MEGALODON
A large-scale pop-up and companion exhibition to TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS at PROTO Gallery, MEGALODON’s title is an oblique reference to Damien Hirst’s 1988 London warehouse exhibition. Curated by PROTO’s Nick De Pirro, this wide survey exhibition features work by numerous contemporary artists working in various media including: photography, performance, sculpture, installation, painting, and works on paper by the following artists:
Ian White Williams
Rob Ventura
Thomas Lendvai
Catherine Haggarty
Adam Brazil
Raymond Saá
Katherine Mojzsis
Diane Tenerelli-June
Patricia Brace
Katie Hector
Joianne Bittle
Bonny Leibowitz
Enrico Gomez
Liz Atz
Joe Kupillas
Nick De Pirro
Elise P. Church
Yifat Gat
Krista Svalbonas
Jason Rohlf
Alexandra Rubinstein
Pamela Fraser
Glenn Garver
Marta Buda
Sofia Szamosi
Mike Low
Tim Schwartz
The exhibition will open with an all-day event November 8th, 2015 during the city-wide Hoboken studio tour, with a late-afternoon performance by Patricia M. Brace, and remain on-view by appointment and TBD gallery hours for one month.
This exhibition is made possible by a generous donation by Observer Enterprises and UNLMTD Real Estate Group and presented by PROTO Gallery.
About the artists:
Raymond Saá creates installations and collages that break down and reassemble abstract patterns found in nature. Saá is a professor of art at Drew University and has shown extensively in the greater NYC area and internationally. He recently completed a residency and large-scale installation work at William Patterson University in NJ, and will be exhibiting work at SCOPE, Miami in a curated exhibition of Miami diaspora artists.
Ian White Williams not only produces simple and elegant paintings and drawings, but sculpture and performance as well. He has exhibited extensively on his home turf in Philadelphia as well as around the United States, including a recent group show at Edward Thorp Gallery in Chelsea, NYC. An accomplished teacher and curator, he has recently assembled group exhibitions for the Bushwick Open Studios and PROTO Gallery.
Catherine Haggarty received her MFA from Mason Gross School of Art, Rutgers University in 2011. She has shown at Life on Mars Gallery, Momenta Art, White Box, Opera Gallery, The Bowery Gallery & A.I.R Gallery in New York City as well as Bridget Mayer Gallery in Philadelphia. Her curatorial debut, WE ARE WHAT THE SEAS HAVE MADE US, was earlier this year at PROTO Gallery.
Thomas Lendvai’s large-scale sculptural installations occupy, react, and influence the spaces that surround and contain them. Lendvai received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2002 and has recently shown at Odetta Gallery, Garis & Hahn, PROTO Gallery and the Hungarian Cultural Center in NYC.
Rob Ventura constructs paintings that explore the influence of digital media and the internet on current visual culture with abstract compositions that elevate posterized web graphics and video game-like visuals to epic scale. Rob is the curator of TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS, the current exhibition at PROTO Gallery. He holds a MFA in Painting and Drawing from Boston University.
Nick De Pirro is a sculptor who fabricates tightly-controlled work in industrial materials and slightly modified found objects. He is the owner and director of PROTO Gallery in Hoboken, NJ. He received a BFA from Indiana University, Bloomington and a MFA from The Ohio State University.
Adam Brazil is a multi-media interdisciplinary artist primarily concerned with three dimensional objects. His research interests include the transcultural history of azulejos, the sociological effects of capitalism in a globalizing world and the iconography of religions.
Katherine Mojzsis paints layered abstract compositions influenced by architectural forms and other structures. Her work has ben exhibited nationally and internationally and is in numerous museum and private collections. She holds a MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College and a BFA in Painting, School of Visual Arts.
Diane Tenerelli-June uses found fabrics combined with painting and drawing to make simple and powerful works-on-paper that discuss domesticity and craft, and relate to the regional history of embroidery in New Jersey. Her work was featured in the group exhibition Proto Intro Two last year.
Patricia Brace is an interdisciplinary artist whose work includes performance art, video, drawing, installation, and textiles. She received a MFA from Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University in 2012. She is a widely-published artistic collaborator, writer, and curator with a background in art history, dance, and studio art. She is the recipient of the Giza Daniels Endesha Award, the Ray Stark Film Prize, and the Leon Golub Scholarship.
Katie Hector is a multimedia artist and curator whose work addresses themes such as objectivity, functionality and gesture. She received her BFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and currently works and resides in New York City. Hector’s recent work, a collaborative installation and performance was featured in a solo exhibition entitled ‘Trick Endings’ at the NO HOLDS BARRED Project Series in September 2015.
Jason Rolf studied at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and moved to Brooklyn in 1999. He has exhibited his work across the country, created a public installation for the MTA, lectured for the Pratt Institute, Bowling Green University and Lawrence University among others. He was recently awarded Sam and Adelle Golden Foundation for the Arts Artist in Residency. His highly-textured paintings on various materials suggest patterns and structures both man-made and natural.
