Mindy Solomon is pleased to present Perched on a Bowstring, a two-person exhibition featuring the works of Christian Ruiz Berman and Christine Rebhuhn. Featuring a lively interplay of two and three-dimensional works, each object is steeped in narrative content.
In his second presentation in the gallery—the first a solo exhibition in 2022—Ruiz Berman continues to explore the intricacies of storytelling. Combining exquisitely articulated birds, coyotes and other natural and artificial elements against an abstracted back drop, Ruiz Berman highlights his drafting chops. Trained as an architect, his sure handed drafting skills are keenly at play. A published poet, his literary prowess is also on display metaphorically, through the juxtaposition of carefully rendered imagery.
Ruiz Berman is interested in envisioning new ways to continue the tradition of Mexican and magical realist painting, as well as finding hopeful and joyful means of defining the shared human experience. He explores theories of consciousness and interdependence, challenging the increasingly constrictive narratives of political purity and correctness in the art world and beyond. An avid outdoorsman, he enjoys backpacking, fly-fishing, environmental conservation, poetry, and surfing. Each of these activities are strong influences in his oeuvre.
Christine Rebhuhn is a New York based artist. Skilled in both ceramic and found object assemblage sculpture, Rebhuhn works with an unlikely juxtaposition of materials that create an intriguing narrative. In her own words: “Some of the most beautiful things can remain hidden from our view, because their expansiveness is too large to be knowable, or because they live inside the space of the mind. This work searches for what we cannot say.
Within these sculptures is a haunting sense of perfection that only comes from hindsight or fantasy. You wouldn’t be able to see it from the inside, but the trap is also a shelter: the place of protection is also the source of fear. There’s an eerie anticipation, knowing that this kind of tightly bound restraint is only a set-up for recklessness. The work is a reflection on our endless entanglement with each other, and in turn our predatory behaviors, which reappear over and over. It’s a fatal conundrum, beauty and the unbearable, a reality that cannot be managed.”
Both Ruiz Berman and Rebhuhn bring a mind-bending collection of ideas and images to this exhibition. Defying our expectations of how we position the artificial and natural worlds, Perched on a Bowstring is indeed a precarious state of being.
Mindy Solomon is pleased to present Princess, a solo exhibition of United Kingdom based artist Claire Partington. Her show takes inspiration from the world of Disney princesses and social media influencers, while referencing the pressures placed on physical appearance and the luxurious “fairy tale lifestyle”.
Partington states: “My work is meticulously hand built using traditional ceramic techniques, referencing material traditions from folk-art earthenware to renaissance terracottas, and Della Robbia to Meissen porcelain, with the imagery drawn from fairytales and folklore to art history, social history and contemporary social media. Predominantly focusing on women and the female experience, my figurative works offer a sense of familiarity and tradition, but the enlarged scale combined with a reassessed narrative and power dynamics, create figures that inhabit their own uncanny and distinct world.
I have a magpie approach to creating my work, taking references from diverse and changing sources, but I am particularly interested with portraits and their symbolism and how people have chosen and choose to present themselves – be it a 17th Century painting or a contemporary social media filtered selfie. The careful placement of objects of importance, the clothes and the personal appearance are all very strongly directed and reflect the sitters desire to convey a message of status and power. I use repeated motifs in my work that relate to the symbols of portraiture and art history, and the motifs we choose to represent ourselves with every day in our choices of personal presentation, and merge these with the fantastical and surreal worlds of traditional narratives to create my own social commentary.”
Renaissance inspired, with a nod to the artists Lucas Cranach and Luca Della Robbia, each work presents the viewer with an opportunity to revisit a time of castles and grandiose cathedrals where perfection is next to Godliness and aspirations for more were limited to the privileged few. In Partington’s Princess, the magic is only a scroll away.
Longtime gallery artist Kate MacDowell returns to Miami with her solo exhibition Fight and Flight. Continuing her work with hand carved porcelain, MacDowell draws upon the natural world for inspiration.
“My work explores our physical and psychological relationships with the natural world. Whether as proxy, trophy, decorative material, or mythic symbol, animals currently occupy a space in our subconscious which layers history, allegory, and an awareness of species fragility.
The use of fur, feathers, and hide in fashion is in part an extension of prehistoric attempts to clothe and adorn ourselves in order to take on aspects of admired animals. The founding of one of the earliest conservation organizations, the Audubon society, was part of a movement which responded to the contemporary fashion for plumes (and occasionally entire dead birds) on hats. This heavily impacted bird species including the Carolina parakeet that went extinct in 1918 in part due to the demand for their plumage.
Our understanding of animals has historically intertwined with our understanding of ourselves. When we assign meaning and allegory to the natural world it can lead to its preservation or destruction, but it’s always shaped by the experience of being viewed. I was inspired by medieval marginal illustrations of fantastical animal hybrids, often playful, sometimes anthropomorphic in their behavior. I created a series of chimeras that combine specific predatory raptor species with their prey. I was thinking about the delicate balance between a successful hunt and a successful escape that must be achieved in order to survive. These creatures are physically adapting, perhaps transforming due to a changing environment, and negotiating new abilities and power relationships, but they are also being pulled in two directions. Do they belong to the sky or the earth?”
Fantastical and unlikely in form, each delicate sculpture is its own universe. Beaks and claws, tails and shells, each creature a new discovery. Creating contradictory relationships between animals gives us hope. Is it possible that two oppositional beings can cohabitate? Can we begin with nature and create a more perfect universe? In Fight and Flight we can examine the possibilities. Once again MacDowell introduces a new way forward.
Mindy Solomon Gallery specializes in contemporary emerging and mid-career artists and art advisory services. The gallery represents artists working in painting, sculpture, photography, and video in both narrative and non-objective styles. The gallery program explores the intersection of art and design through an ongoing dialog between two and three-dimensional objects, while embracing diasporic voices. Utilizing the gallery space as a platform for inventive exhibitions, museum visitations, and public lectures, Solomon invites a sense of community and aesthetic enrichment.
Solomon founded the gallery in 2009 in St. Petersburg, Florida, where she established her reputation as a contemporary art dealer. She is a Board member of the Miami Art Dealers Association and is currently located in the Little River Arts District of Miami.
Open to all visitors from 11—4 pm. Progressive Art Brunch brings together participating galleries several Sundays throughout the year. The event highlights the current programming at each venue and enables visitors a more intimate look at the exhibitions on view.
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