September 8th – October 23rd, 2011

Reception – Thursday, September 15th, 6-8pm
Panel Discussion Art: Color and Optics – Thursday, October 13th, 6:30pm

Opens:
First Thursday September 8th, 6-9pm
Reception: September 15, 6-8pm

Curator: Maddy Rosenberg

The richness of a colorful world we take for granted and yet it is a trick of the brain, perception wins out over the reality of a black and white environment. This exhibition brings together a group of artists through the exploration of color who examine the eye, who play with sight, who have us wonder at what it is we are seeing, or who question the “how” as well as the “why.”

Chuck Close, a modern Pointillist who builds images from mere scribbles of overlapping colors, takes the concept of the photographic dot into a new realm. Martha Hayden plays with our brain’s perception of color as space, with the variation on the eternal push/pull of the figure/ground question. The videos of Berlin artist Gerhard Mantz parade colors and shapes before us as they appear to morph from one plane to the next. Kate Temple takes her extensive studies of color theory, from Goethe onwards, to create atmospheric filterings through space, to see or not to see bare glimmers of landscape; David Ambrose layers color upon color until we see the glowing vibrations of transparencies ready to burst forth beyond the rectangle- or back into it. Yet the space in Nola Zirin’s paintings becomes a space of blue, as our eye winds around from deep space to the surface – or does it? But Sarah Stengle may be blue but blue still has its deeper meaning in a quest for what it does mean to be blue.

Katherine Jackson creates a lens for us to stand and look through, as it regards us noncommittally while Jo Yarrington’s sculptural piece models the eye through a lens lightly. Paul Tecklenberg turns optics on its head as the lens becomes a glass becomes a lens and Adrienne Klein, with echoes of Warhol, brings insight into the four-channel experience beyond the mere rods and cones of the title.

Master printer Ruth Lingen plays with the illusions of color on a daily basis while when working with Jessica Stockholder, color becomes a plaything. Peter Thomashow, a psychologist in his own right, lends his medical expertise to his playful assemblages. The book works of Julie Shaw Lutts explode from the boxes that contain them, this one dealing with a whimsical view of the science of optics. Kirsten Hoving may have a photographic historical outlook on the ocular, but W. David Powell manages with his witty collages of juxtapositions from historical textbooks to bring a contemporary perspective to the matter. Gareth Long takes his impulse from his library and gives us a reading on levels of perception.

All in all, these artists journey into the world, our world, colored by perception, psychology and the senses.

http://centralbookingnyc.com/galleries/gallery-2-art_science/present-exhibitions/

A space in DUMBO, Brooklyn, NYC, focusing on artist’s books and prints and their integration into the larger art world.
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