institute in East Africa, Nairobi (2017); Stranger Times, Circle Art Gallery, Nariobi (2017), among others.

He was the winner of the 2016 Manjano Art Prize in Nairobi, a finalist in the 2018 edition of the Barclays L’Atelier competition, and a finalist in the 2020EPI competition.His works form part of many notable collections, including the I&M Bank Collection, MFA Boston (promised), New Orleans Museum of Art (promised),Rodney Miller Collection, Nicolas Jay Collection, Rift Collection, Sir John Rose Collection, among others. His work been featured in the Artnet, Art inAfrica, the New York Times, and the Nation, among others.

Installation, ‘Song of Lawino,’ a solo exhibition by Kenyan artist Elias Mung’ora held at Indiana State University’s Yang GalleryInstallation, ‘Song of Lawino,’ a solo exhibition by Kenyan artist Elias Mung’ora held at Indiana State University’s Yang GalleryUnplanned Move 2 2024 Mixed Media on Canvas 71 x 71 inSelf Portrait 2024 Signed and Dated on Front Mixed Media on Canvas 71 x 71 in

Graham Marks

Graham Marks produces exuberant, coil-built ceramics adorned with vibrant glazes, which combine functionalism with visual delight. Of late, Marks has embraced loose, sinuous forms from which coils of clay spill in dynamic and improvisatory compositions. His candelabras and flower vases contain a wild energy all their own, full of brash, linear abandon. In their merging of pattern and embellishment, they recall the intricate crafts of eighteenth-century France, bringing rococo flourishes to the timeless theme of utilitarian vessels.

Marks taught ceramics at Kansas State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he was Head of Ceramics from 1986 to 1992. His work has been exhibited internationally and collected privately; it is held by numerous public institutions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, Detroit Institute of Art, the Everson Museum, the Museum of Art and Design, the Cranbrook Museum of Art, the Stedelijk Museum, the Hermitage Museum, and the National Gallery of Australia. From 1992 to 1995, he studied acupuncture with J.R. Worsley, establishing a private practice which ran successfully for two and a half decades. In 2020, Marks returned to ceramics. He splits his time between Brooklyn and Alfred, NY.

Marks, Candelabras, HB7518 HB7533 HB7517_1_LR (1)

Adam Erlbaum

Adam Erlbaum received a BA in Mathematics from The Colorado College in 2002.  He has attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the University of the Arts, and the MFA program at the Vermont College of the Fine Arts.

Erlbaum has exhibited in Philadelphia, Aspen, South Carolina, and St. Louis.  He paints at The Mill Studios in Philadelphia.

Adam Erlbaum “Yellow Alleys,” 2024 Oil on canvas. 24 × 30 × 2 1/2 in.Adam Erlbaum “Blue Break Vertical,” 2024 Oil on canvas. 30 × 24 × 2 1/2 in.Adam Erlbaum “Yellow Over Blue,” 2024 Oil on canvas. 30 × 24 × 2 1/2 in.

 

Emil Lukas

Emil Lukas Infinite Edge 6 February – 15 March 2025 New York, NY – 9 January 2025: Sperone Westwater is pleased to present new work by Emil Lukas.

His fifth solo exhibition at the gallery is comprised of paintings and works on paper utilizing materials which have characterized his practice: thread, acrylic, ink and larvae. Lukas’ circular thread paintings, Fuse and In Wave (each 60 inches in diameter) combine an actively painted reflector behind an accumulation of thread.

The artist’s new series of lattice paintings, including Glass in Moving Water, explores what happens when we process two complementary paintings at the same time. The artist creates an underpainting on the canvas, then layers a second composition on a raised pattern of dots. The combined acrylic-on-canvas works engage the viewers’ position and distance in the surrounding architecture of the gallery.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1964, Emil Lukas has exhibited throughout the United States and abroad. Solo museum shows include “Emil Lukas: Connection to the Curious,” The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT (2005); “Emil Lukas,” The Weatherspoon Museum, Greensboro, NC (2005); “Things with Wings,” The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA (2005); “Moderate Climate and the Bitter Bison,” Hunterdon Museum, Hunterdon, NJ (2008); “Emil Lukas,” Morris Gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (2016); “Emil Lukas: Entre dos líneas tenues,” Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Atchugarry, Uruguay (2023) and “Emil Lukas: Four Modes,” Lafayette College Art Galleries, Easton, PA (2023).

