Kaori Someya, Awakening, 2023, Kumohadamashi Japanese Paper, Thin Mino Paper, Mineral Pigments, Gold leaf, Platinum leaf, Colourants.
Growing
Curated by NARS Curatorial Fellow shuang cai
2024 Season II International Residency Exhibition
May 31 - June 18, 2024
Opening Reception and Open Studios: Friday, May 31, 6-9pm
NARS Main Gallery
Featuring works by Soeun Bae, Jacq Bebb, Hyoju Cheon, Caroline Cloutier, Rachel Frank, Caroline Minchew, Majid Mohammadpour, Gyz La Rivière, Heather Renée Russ, Kaori Someya, Basharat Ali Syed, Justine Walker, and Kristine White.
NARS Foundation is pleased to present Growing, an exhibition featuring the Season II International Residency Artists. This show navigates the complexities of growth, illuminating how personal and societal evolution can unfold amidst both stability and flux. Drawing inspiration from Zygmunt Bauman's concept of 'liquid modernity,' Growing explores the relentless fluidity of the contemporary world—a symbol of resilience where identities, relationships, and cultural norms continuously transform, never fully solidifying.
Growing is about change.
Growing is about staying the same.
Growing is gathering,
Each leaf, each box, each label
reads into a fables’ chain
Growing is repeating
An imagery, a pattern, or a technique
Growing is holding on to each moment,
while letting some of the others fade.
Growing from the body,
Embodied but alternatively.
One grows from mistake
but may also grow into another ache.
Growing could be about staying the same,
Or of course, making a change.
About the Curatorial Fellow:
shuang cai is a curator, writer, educator, and multimedia artist. Their curatorial endeavors aim to bring forth the power of interconnectedness and diverse voices across communities. Their art practices focus on logic, interactions, and humor. They were an editor of Adjacent and have curated shows at LATITUDE Gallery, theBlanc, All Street NYC, and Joy Museum (Beijing). They hold a Bachelor's degree from Bard College double majoring in Computer Science and Studio Art and a Master's from New York University Interactive Telecommunication Program(ITP).
About the artists:
Soeun Bae is a Korean-born artist from Alabama who is now based in Brooklyn. She uses sculpture, technology and performance to question what it is to be living inside of a body. Exploring the dissection, mechanization, and objectification of the body, her objects present a reductive and depersonalized way of relating to our bodies- bodies in need of regeneration and transformation in a world of consumption and utilization.
Jacq Bebb (b. Chester, UK) lives and works in New York. Bebb has a visual and textual practice that layers sculpture, writing and audio works in a rumination on desire through queer and trans narratives and experiences. Their current work delves into theories of queer time, as counterpoint to chronological time. Drawing upon research and personal experience, they question the cultural implications of social norms and binary systems, particularly in relation to queer connectedness and futurity. Projects and solo exhibitions include: Chester Contemporary, Chester, UK (2023); The Great Exhibition of the North, NewcastleGateshead, UK (2018); Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK (2016); Small Collections Room, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK (2015); and Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2013). Their work has been shown in numerous group exhibitions including Mostyn, Llandudno, UK (2017); Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK (2014); and Frutta, Rome, Italy (2014).
Hyoju Cheon (b. Seoul, Korea) is an explorer and interdisciplinary artist currently residing in New York.She holds an MFA from Columbia university and a Painting BFA from SungShin University Her multimedia practice–often casting a space, an object, or a body in motion–responds to the conditions of a site. Her work documents bodies as they move through space:drawing their trajectories and archiving the material traces left behind. Hyoju has exhibited her works in Seoul at Dongsomun, Meindo, Gallery Imazoo, and Gaon Gallery; and in New York at the Lenfest Center for the Arts, the Abrons Arts Center, Half Gallery and Chashma among others. She has been an artist in residency at Kunstraum LLC and NARS Foundation.
Caroline Cloutier is a visual artist based in Montreal (Tio'tia:ke), Canada. She researches light, space, and perceptual phenomena through photography, installation, sculpture, and drawing. By creating perceptual experiences and addressing the effects of light, colour, and shape on our psyche, her work ultimately opens doors to the metaphysics of life.
