Press Release: Nocturne

On view: October 3- 28, 2018   

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is proud to present, Nocturne, a group exhibition of contemporary artists who work within and against the notion of the landscape. The artists on view place a heavy emphasis on process and experimentation, reviving a traditional subject matter with a contemporary approach. Nocturne features artwork by Eric Aho, Christiane Corcelle, Keenan Derby, Daniel Herr, Ariel Basson Freiberg, Wilhelm Neusser, Soo Sunny Park, and Anna Schuleit Haber.

Central to this exhibition is Anna Schuleit Haber’s painting, The Black Studio, in which the artist paints a stark black background, bringing the viewer’s attention to the seemingly floating objects. An office chair, a human’s foot, reflected numeric symbols emerge from the flatness of the background, creating infinite space behind the painting. True to Schuleit Haber’s style, the artist leaves it up to the audience to find meaning amongst the lost objects.

In works by Eric Aho, Keenan Derby, and Daniel Herr, the artists reimagine the outdoors from memory; turning a barn, reflections, and street traffic into large, sweeping brushstrokes. Geometric forms allude to objects, allowing the paintings to explore exhausted subjects in contemporary ways. Eric Aho’s painting, Wilderness Studio (Summer), was created in 2013 during a pivotal time in the artist’s career. With a studio surrounded by wilderness, Aho focuses on recreating the essence of the natural world around him. A deep engagement with the history of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists aesthetics and ideas are at play while the artist responds to the legacy of traditional landscape painting.  

Keenan Derby considers surface and movement as he contrives his abstracted landscapes, embracing the unpredictable physical properties of his medium. For Derby, the quiet incorporation of sand into his painting is pivotal for creating his tidal landscapes. Interested in the cyclical yet unpredictable movement of nature and the progression of time, Cirrus depicts a singular landscape in which time has been flattened.

In his first exhibition at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Daniel Herr portrays an evening scene in his painting White Nights. The work is raw and unpolished, guiding the viewer’s eye around the unexpected mark making strewn about the canvas. Structures take hold against the horizon, leaving the impression of a dreamy landscape. The visual paint language used by George Innes and Basquiat can be seen affecting the work of Herr through his exploration of color.

Similar to Herr, Ariel Basson Freiberg’s swift brushstrokes collide with color across the dark surface. The allusion of a human form dances along the right side of the canvas, defined by thin highlights of color, only to dissipate before our eyes. The outline of a face is apparent, yet left unfinished, a technique Basson Freiberg continues to explore in her Trespass Daughter series of paintings in which the bodies are grounded in artifacts yet erased when faced with the whiplash of history.

The exhibition’s namesake, Nocturne/Doublemoon (1729) by Wilhelm Neusser’s show his recent influence of 19th century Western art. For Neusser, a landscape painting is a metaphorical space that invites the eye and mind to wander and wonder and for the viewer to project. This particular painting has a partner piece that can be found on view at Mass MoCa in North Adams, MA through the end of 2018.

Contrasting with Neusser’s surreal nightscape, Soo Sunny Park reconfigures and redefines aspects of different mediums to construct pieces which fall in between them. Her sculptures are drawings, her drawings are sculptures, and her installations are a combination of both. Floating 3 Mineral Structures is both freestanding sculpture and wall art, meant to create an immersive experience for the viewer. By bringing the viewer between a mirror and the geometric artwork on paper, we become an active participant – an introspective opportunity subtly encouraged by Park.

Christiane Corcelle’s Lost Jar series is inspired by a poem about a boy who digs a hole in order to hide a jar of coins. Poet Michael Colonnese writes the character as hoping to save for when he might need money as an adult, only to later find out his jar was covered by a driveway. Reminiscing on her own past, Corcelle’s carborundum collagraphs pay homage to jars filled by her mother with the fruits of her garden, but in this contemporary take on the jar she fills them only with money, fire, some empty – but never fruits or vegetables.

Nocturne is on view at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery through October 28, 2018. 