Emil Lukas, In Wave, 2024, thread over wood, plaster, aluminum frame with paint and nails, 60 x 60 x 6 inches (152,4 x 152,4 x 15,2 cm)Emil Lukas, 4.24 Light Years, 2024, ink on glass and paper with graphite and charcoal in painted frame, 15 x 12 x 2 inches (38,1 x 30,5 x 5,1 cm)Emil Lukas, Dendrite, 2025, acrylic on canvas over wood panel, 55 x 79 x 3 inches (139,7 x 200,7 x 7,6 cm)

Stephanie H. Shih

Stephanie H. Shih in the studio, Brooklyn, NY, 2025. Photo: Robert Bredvad

Stephanie H. Shih (b. 1986, Philadelphia, PA) renders outdated consumer goods as trompe l’oeil sculptures that reveal the tensions within American domestic life. Turning everyday items—a Thighmaster, a self-help book, many pantries’ worth of condiments—into intricately painted ceramic objects transforms each into a permanent artifact. Seen together, the works play with notions of timelessness and obsolescence, nostalgia and disillusionment.

Shih has exhibited work at James Cohan, New York, NY; Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, CA; Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Alexander Berggruen, New York, NY; Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, CA; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; Bradbury Art Museum, Jonesboro, AR; and the American Museum of Ceramic Arts, Pomona, CA. The artist has also been the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, New York, NY; residency at The Corporation of Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY as well as many others.Community work is central to Shih’s practice, and since 2017, she has used her art and platform to raise over half a million dollars in direct aid for victims of state violence. Want to help? Click here. She is currently based in Brooklyn, New York.Works from Stephanie H. Shih’s solo show Domestic Bliss (January 22-February 26, 2025) at Alexander Berggruen, New York. All works: 2023-2024, ceramic. Copyright the artist. Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Berggruen, NY. Photo: Robert BredvadStephanie H. Shih Filet-O-Fish, 2023 ceramic 5 1/2 x 5 x 5 1/2 in. (14 x 12.7 x 14 cm.) Copyright the artist. Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Berggruen, NY. Photo: Robert Bredvad.  Included in Stephanie H. Shih: Domestic Bliss (January 22-February 26, 2025) at Alexander Berggruen, NY.Stephanie H. Shih Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 2024 ceramic 7 x 4 1/2 x 1 1/2 in. (17.8 x 11.4 x 3.8 cm.) Copyright the artist. Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Berggruen, NY. Photo: Robert Bredvad.  Included in Stephanie H. Shih: Domestic Bliss (January 22-February 26, 2025) at Alexander Berggruen, NY.

David Humphrey

David Humphrey has maintained a forty-year commitment to making formally inventive, psycho-socially engaged paintings. Over this time he has  continued to transform images from the public realm into imaginative hybrids of the social and eccentrically individual, the historic and vividly contemporary. His work celebrates the peculiar nesting within the familiar.  Mixing various representational schema with improvisational abstraction, he tells stories of vexed intimacy, political/ socio reality, and imaginative projections crashing into the real.

David Humphrey (b. 1955) has been the subject of 44 solo exhibitions including McKee Gallery, NY; Sikkema Jenkins, NY; Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami; and Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati. His work is in the collections of several museums and public collections including Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston as well as the Saatchi Gallery, London. He is currently teaching in the MFA program of Columbia. He was awarded the Rome Prize in 2008. Humphrey has had five solo exhibitions at Fredericks & Freiser.

David Humphrey, Colored Drinks, 2024 Acrylic on canvas 72 x 60 inchesDavid Humphrey, Plant Thoughts, 2024 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 72 inchesDavid Humphrey, Wolf, 2024 Acrylic on canvas 54 x 44 inches

Amy Stober

Amy Stober (b. 1994, New Jersey) lives and works in New York.

