Take 5: Group Show of Five New York Artists
“Take 5”, at Cross Contemporary Art in Saugerties, NY, opens Sat, Feb 7, 6-8pm and runs through Sunday, March 1.
This group show presents paintings, drawings and sculpture by five New York artists: John Berens, Jeffrey Bishop, Mike Cockrill, Jared Deery and Shria Toren. Despite their distinctly different styles, the artworks are uniified in that they all identify the infinite encased in the intimate. From John Berens hazy, lonely landscapes, through Shira Toren’s meandering beings, and Jeffrey Bishop’s alternate universes, to Jared Deery’s mysteriously subjective still-lives and culminating in Mike Cockrill’s reduced and deconstructed figures, the paintings and sculpture in this show capture a deep contemplation of winter.
About The Artists: John Berens: An associate professor at Parson’s, John Berens has been the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellwoship in Painting. Mr. Berens paintings are in numerous public collections and are described by ArtNet’s Stephen Maine as “glazey, moody”. More about the artist: http://johnberens.com
Jeffrey Bishop: Jeffrey Bishop has had numerous solo shows notably at the Danforth Museum of Art, the Miami University Art Museum and the San Diego State University Gallery. In Art in America, Matthew Kangas writes about Mr. Bishop’s abstract paintings as having a “indeterminate light source (which) sites the work on an intellectual rather than an emotional or humorous plane.” Jeffrey Bishop most recently completed the Takt Artists Residency in Berlin. More about Jeffrey Bishop: http://jeffreybishop.com
Mike Cockrill: Although some of Mike Cockrill’s artwork has generated controversy, (notably the “White Papers” with Judge Hughes and “Baby Doll Clown Killers”), the artist is also quite sentimental. His latest paintings and sculpture reference a nostalgic sense of time and the memory of suburban comfort. Anthony Haden-Guest writes about Mr. Cockrill: “The pictures (sources) that turn Mike Cockrill on are neither plunder nor cultural markers. They are his ways and means of at once re-experiencing a seemingly enchanted childhood world and decoding it. They are time machines …” More about Mike Cockrill: http://mikecockrill.com
Jared Deery: The art of Jared Deery can be characterized as both intimate and wistful with titles that evoke visual poetry. A graduate of Pratt (BFA) and Hunter College (MFA), Mr. Deery lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. More about Mr. Deery can be found: http://jareddeery.com
Shira Toren: The paintings of Shira Toren present meandering swirls of migrating forms which evoke both the flight of birds and the unconscious procession of human forms in an indistinct landscape. A graduate of Pratt Institute, Ms. Toren is an Israeli-American artist who lives and works in New York City More about Shira Toren: http://shiratoren.com
