A Mere Sum of Parts
A Mere Sum of Parts
Organized by Sydney Croskery
February 25 - April 1, 2017
SHOW CATALOG (PDF)
PRESS RELEASE (PDF)
Charlie James Gallery is pleased to present, A Mere Sum of Parts, a group exhibition organized by Sydney Croskery, with works by Chad Attie, Sadie Barnette, Sarah Conaway, Sydney Croskery, Kim Fisher, Erik Frydenborg, Chyrum Lambert, Fay Ray, and Steve Roden.
The artists in the exhibition A Mere Sum of Parts employ a series of processes, by either dismantling cultural artifacts or by fabricating their own, to create a new image. They collect, break, edit, tear, and combine in order to redefine and revalue, while not depicting the context or meaning of the original source. Through these processes, the artist subtly hints at the moment of derivation, adding a sense of the familiar, poetic, or personal. The artist Sydney Croskery organized this show of works by artists she admires to consider the different ways each individualizes their process.
Deconstructing diverse images to make a new whole, Steve Roden uses personal artifacts to imbue the work with meaning that is sensed rather than seen; Kim Fisher uses the inconsequential to speak of time, location and impermeability; Sydney Croskery removes banal items from their original context to become hieroglyphic and lyrical symbols. Editing from the original, Sadie Barnette demonstrates the necessity for the poetic and the power of the personal as political; Chad Attie’s work explores the treacherousness and fragility of relationships and the key role that memories play in this delicate balance. Combining parts to make a whole, Erik Frydenborg’s sculptures start from tiny collages that transform the bits into a new language that is difficult to decode; Sarah Conaway photographs arrangements and objects, creating momentary beauty out of the devalued and the discarded. Creating a personal process to claim ownership of an image, Chyrum Lambert’s work utilizes the interaction and gravity of his elements to create a work that is ultimately defined by the viewer; Fay Ray creates collections of artifacts that speak of ritualized behaviors and object-fetishism.
Chad Attie was born in Los Angeles, California. He attended UCLA and Boston University, and was N.E.A. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, as well as studying at Villa Rosa School of Fine Arts in Florence. His works are primarily mixed-media paintings and collages, which incorporate emotionally charged abstracted figures and landscapes. Attie has had solo shows at Klowden Mann, Caro d’Offay in Chicago; Frank Pictures, Carl Berg Projects, and Newspace in Los Angeles; and Wooster Projects in New York. His work has been included in solo and group shows at galleries, universities and museum auctions including the University of La Verne; Ace Gallery, Beverly Hills; MoCA, Los Angeles; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica; and the Zimmer Museum, Los Angeles. Chad Attie lives and works in Los Angeles.
Sadie Barnette is from Oakland, California. She earned her BFA from CalArts and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally at venues including The Studio Museum in Harlem, the California African American Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, The Mistake Room, Self Help Graphics, Charlie James Gallery, Ever Gold Projects, Papillion Gallery, Jenkins-Johnson Gallery, and Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her work is in the permanent collections of museums such as The Pérez Art Museum in Miami, the California African American Museum, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. In 2017 Barnette will have a solo exhibition at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the University of California at Davis. She lives and works in Oakland, CA and Compton, CA and is represented by Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles.
Sarah Conaway received her MFA in Photography from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2001 and a BA in Philosophy from Bucknell University in 1994. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at The Box, Los Angeles, Barbara Seiler Gallery, Zurich and Bellwether Gallery, New York, and group exhibitions at Centro de la Imágen, Mexico City, Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris, Richard Telles Gallery, Los Angeles, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, Taka Ishii Gallery Modern, Tokyo, and the inaugural edition of the biennial, MADE IN L.A., Hammer Museum, 2012.
Sydney Croskery earned her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent solo shows include boxoProjects Joshua Tree and the Gallery at Campbell Hall in Los Angeles. She has participated in group shows at the Fellows of Contemporary Art, the Torrance Art Museum, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art; performed at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and multiple performance projects both at the Getty Museum and the Deitch Art Parade in NY. She was a member of the LA Art Girls and was one-half of the World Famous Wiener Girls of Chicago. Sydney Croskery is a third generation Los Angelean, who lives and works in Los Angeles.
Kim Fisher received a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MFA from Otis College of Art and Design. Fisher transforms small clippings of paper from newspapers and magazine pages into paintings and installations. The works recall the sun baked landscape of Los Angeles and address questions of time, location and identity. Her most recent exhibit A Little Bit of But at LAXART featured a new body of paintings and her largest installation to date. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including the 2014 Made in L.A. Biennial at the Hammer Museum, Dirty Kitchen at the Modern Institute and the 2004 Whitney Biennial. She is an adjunct faculty member in the Graduate Fine Art department at the Art Center College of Design and a visiting faculty member in the Art department at UCLA. She is currently working on a series of paintings and installation works for a forthcoming show at Shane Campbell Gallery this May.
Erik Frydenborg received his BFA from the Maryland Institute, College of Art, and his MFA from the University of Southern California. His work has been reviewed in Artforum, Flash Art, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. Frydenborg’s work recently appeared in the solo exhibitions An Erik Frydenborg Omnibus at The Pit II in Glendale and Nebula Winners at Andrew Rafacz, Chicago, as well as in group exhibitions at Regina Rex and Team Gallery, New York, Rainbow In Spanish and M+B Los Angeles, Albert Baronian, Brussels, and Shanaynay, Paris. In June 2017, Frydenborg will contribute to Knowledges, a site specific exhibition at Mount Wilson Observatory in Los Angeles. Erik Frydenborg lives and works in Los Angeles, and is represented by The Pit.
Chyrum Lambert is an internationally exhibited and published self taught artist. His work has recently appeared in the solo exhibition Replicas at Ed. Varie in New York as well as in group exhibitions at Left Field Gallery in San Luis Obispo and with DTN Gallery at Untitled Art Fair in Miami Beach. He recently spoke at the Rhode Island School of Design in Rhode Island and will be speaking at Alfred University in New York this summer, alongside his solo exhibition 200 Sculptures also at the University. Lambert’s work has been published in The Last Magazine, Paper Magazine, and The Wild, among other publications. Chyrum Lambert lives and works in Los Angeles.
Fay Ray received her BFA from Otis College of Art and Design, and her MFA from Columbia University in 2005. She has exhibited at various institutions and galleries including Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, LAXART, Los Angeles, CA; Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; Luckman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY; and El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, among others.
Steve Roden received an MFA from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. In addition to paintings, works on paper, and sculptures, Roden’s practice encompasses musical performance, video, and other media. Steve Roden has exhibited at The Pasadena Museum of California Art, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Armory Center for the Arts, Santa Barbara Museum of Art Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Cleveland Institute of Art, the Aspen Art Museum and Sculpture Center, The Menil Collection in Houston, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Center in Hong Kong, and Le Bon Accueil in France, among many others. From 1979-82, Roden was the lead singer of the Los Angeles punk band, Seditionaries. He is represented by Susan Vielmetter Gallery LA Projects and CRG Gallery in New York.
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