Rachel Frank’s practice combines sculpture, video, and performance to explore our relationships and shifting perspectives towards non-human life forms, investigating how past species, rituals, and objects can shape our environmental future. She is the recipient of grants from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, The Puffin Foundation, and Franklin Furnace Archive. Her performance pieces have been shown at HERE, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Select Fair, and The Bushwick Starr in NYC, The Marran Theater at Lesley University, Franconia Sculpture Park (MN), and at The Watermill Center in collaboration with Robert Wilson. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include MOCA Tucson (AZ), the SPRING/BREAK Art Show (NYC), Thomas Hunter Projects at Hunter College (NYC), Standard Space (Sharon, CT), and Geary Contemporary (NYC). She works as a licensed wildlife rehabilitator at the Wild Bird Fund in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Recently, Gyz La Rivière (Rotterdam, 1976) produced a lot of new works in the spirit of retrofuturism. Underlying these works is the warning that we may collectively lose our humanity in the ‘big data madness’ of today. Or perhaps our humanity is already lost… Nevertheless, there’s obviously also beauty to be found in this dystopia. Gyz La Rivière is a visual artist. Film, installations, graphic work, video art, neon works, publications, and ready-mades are his favorite media – used in combination with his unique philosophy and humor. His projects are often extensive pieces of art driven by a research-like approach and his innate inclination towards collecting. La Rivière’s work is often about ‘time’ and the transformations within (urban) society and (visual) culture. The year 2022 marked 25 years since La Rivière’s debut exhibition at MAMA. Gyz has now accomplished more than 100 exhibitions, including solo shows at TENT, Cokkie Snoei, Joey Ramone, and OMI. La Rivière also exhibited in De Vleeshal, Roodkapje, Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Kunsthal, and in many more (international) exhibition spaces. He also published several books, including most recently Home Video, videotheken & video in Groot-Rotterdam (2021) about video rental stores and Het telefooncellenboek van Rotterdam (2022) about phone booths. And he realised four feature-length films: Malin TV (2023), New Neapolis (2020), Rotterdam 2040 (2013), 12 – a film about the Fret Click (2009). Among his most notable recognitions, he received the Rotterdam Maaskant Prize (2002), ‘The Praise of Folly’ Honorary Pin from the Comité Erasmus (2011) and the Dolf Henkes Prize (2012). His work is included in collections such as Museum Voorlinden, Hogeschool Rotterdam Collection, Grafisch Lyceum Rotterdam, WORM Collection, Museum Rotterdam, and is in the possession of various private collectors.
Caroline Minchew (b. 1992) is an artist currently based in Richmond, VA. She received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BA from Sewanee: The University of the South. Her work has been exhibited at various galleries, most recently at Candela Gallery (Richmond) and The Anderson (Richmond). She has attended residencies at ChaNorth, Penland School of Arts and Crafts, and Burren College of Art. Her photographic works are housed in the permanent collections of the National Museum of American History and the National Gallery of Art Photograph Study Collection in Washington, DC.
Majid Mohammadpour works as an interdisciplinary artist in various fields of visual arts. He has been working in sculpture and painting and has an extensive portfolio of many completed projects in sculpture, Photography, painting, murals, and the design and implementation of urban sculptures. He has worked in various mediums including iron, fiberglass, clay, and papier-mache in sculpture. He has done some work for the cities of Tehran, Hamedan, Karaj, Yazd, and Dezful ... in Iran. He has also had a long-term sculpture and Painting project in Europe / Switzerland.
Heather Renée Russ (they/she) works across experimental photography, installation and bio-art. They blend organic materials with queer femme signifiers. Inspired by queer ecologies, their work engages with themes of displacement while celebrating the vibrant communities queers have historically created in cities by the sea. They utilize photography to create detailed imagery incorporating glitch. They also build live algae bioreactors in femme signifying vessels that take in carbon and produce oxygen. Russ exhibited at NADA Miami with Paradice Palase during Miami Art Week 2023. She also participated in SPRING/BREAK Art Show NYC in 2023 She has shown at SomoS in Berlin, IMT Gallery in London and Satellite Art Fair in Miami. In New York, she has exhibited with apexart, Flux Factory and ChaShaMa. Russ has completed residencies at MASS MoCA, ChaShaMa North, Vermont Studio Center, and TransBorder Art on Governors Island. Russ comes from a history of stewarding queer spaces. She co-produced Club Feral, a raucous queer nightclub in San Francisco and the collaborative space in Brooklyn known as Lair Fera.
Kaori Someya is a nihonga artist based in Japan. She expresses women who are struggling with Japan's conservative society using traditional Japanese materials. Influenced by her mother, who was a Kimono-maker, and the experience studying mounting techniques. She explores a uniquely Japanese aesthetic Hare (special occasions) and Ke (ordinary days).
Basharat Ali Syed (b. 1996, Kashmir) is a New York-based artist who works at the intersection of installation, video, drawing, and sculpture. He employs 3D-printed objects, machine outputs, and diverse imaging technologies within an interdisciplinary framework to examine volatile narratives surrounding disinheritance, delineation of borders, and the bonds of mysticism. His practice systematically explores the antecedents of political and spiritual dissonance through a transnational lens. Tension is crafted between traditional fabrics and new media fabrications of cultural objects in his installations, contrasting old languages with new ones. Ali received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2023, and his work has been included in numerous group exhibitions.
Justine Walker (she/her) lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand. She has an MFA from Massey University, NZ (2010) and was awarded Massey Scholar. Her work is featured on CIRCUIT! Artist Film and Video, Aotearoa, NZ. Walker was included in CURRANTS, by Barbara Zucker, at A.I.R Gallery, New York and has had solo shows at FELTspace, Adelaide, and SEVENTH, Melbourne. NZ Public gallery shows have included solo exhibitions at Toi Tauranga Art Gallery, Toi Poneke Gallery, and group shows at Whakatane Museum & Arts, and City Gallery Wellington. She has been included in numerus group shows in Artist Run galleries throughout NZ, with solo exhibitions at Blue Oyster, and Art Box. Her work is held in public and private collections including Nga Taonga Sound & Vision, NZ.
Kristine White is a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersections of visual art, performance, and media arts. With a background in design for theatre and multidisciplinary performance, her work often takes place in public space in collaboration with community groups. Lately, her work considers such themes as the delineations of public vs private and capitalist vs living-being-centred conceptions of space, time, and labour.
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