—

Eric Aho studied at the Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design in London, England and received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. In 1989 he participated in the first exchange of scholars in over thirty years between the U.S. and Cuba. He completed his graduate work at the Lahti Art Institute in Finland supported by a Fulbright Fellowship in 1991-92 and an American-Scandinavian Foundation grant in 1993. Aho has had solo exhibitions in various museums including the New Britain Museum of American Art, CT, the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH, Currier Museum of Art, NH. In 2009, Aho was elected National Academician of the National Academy Museum. He lives and works in Saxtons River, Vermont. 

Christian Corcelle’s artwork has been exhibited throughout the United States, China, Vietnam, Peru, and Iceland. Her prints are in private and public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Public Library, the Art Complex Museum, the Contemporary Art Center, the Vietnam Fine Arts Association in Hanoi, the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, China,and Universidade Feevale in Novo Hamburgo, Brazil. She has taught workshops and classes at the Maud Morgan Center, Shepherd Print Studio, the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, and Framingham State University.

Keenan Derby is an Atlanta, GA native, currently living and working in Los Angeles, California. In addition to studying at the International School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture, Montecastello di Vibio in Italy, Derby received his MFA from Boston University and graduated Cum Laude with a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. He has exhibited in galleries nationally, including Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, CA, Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, and at the 2017 Art Market San Francisco art fair. He specializes in painting with acrylic, sand, and oil, and his work is included in private collections across the country. 

Daniel Herr received his MFA from Boston University and has exhibited his work in various galleries including Safe Gallery, New York; Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York; Last Projects, Hollywood; Hamill Gallery, Boston; Inside/Out Art Museum, Beijing; Airplane, Bushwick, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago, Chile. He has been an artist-in-residence at Estudio Nómada, Barcelona, Inside/Out Museum, Beijing, and Molten Capital in Santiago, Chile. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Born in Texas of Iraqi/Israeli background, Ariel Basson Freiberg has a MFA in painting from Boston University and a BA from Smith College. She has had multiple solo shows and including exhibitions at Miller Yezerski Gallery, Dartmouth College, Tufts Art Gallery, Danforth Museum, Montserrat College of Art and the Art Center of Macedonia. Her work is reviewed in ARTnews, Boston Globe, Big Red and Shiny, and featured in Modern Painters for the Tenot Foundation Bursary for the residency, Camac in France. She received a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship in 2015. This year, "Amnesia" will be the cover of Definitions of Feminine Post Conflict Spaces. In addition, performance and installation, love like salt, was featured at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. 

Wilhelm Neusser was born in Cologne, Germany. From 1997 to 2001 he studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe with Professors Gerd van Dülmen und Harald Klingelhöller. He was also a guest student in art history and theory at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe with Professors Hans Belting und Siegfried Gohr. Neusser´s work has been widely exhibited and he has received numerous awards and fellowships including Artist Research Trust (A.R.T.) Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT, 2015; MASS MoCA Studio Progam, North Adams, MA, 2017.

Soo Sunny Park received her B.F.A. in painting and sculpture from Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio and a M.F.A. in sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. After a residency at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, ME (2000), she worked in St. Louis, Missouri as an installation artist and as a Lecturer at the Washington University School of Art. In 2001, Park was selected as the River Front Times “Best of 2001, Sculptor of St. Louis.” She is a recipient of a Joan Mitchell M.F.A. Grant, the 19th Annual Michigan Fine Arts Competition Grand Prize, the Helen Foster Barnett Prize from the National Academy Museum, New York, NY (2008), and The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Fellowship (2010).

Anna Schuleit Haber has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Bogliasco, Blue Mountain Center, The Hermitage, Yaddo, Banff, and a visiting artist/guest lecturer at Brown University, MIT, Smith College, Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, The New School, Brandeis, University of Michigan, McGill, RISD, Boston University, Pratt, Bowdoin, and Syracuse University. Her writings have appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, the Massachusetts Review, Agni, and in Urban Infill, the journal of the Cleveland Urban Design Center. She was recently embedded in a small-town newsroom where she staged a serial 'take-over' of 26 front pages in collaboration with typographers from around the world, poets, writers, journalists, local citizens and students. Upcoming projects revolve around seriality and memory, and include commissions in the city of Copenhagen (DK) and other architectural settings in the U.S. Her works are included in private collections in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australia, as well as in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. She is based in New Orleans and New Hampshire.