PAPERWORK | Group Exhibition

APR/22 - JUN/4

H GALLERY
1793 EAST MAIN STREET
VENTURA, CA 93001

HOURS: WEDS -SAT 1-5p

Opening Reception | Saturday, April 22, 2017 | 7-10p | RSVP

Dab Art is pleased to present PAPERWORK, a group exhibition at H Gallery + Studios in Midtown Ventura. This exhibit features a selection of art in multiple genres and disciplines. Nine contemporary artists will exhibit a small collection of their distinctive pieces. Each artist demonstrates dissimilar perspectives on fragility, creation and structure while universally incorporating a singular principle medium, paper.

Artists on Exhibit:
Shiho Rice + Kenna Doeringer + Matthew Hopson-Walker + Mario Laplante + Mattie Bowden + Huntz Liu + Teresa Getty + Sarah Kreuter + Carolyn Reed Barritt

Shiho K. Rice was born and raised in Kanagawa, Japan. From a very young age, she has been interested in observation and creative visual storytelling. She moved to Canada by herself when she was 15. This is when she began to paint and give life to her imagination. For a couple of years, Shiho studied Fine Arts in Toronto, Canada, and transferred to study Theatre and Fine Arts in New York City. In 2009, she moved to Washington D.C. where she found Kiri-e (paper cutting) as her art medium. Now, she resides in upstate NY. She loves adventure both in her imagination and in her real life. Her artwork uses the technique of Kirie (Kee-ree-yay), a Japanese art form in which a single piece of paper is cut by hand. Papercutting art, such as Kirie, started in China and the different styles are an expression of each culture. She enjoys every part of creating her imaginative world. The process of creating each piece slowly reveals a different flavor of her original drawings and imagination. She has exhibited her work in New York City, Tokyo, Toronto, Annapolis (MD) and Alexandria (VA). 

Kenna Doeringer Growing up with the encouragement to pursue painting, led to attending the School of Visual Arts in New York City. With an exposure to a vast array of new experiences and a broader view of the arts, I majored in animation, but soon saw a strong interest in film and sound. After graduation I found myself in a career for over fifteen years as a feature film picture and sound editor on over 45 projects. During that time, I never lost my desire to create, and In the wake of a eight year absence, I picked up a brush and began the task of reacquaint myself with paint. There was a new passion to my work. As a former photo-realist, I found myself delving into parts of my creativity I never knew were there. It was a sophistication that comes with experience, and a mature outlook. The concepts stem from simple ideas and each piece inspires and creates an architecture for the next. The idea of one shape alone does not complete the work, but their coexistence creates something intriguing to look at. A feeling, a thought, or a memory are my stepping stones. A relocation to Hawai’i for over ten years, was the thrust I needed to concentrate on my artwork, and be able to explore new avenues in creation. Passions began to stir and my work took on a new twist, utilizing my outside passions and incorporating them into my work. It is my belief of an idea, that stirs me, makes me think about the image and make it memorable. Some pieces take on an environmental, political or emotional persuasion, but that does not dominate my concepts. Today that thought process continues in my new home, California.

Matthew Hopson-Walker was born and raised in Fresno California and former owner of a very large rabbit, grew up reading comic books and dystopian science fiction novels. During a formative age he was exposed to movies such as Mad Max, Total Recall, Escape From New York, Blade Runner, and The Omega Man and many themes with in them show up in his work. After working as a janitor for several years he matriculated to the Kansas City Art Institute and received his BFA in Printmaking in 1998. After graduating he and a friend opened their own gallery and screen printing business. To support himself and his heavy metal bass playing “career” he worked as a print technician at his alma mater, did construction, bounced and bussed at various bars, delivered mail and cashiered at liquor stores. These jobs influenced his general misanthropic outlook on humanity and the images he made as an artist. In 2002 he completed his MA followed by his MFA in 2003 both from the University of Iowa. In 2006 he was recipient of the prestigious James D. Phelan Award in Printmaking given by the San Francisco Foundation and administered by the KALA Institute. Matt has been included in 172 juried and group exhibitions and 12 solo shows since 2006. His work is in the collections of the Franklin Furnace Artist Book Collection at the Museum Of Modern Art in New York, the University of North Dakota Art Collections in Grand Forks North Dakota, the Amity Art Foundation in Woodbridge Connecticut, the Stonehouse Residency for the Contemporary Arts in Miramonte California, the Drawing and Print Collection at The University of Iowa Museum Of Art, and the Tama Art University Museum in Tokyo Japan. Matthew Hopson-Walker is currently coordinator of foundations, interim graduate coordinator, and assistant professor in printmaking and foundations at the University of South Alabama. He has twice been invited to be an instructor at the nationally renowned Frogman’s Print and Paper Summer Workshop, first in Vermillion South Dakota and then Omaha Nebraska in the summer of 2017. Matt has been invited to be a visiting at artist and lecturer at Northern Illinois University, Murray State University, Emporia State University, University of Alabama, University of South Indiana, Youngstown State University, Muhlenberg College, Kutztown University, Westminster College, South East Missouri State University, Oregon State University, University of North Carolina-Pembroke, Arizona State University, Middle Tennessee State University, and California State University-Chico. Giving demonstrations involving his knowledge of screen printing, lithography, intaglio, and prints that combine more then one technique.

