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Peggy Cyphers: Solo Show

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Peggy  Cyphers:  Prints  and  Paintings

 

Peggy Cyphers solo exhibition of paintings and prints opens Sat, June 6th at Cross Contemporary Art in Saugerties, NY.   The art of Peggy Cyphers responds to the multi-dimensional experience of the landscape from the various viewpoints of living beings. Gazing skyward from the bottom of a cavern like a fox or towards the horizon in a ruffle of woodpecker feathers, Ms. Cyphers re-imagines the world through different animal consciousnesses, defying both perspective and gravity. For her show at Cross Contemporary Art, Peggy Cyphers introduces a series of cyanotypes (prints created by sunlight) using rare botanical prairie grass samples and mysterious equine imagery whose reverse shadows are suspended in a sky-blue ground.

    In the Brooklyn Rail, Jonathan Goodman writes about Ms. Cyphers: ” Cyphers makes it clear that she has opted for a double awareness, in which non-objective insight vies with close scrutiny of the natural world.” New York Times’ Roberta Smith notes that Cyphers paints “in an effortless style that corrupts and complicates the staining technique originated by Color Field painters like Helen Frankenthaler with various ideas in the air: notational, pattern-prone motifs, landscape references and allusions to textiles and fabric.” Cross Contemporary Art gallery director, Jen Dragon notes that “throughout Ms. Cyphers long and distinguished career, her overarching aesthetic concern has always been the interconnectedness of all beings to the earth and to each other”

About Peggy Cyphers:       Peggy Cyphers’ work can be found in many important museum,university and public collections throughout the world including National Gallery, Washington, D.C.Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. National Museum of Women in the Arts,Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Wash. and the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa to name but a few. She is a recipient of many Grants include National Endowment for the Arts, Peter S. Reed Foundation, The Elizabeth Foundation, National Studio Award PS.1. Residency awards include Yaddo, Art Omi, Tong Xian Art Beijing, Santa Fe Art Institute, ISCP, Triangle & Clocktower/P.S.1. Currently, Peggy Cyphers is a tenured adjunct professor of visual arts at Pratt Institute. More information about the artist can be found: 
Artist’s website:  http://peggycyphers.com
Video interview: https://vimeo.com/86328765
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Cyphers

Peggy Cyphers & Catherine Howe

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Peggy  Cyphers  and  Catherine  Howe:  Prints  and  Paintings

Cross Contemporary Art is please to present its first Two Person show of the prints and paintings of Peggy Cyphers and Catherine Howe curated by Ford Crull. Both of these New York City based painters have distinguished careers as fine artists and have received numerous awards and fellowships. Opening November 8th, this exhibit showcases the modern expressionist technique grounded in classical tradition of these artists and their individual gestural use of various materials such as sand, metal leaf,ink and oil paint on canvas. Both Cyphers and Howe are inspired by outside world and impassioned brush marks dominate their work. However, the similarities end there as Peggy Cyphers responds to the multi-dimensional experience of the landscape from various points of view (animal and human) and Catherine Howe looks to art history and its exuberant, fleshy subject matter as her starting point.
     In the Brooklyn Rail, Peggy Cyphers art is described by Jonathan Goodman:

“Peggy Cyphers’ painted characters and landscapes vibrate in dialogues of rhythm and repetition that influence sensory perception. Her surfaces recall color field, where abstract forms operate in a psychological dialogue of association – congestion and vast span, hyper-speed and recognizable icons. Cyphers’ painting is automatic writing – a stream of consciousness between geological, primordial and cultural time.”

G. Roger Denson writes about Catherine Howe‘s work:

“Howe especially lingers over exquisite portrayals of beautiful objects, both man-made and organic, envisioned by the Dutch and Flemish masters to convey the transience of life on earth. In this respect Howe disregards the severe and blunt vanitas paintings of skulls and decay in favor of over-ripe and peeled fruit, liquors languishing in food- and lipstick-smudged glassware, and the blooms of flowers showing the first signs of their demise to come.”
Exhibition curator, Ford Crull, has chosen these artists to show together because their personal, emotional engagement in painting is an inspiration to his own career as a painter.
“Both Peggy and Catherine represent what is exciting about gestural and expressionistic art making in the 21st century. They are painter’s painters. The way they both handle the brushstroke and  composition can only be achieved through painstaking time and effort, and continually willing to push the limits. They continue to redefine what can be, and exemplify the continued relevance of painting in our contemporary art forum.This first rate work by these two New York painters is truly art that matters. Its great to curate this two-person exhibit and bring it to a new gallery in the Hudson Valley region where we all derive so much inspiration for what we do.”
 
   Peggy Cyphers & Catherine Howe Two-Person show runs November 7th through December 1st. For more information, please contact Jen Dragon, Director, Cross Contemporary Art 81 Partition Street, Saugerties, NY 12477 845-399-9751