| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
March Issue 2009
Artspace in
Raleigh, NC, Features Works by Chung (Fanky) Chak, Bruce Melkowits,
Peter Butler, and Artspace Members
Artspace in Raleigh,
NC, is presenting several new exhibits including: The Boxes
Project, featuring works by Chung (Fanky) Chak, on view in
Gallery Two, from Mar. 6 - Apr. 10, 2009; Illusions, With Respect,
featuring works by Bruce Melkowits, on view in the Upfront Gallery
from Mar. 6 - 29, 2009; New Works: A Juried Exhibition of Works
by Members of the Artspace Artists Association, on view in
Gallery 1, from Mar. 14 - Apr. 25, 2009; and Pool Swimmers,
featuring works by Peter Butler, in the Artspapce Lobby gallery,
on view from Mar. 6 - 29, 2009.
Chung
(Fanky) Chak
New Jersey-based artist
Chung (Fanky) Chak's exhibit, The Boxes Project, features
60" x 60" digitally manipulated collages depicting hectic
urban environments. Chak was born in Hong Kong, and since 1989
has lived in the US in more than ten different places including
both big cities and small towns. The boxes project creates a new
environment from photographs of thousands of windows taken around
the world. Each window, now part of a larger collage, loses its
geographical reference. Its origin is no longer relevant as it
becomes only a small part of the whole. Chak intends for his work
to help break down stereotypes, particularly about the inhabitants
of urban environments.
Chak earned an MFA in 1995 from the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. He is currently an Associate Professor in the
Department of Art at the College of New Jersey. Chak's work has
been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the US including
Selden Gallery, Norfolk, VA; Viewpoint Gallery of Photography,
Sacramento, CA; Abrons Arts Center, Henry Street Settlement, New
York, NY; Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR; Purdue University,
West Lafayette, IN; and the Society of Contemporary Photography,
Kansas City, MO. He has also exhibited his artwork in an online
gallery, Plates to Pixel (A Pacific Northwest Centre for Photography
Project). Internationally, Chak's work has been exhibited at the
Julia Margaret Cameron Trust, Dimbola Lodge Museum, UK, and at
the E&J Gallo Gallery, Hong Kong.
Bruce Melkowits
Bruce Melkowits' exhibition,
Illusions, With Respect, features kallitypes - images resulting
from an antique photographic printing process. Kallitypes require
large negatives, which are contact printed. Melkowits has been
following and testing the vagaries of this process to explore
what art does express the universal in the particular.
Melkowits is most attracted to organic forms. He works slowly,
deliberately, and intuitively. The kallitype method is well-suited
to Melkowits' style of work, as the equipment and process requires
attention at every step. When creating images he values understatement,
reducing his images to the barest essentials. Melkowits enjoys
seeing how little is needed to create an image that resonates.
Each image is the culmination of a slow construction in addition
to the record of a given moment.
Melkowits' work has been exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally.
In North Carolina his work has been included in numerous juried,
group, and solo exhibitions including at the Durham Art Guild,
Durham; the Wellington B. Gray Gallery, East Carolina University,
Greenville; the Raleigh Fine Arts Society Exhibition, Meredith
College, Raleigh; Points of View Gallery, Raleigh; Green Hill
Center for North Carolina Art, Greensboro; and the Horace Williams
House, Chapel Hill. Internationally, Melkowits' work has been
exhibited in Ontario, Canada, as well as Pingyao, Beijing, Shanghai,
and Wuhan, China.
New Works is an annual juried exhibition for members of the Artspace Artists Association. The Artspace Artists Association is a professional artist membership organization. Artists are accepted into the membership through a jury process that occurs twice per year. The exhibit represents work created within the past twelve months. It is an opportunity for Artspace Artists to present their most current and innovative work.
Trevor Schoonmaker is the juror for this year's exhibit. He is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. His first exhibition at the Nasher was Street Level: Mark Bradford, William Cordova & Robin Rhode in 2007, which traveled to the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. In 2008 he organized the retrospective exhibition Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool, which is traveling to the Studio Museum in Harlem, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. He is currently organizing the international group exhibition, The Record, for the Nasher in October, 2009.
Prior to joining the Nasher, Schoonmaker was organizer of numerous exhibitions including The Magic City (2000), Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (2003-2005), DTroit (20032004), Propeller (2005), and The Beautiful Game: Contemporary Art and Fútbol (2006). Schoonmaker has curated, written, and lectured on contemporary art for many institutions, including the Barbican Centre London, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, Detroit Institute of Arts, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Seattle Art Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, Tate Britain, Urbis, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He is the editor of Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway (2003).
Schoonmaker will be selecting work for exhibition as well as award recipients. The Award Presentation will begin at 8pm in Gallery 1 on Apr. 3, 2009.
Peter Butler
Peter Butler's exhibition
features recent monoprints of swimmers in pools. The water slightly
distorts the figures as they glide silently through a perfect
world, unaware of the gaze upon them. Butler edits as much complexity
out of the compositions as he can, with simplicity as a goal.
He notes that he aims to create beautiful works that do not require
too much complex thought to enjoy them.
Monoprinting is a unique process of creating individual works
of art, combining printmaking, drawing, and painting techniques.
Pigments - oil paints as in the case of Butler's works - are applied
and manipulated on a sheet of plexiglass using brushes, rollers,
cotton swabs, fingers, etc. The image produced is then printed
in reverse onto paper. This is a challenging and exciting technique
because it is difficult to determine what the final effect will
be. Monoprinting produces a one-of-a-kind, unique work of art.
Butler has been a member of the Artspace Artists Association for
fifteen years. He is a full-time oil painter living in Clinton,
NC. Butler's work has been widely exhibited in the region through
his participation in numerous juried, group, and solo exhibitions.
Artspace, a thriving visual art center located in downtown Raleigh,
brings the creative process to life through inspiring and engaging
education and community outreach programming, a dynamic environment
of over 30 professional artists studios, and nationally acclaimed
exhibitions. Approximately 95 artists hold professional memberships
in the Artspace Artists Association. Thirty-five of these artists
have studios located at Artspace.
Artspace is supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, the
United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County, the Raleigh Arts
Commission, individuals, corporations, and private foundations.
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery
listings, call the center at 919/821-2787 or visit (www.artspacenc.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2009 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2009 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.