EXHIBITION IMAGES | WORKS | PRESS RELEASE
HALSEY MCKAY is pleased to present Tone Poem, a group show featuring five artists that will occupy both floors of the gallery. The exhibiton introduces itself with seemingly humble materials–weathered wood, lacerated sheetrock, plastic bags, sawdust and adobe ground are all utilized as starting points. Between the hands of this group, these familiar components undergo varying acts of sublte restraint and active intervention. A variety of possibilities emerge from the materials themselves and to the potentials of painting, printmaking and sculpture. Seemingly unrelated objects begin to reveal similar appreciation and understanding of these artists’ worlds and rituals. An undercurrent of inventiveness, economy of means and commitment to hands-on approaches shines through. The tinkering of human presence abounds creating a splintered and ethereal narrative–at once plausible, eerie and at peace.
As an ensemble, these five artists evoke moments of angst and meditation that float through the spaces of the gallery in a grittily elegant dance. Matt Kenny skews the ubiquitous black plastic bags of New York’s bodegas by tenderly and laboriously inking their thin film and running it through an etching press. The resulting fascimiles appear simultaneously photo-realistic and arcanely abstract–elevating and keenly reflecting the spirit of their origins into ghostly indexes.
With similar sleight of hand, Elias Hansen’s seemingly repurposed, cast-off glass pieces are actually meticulously hand-blown works that the artist marries with rawly wired LED lights and salvaged wood from the forrests surrounding his upstate studio. A birch chair glows from the floor while illuminated beakers commune on the walls.
Rosy Keyser also sources the woods and fields of upstate New York for her paintings’ material. Thrust into the picture plane, imprints and remnants of beer cans, corrugated steel, sawdust, tarps, oil paint, enamel, and canvas form rythmic gestures. Made without a press Keyser’s mono-printing process is blind to her as she works and each iteration moves away from its original visage. On their own terms, Keyser’s paintings are imbued with a materialist spirituality that leaves a myriad of sensory impressions.
The fusion of place, touch and material is further evidenced in N. Dash’s linen, jute, indigo and adobe works. While she intentionally explores the means by which information and bodily expression can be embedded into her hand-painted materials, the works themselves speak a language of specific sites and experiences. Her restrained palette, and earthy grounds emote arid atmospheres which move at the desert’s pace.
Similarly monochromatic, though unaltered or digitally output in highly saturated red, Adam Marnie’s works return us to the city’s speed and aggresion. Using industrial printing and construction materials and intervening in the gallery walls themselves, Marnie frames acts of violence. In opposition to motivations of their Minimalist predecesors, Marnie’s works act as a constructed theatre in which to explore the tension between the artifice of presentation and the truth of action. A wall-sized piece of sheet rock is punctured by a single fist and trapped with its rubble in a frame marred by the flooding of Hurricane Sandy. Upstairs, flickering light creeps in through pockmarked holes and incisions in a piece that brandishes the immediacy of its marks rather than the slow-time of decay.
Elias Hansen has had solo exhibitons with Maccarone, NY; Jonathan Viner, London; The Fireplace Project, East Hampton; The Company, LA as well as two-person collaborations with Oscar Tuazon at Maccarone; Parc Saint Leger and Balice Hertling, Paris. He has participated in recent group exhibitions at Peres Projects, LA; The Station, Miami; A Pallazo, Brescia, Italy; Galleria Suzy Shamma, Milano, Italy, Western Bridge, Seattle and Palais De Tokyo, Paris. Hansen has been an artist in residence at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA and the University of Ohio in Columbus. His work has been reviewed and written about in the New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, Art Review and The LA Times among others. Hansen is represented by Maccarone in New York and Anat Egbi in Los Angeles.
Matt Kenny holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has had solo exhibitons with Karma and Derek Eller, NY and was recently included in Water Feature, curated by Lizzie Wright and Shaun Krupa at Wildlife, Brooklyn, NY. A Real Bronx Cheer, Kenny’s collaboration with Dan Colen and Ron Delsner was recently published by Fulton Ryder. Feelings of Control, a monograph of Kenny’s works was published in 2011 by Karma. Kenny and photographs of his library were a feature of Ari Marcoupolous’ Area 51 Series. He lives and works in New York CIty.
Rosy Keyser was born in Baltimore, MD and now lives and works between Brooklyn and Medusa, NY. Keyser received her BFA from Cornell University and her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has had several solo exhibitons with Peter Blum, NY and her work has been included in the following group shows: Painter Painter at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, curated by Eric Crosby and Bartholomew Ryan; Pink Caviar at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; Immaterial at Ballroom Marfa, TX, curated by Fairfax Dorn; Stubborn Materials at Peter Blum Chelsea, New York, NY; Her work is included in permanent collections such as the Louisiana Museum, Denmark, the Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK, and the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, Bloomfield Hills, MI. Keyser is represented by Peter Blum in New York.
Adam Marnie was born in Minneapolis and now lives and works in New York. He received his BFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design in 2001, and his MFA in Sculpture from Bard College in 2012. Solo exhibitions have been with Derek Eller Gallery, NY and his work has been included in recent group shows such as Photography Is, Higher Pictures, New York; Haley Mellin / Olivier Mosset [and Back Room], Untitled, New York; and The Perpetual Dialogue, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York. The follow-up to SH T, Night Gallery, Los Angeles (a collaborative project with Dawn Cerny and Tuomas Korpijaakko), SH T II was held at Know More Games, Brooklyn, NY in April 2013. He is represented by Derek Eller Gallery, New York.