Alexandra Rubinstein is a Brooklyn-based artist who came to United States from Russia in 1997, received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and has spent the last five years in New York, participating in shows around Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. Rubinstein’s paintings confront patriarchal structures and sexual norms with a dry wit and aggressive attitude.
Sofia Szamosi is an artist working in video and photography, often using herself as a subject in vignettes exploring relationships, social structures, obsessions, and anxieties. Her work is simultaneously self-portrature and selfie, where, in all likelihood Instagram outweighs the traditional gallery space.
Mike Low replicates the properties of the human environment such as signage, advertising iconography, or the very static and noise generated by our electronic devices in sculptural paintings created using computer-assited fabrication combined with traditional processes. His matter-of-fact treatment of themes, while humorous, speaks to the human desire to capture, collect, or memorialize the things we see and assign value to.
Bonny Leibowitz combines painting techniques with found objects, modifying and combining antiques from a variety of cultures to create new and unrecognizable compositions. Bonny Leibowitz lives and works in Dallas, TX.
Enrico Gomez is an artist and curator creating purely abstract works driven by the fundamentals of color, form, and line. He is one of the founders of Parallel Art Space in Brooklyn, and his Dorado Project promotes and exhibits emerging artists in exhibitions and fairs nationally and internationally, most recently at the Sluice_ Art Fair in London. His work has been shown extensively in the NYC area and beyond.
Liz Atzberger, aka Liz Atz, was born in Columbus, OH and holds a BFA from The Ohio State University and a MFA from Tyler School of Art. Liz taught Foundations and Painting at Florida Atlantic University, and has been a Co-director and Co-curator at AIRPLANE gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Her paintings and installations mix traditional media with found objects and commercial products that crash together and splinter into the gallery space.
Joe Kupillas received a BFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in 2003. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the NYC area and is represented by Gallery Molly Krom in NYC. Kupillas believes that a work’s meaning or purpose breaks away from the intent of the artist and becomes available to the viewer, so that the viewer’s interpretations are as important as artist’s intentions, and he insists that art is an open-ended conversation. His process consists of working simultaneously on multiple canvases and stacks of paper, using paints and assemblage elements, sorting through images while employing titles as part of the image formation.
Elise P. Church was born in Boston, MA, and presently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She attended Lacoste School of Arts and Parsons School of Design in Paris. Her work has been shown in many exhibitions across the country and abroad, more recently at Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY, Bermuda Society of Arts, and Castello 925, Venice, Italy. Her collages and sculptures are taped, glued, drawn, scratched, fit and cut elements forming a whole. An assemblage of parts, the periphery and the negative space become as important as the interior composition.
Yifat Gat, born in Tel-Aviv and now lives in France where she is artistic director at Look&Listen. Her work arises from a focus on the mechanisms that accompany human existence such as grids, number systems, weight, and movement. Her ongoing curatorial endeavor, “B&W Project” was recently part of the Sluice_ Art Fair, London.
Krista Svalbonas is a mixed-media artist based in Chicago, IL. She has a BFA in Photography and Design from Syracuse University and an interdisciplinary MFA degree in Photography, Sculpture and Design from SUNY New Paltz. She is heavily influenced by her urban environment and her work focuses on spatial relationships and architecture. Krista was recently awarded a Bemis Fellowship for 2015.
David T Miller lives in works in Ambler, PA creating dynamic and peculiar paintings with synthetic paints on a variety of materials. His paintings have recently been included in “Family Ties: Brooklyn/Dallas” at 500X Gallery, Occasional Gallery, Burlington, WA, “South of No North, East of No West,” Huntsville, AL curated by Brian Edmonds.
Glenn Garver graduated with a BFA from the School of Visual arts in 1984. His large-scale paintings on canvas and other materials seem to incorporate every possible technique and method of painterly mark making. His work has been included in recent exhibitions at Ground Floor Gallery in Park Slope, Brooklyn, Victory Hall Drawing Rooms in Jersey City, and Kuf-Mold in Rotterdam, Holland.
Joianne Bittle works in numerous media producing sensitively crafted work relating to the natural world and it’s relationship to science and humanity’s conquests. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in NYC at Churner and Churner, Radiator Gallery, Firework Gallery, and The Arsenal, in Central Park. She received a BFA from Indiana University, Bloomington in 1998.
Pamela Fraser works experimentally in a variety of materials and formats, primarily engaged with painting. She has exhibited her work extensively both nationally and internationally, and is a professor at The University of Vermont. In addition to her studio practice, she writes about art and organizes exhibitions. Her book How Color Works: Color Theory in the 21st Century will be published by Oxford University Press in 2017.
Marta Buda received her BFA from Rutgers University in 2014, and now creates dimensional work that are sculptural but relate strongly to painting. Her work is featured in TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS at PROTO Gallery, and has appeared in several NYC area exhibitions.
Tim Schwartz is a painter living and working in Philadelphia, PA. He holds a BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University and a MFA from California College of the Arts. His work has appeared in group exhibitions at Fjord in Philadelphia, PROTO Gallery in Hoboken.