Recent solo exhibitions include PAGE (NYC), New York (2024); A.D. NYC, New York (2022); and Springsteen Gallery, Baltimore (2021). Recent group exhibitions include Hesse Flatow, New York (2024); ensemble, New York (2024); Brunette Coleman, London (2023); Mickey, Chicago (2023); Chapter NY, New York (2022); T293, Rome (2022); Mickey, Chicago (2022); and Chris Andrews, Montreal (2022).

Amy Stober, Good Luck Charm, 2024 Cast polyurethane and metallic pigments, 8.5 x 8.5 x 17 inches 21.6 x 21.6 x 43.2 cm. Courtesy of the artist and PAGE (NYC).Amy Stober, I <3 NY, 2024, Cast polyurethane, acrylic and metallic pigments, 4.5 x 6.5 x 4 inches, 11.4 x 16.5 x 10.2 cm. Courtesy of the artist and PAGE (NYC).Amy Stober, Girl, 2024, Cast polyurethane and acrylic, 24 x 13 x 5 inches 61 x 33 x 12.7 cm. Courtesy of the artist and PAGE (NYC).

Irina Lotarevich

Irina Lotarevich’s (*1991, lives and works in Vienna, Austria) sculptural practice is shaped by the intersection of her own subjective experience with larger systems. The minimal yet complex and specific forms of her sculptures reference architecture, bureaucracy, labor, language, and parts of her body, as well as the production and circulation conditions of the material itself.

Lotarevich was born in Rybinsk, Russia in 1991 and immigrated to New York City as a child. She studied at Cornell University, Hunter College, and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She currently teaches metalworking at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Solo and duo exhibitions include: Settings, Silke Lindner, New York City (2025); Modular Woman, SOPHIE TAPPEINER, Vienna (2023), Refinery, SOPHIE TAPPEINER, Vienna (2020); Galvanic Couple, FUTURA Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, Pensive State a two-person show with Anna Schachinger, SOPHIE TAPPEINER, Vienna (2019); Schemas, Kevin Space, Vienna (2017).

Recently, her work has been included in group shows held at N/A, organised by Ginny on Frederick, Seoul; Scherben, hosted by Good Weather, Chicago (2024), Belvedere 21, Vienna; Silke Lindner, New York City; Centre d’art contemporain / Passages, Troyes (2023), HALLE FÜR KUNST, Graz; Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg; Kunstverein Bielefeld, Bielefeld; MUMOK, Vienna (2022), Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna (2021), among others.

Lotarevich’s work is in the permanent collections of mumok (Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig), Vienna, the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, and the Vienna Museum.

Compressed Structure, 2025 Brass, patinated steel 8 x 65 1/2 x 2 1/2 in | 20.5 x 166.5 x 6.5 cmHousing (Lottery), 2025 Galvanized steel, cast brass, cast aluminum, found chains 64 x 37 1/2 x 6 1/2 in | 163 x 95.5 x 16.5 cmStuffed Cell, 2025 Patinated steel 2 3/4 x 10 11/16 x 7 1/8 in | 7 x 27.5 x 18 cm

Tess Bilhartz

Tess Bilhartz grew up in Dallas, Texas and currently lives and works in New York City where she teaches art at Borough of Manhattan Community College – CUNY.

Recent solo exhibitions include  ‘What on Earth’ at Below Grand (2020) and ‘Follow Me Down’ at Rubber Factory (2022), which was reviewed in the Brooklyn Rail and BOMB magazine.

Her work has also been exhibited at Embajada, San Juan, PR, Primary, Miami, FL, and Island, New York, NY. Residencies include the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2017), and the Sharpe Walentas Space Program (2013).

Tess Bilhartz, Green, 2024 Oil on canvas 30 x 52 in 76.2 x 132.1 cmTess Bilhartz, Pink Flash, 2024 Oil on canvas 30 x 52 in 76.2 x 132.1 cmTess Bilhartz, Spin, 2024 Oil on canvas 30 x 52 in 76.2 x 132.1 cm