HALSEY MCKAY GALLERY

Detail Image: Jedediah Caesar, Untitled, 2018, Resin, pigment and shell

Halsey Mckay Gallery is pleased to present Converter, a group exhibition featuring Jedediah Caesar, Graham Collins, Rosy Keyser, Elias Hansen, Sam Moyer, Augustus Nazzaro and Jessica Vaughn. These artists incorporate specific quotidian objects from outside the studio as catalysts for extrapolation and innovation. Discarded masonry stone, bones, surveillance imagery, municipal transportation upholstery, sea glass, found paintings, sawdust, and potato chips become the crux around which artworks are conceived and built. Where appropriation and the readymade gesture seek to bring new contexts to images and objects, the works in Converter exploit these inanimate muses as catalysts for sui generis artworks. The use of formal beauty and virtuosic craftsmanship mask subtle nods to social, spiritual and environmental unrest that flows through the exhibition.

Jedediah Caesar received an MFA from the University of California Los Angeles in 2001 and a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1998. Recent solo-exhibitions include Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projedts, Los Angeles; Platform 9 at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA and Soft Structures at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Caesars work has been included in the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and in exhibitions at the Fundament Foundation, Tilburg, Netherlands; the California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA, the Saatchi Gallery, London, UK; Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, TX, UCLA Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles. Among others, Caesars work is in the collection of the Saatchi Gallery in London; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the New Museum in New York.

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Graham Collins was born Washington, D.C. in 1980. Collins received his BFA from Corcoran College of Art in Washington and his MFA from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Recent solo exhibitions have been with Halsey McKay Gallery, New York, New York; The Journal, Brooklyn, NY;  Almine Rech, Brussels, Belgium; Bugata & Cargnel, Paris, France; Jonathan Viner Gallery, London, United Kingdom. His work has been included in several group exhibitions, most recently at Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, California; C. Grimaldis, Baltimore, Maryland; Marlborough Contemporary, New York, New York and  He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California
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Elias Hansen has had solo exhibitions with Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles; Team (Bungalow), Los Angeles; Cooper Cole, Toronto; Take Ninagawa, Tokyo; Jonathan Viner, London; Maccarone, NY; Balice Hertling, Paris; Jeffrey Stark, NY; Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans; as well as solo presentations at LISTE, Basel and Frieze Frame, London. Hansen’s work has been exhibited in the Seattle Art Museum, WA, Howard House Contemporary Art, WA, and Parc Saint Leger, Paris (with Oscar Tuazon). Selected press includes articles in Art Review, Mousse Magazine, Art Agenda, Art Forum, Los Angeles Times, and The Stranger. He has been awarded the PONCHO Special Recognition Award from the Seattle Art Museum.
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Rosy Keyser was born in Baltimore, MD and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Medusa, NY. Keyser received a BFA from Cornell University and an MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent solo exhibitions include Maccarone, NY/LA, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Lora Reynolds, Austin TX, Freddy, Baltimore, Karma, New York and Peter Blum, New York. Keyser has been included in exhibitions at Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlabaek Denmark, Hauser and Wirth, New York, NY, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, and The Chianti Foundation, Marfa TX. Her work is in the permanent Collection of The Portland Art Museum, Portland ME, The Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlabaek DK, The Zabludowicz Collection, London UK, and The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN.
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Sam Moyer has work included in prominent collections including Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris, France; and The Aïshti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon, amongst others. Her work has been exhibited at The Drawing Center, New York, NY; The Bass Museum, Miami, FL; University of Albany Art Museum, Albany, NY; The Public Art Fund, New York, NY; White Flag Projects and The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO; LAND, Los Angeles, CA; Tensta konsthall, Stockholm, SW; Cleopatra’s Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY;  and Société, Berlin, DE. She has also participated in “Greater New York” and “Between Spaces” at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Queens. Moyer received her BFA from the Corcoran College of Art and Design and her MFA from Yale. She lives and works in Brooklyn.
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Augustus Nazzaro (b. born 1984, East Islip, NY, USA) lives works in Brooklyn, NY. Nazzaro holds both a BFA and MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NY. He has exhibited internationally and participated in the Moscow Biennial as well as in group shows at Roncinin Gallery, London, UK; De Buck Gallery, New York, NY; V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, DK;  Koko Arts, Tokyo, JP; Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York, NY. A monogrpah was printed by Harper’s Books, NY documenting his solo exhibition, In Pursuit of Shadows, at Halsey McKay Gallery.
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Jessica Vaughn (b. 1983, Chicago, IL) received a B.H.A. from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. Selected exhibitions include: Receipt of a Form, Martos Gallery, NY; Invisible Man, Martos Gallery, NY; Material Deviance, Sculpture Center, NY; Itinerant Belongings, Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, PA; Round 39: Looking Back, Moving Forward, Project Row Houses, Houston, TX; Fore, The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY. She was an artist-in-residence at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME; The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NY; and the Whitney Independent Study Program, NY. She is a 2017 New York Artadia Awardee.