Mario Laplante  As a printmaker I have accumulated years of printed matters that are calling to be revived. The work has allowed me to look back at my past work as a source of reference that can be re‐contextualized. Old prints were torn, hinged and collaged into paper objects/sculptures. The end result shows hints of imagery from previous works covered, or partly erased, underneath many new layers. The hint of a black and white etching from 1985 done in Montreal, Quebec, wrapped around discarded old lithographs printed while I was student in Madison, WI. Upon looking at the artwork I am not unlike a Dendrochronologist who uses tree rings to answer questions about how past events affects the present. When applying this principle these recent piece, it reveals that the variations the artwork’s qualities present today has been affected directly by the past. What I have created in the past is again making its presence known in what I’m making today.

Mattie Bowden was born and raised on the coast of Maine. She attended Lewis and Clark College and University of Maine at Farmington, graduating in 2007 with a BFA in Creative Writing: Fiction. She has lived in Portland, OR for the last decade and has worked on stop motion films at Laika Entertainment for five years, currently as a Set Dresser. 

Huntz Liu  My work revolves around the notion of imaginary spaces and non-figurative objects that are self-sufficient and self-sustained within their compositions. I am intrigued by the mechanisms and kinetics found within both technological and natural structures: the organic and the mechanic. Working with cut paper allows me the opportunity to explore the underlying layers (literally and figuratively) that drive both systems and is an extended reflection of the human condition and our position above, yet never beyond nature. 

Teresa Getty My work seeks a nexus where experience transcends visual language. Through the properties of water my work builds and destroys itself. Banks rise through deposits of sediment. Pours of diluted material leave only traces of what was previously a vibrant passage.Without a vessel to contain it, water is wild; similarly, my work needs structure. I find that structural answer in architecture, as well as biological forms. As skeletal lines and diffused marks, these anchor my work. Simultaneously, I work removing weeks of marks in an instant with an orbital sander, I erase, leaving only an archeology - The place where my act of making becomes the starting point for the viewer. Beyond process it is about visual and metaphorical relationships to time and space. I want the forward progress of my work to be disrupted, to fold back on itself like memory. Making my work is a ritual where lived moments are absorbed then reformed into new language, one transcendent of garnered expectation, free. 

Carolyn Reed Barritt I make drawings, paintings and sculptures. An overheard word or phrase, a photograph, a found shape, a single line in a novel; any can spark an idea. This idea then grows and turns into a theme for a series: possibly one of landscapes, or of artworks representing single moments in time. Often what triggers an idea is a combination of disparate words, a spray of leaves on a sidewalk, or what is in the background of a seemingly mundane photograph. For my paintings and drawings I use a combination of primitive and precise marks and shapes. My sculptures are constructed with a combination of natural and man-made elements.

Sarah Kreuter Before moving to the Pacific North West Sarah Kreuter lived between Minnesota and Wisconsin. She grew up spending much of her time outside exploring what nature had to offer in areas such as the serene Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. She graduated from University of Minnesota-Duluth with a degree in both Theater and Art Education. Her love for nature and biology is what drives her work and provides constant inspiration. After college the beauty of the Puget Sound and the notion of adventure brought her out to the Pacific North West. Currently Sarah teaches art in a small school district nestled in the foot hills of the North Cascades and lives in Bellingham, WA.

Curated by Yessíca Torres
Dab Art
805 626 8876 | info@dabart.me
www.DabArt.me

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