SUPERNATURAL
Martin Basher, Jane Benson, Ben Grasso
march 21- may 4, 2008
opening friday, march 21, 6-8
gallery hours: wednesday - sunday 11-6
THIERRY GOLDBERG PROJECTS is pleased to present SUPERNATURAL, a group show of painting sculpture and installation by Martin Basher, Jane Benson, and Ben Grasso. While reflecting on reality, fantasy, and desire, the three artists in the show contemplate on nature and human intervention with a supernatural twist.
Reality slips away from its quiet solitude in Ben Grasso's latest painting. Here, an abandoned country home sits by the lake, considering itself a strange Narcissus. Pictured in the lake, the house falls apart roof down. The reality of the house, composed alongside its state of distress, provides an uncanny dialogue between conscious and subconscious appearance. It is the maintenance of façade that perpetuates suburban dreams, the modern American embodiment of hope and security, which Grasso repeatedly disrupts.
A tangle of black kudzu ensnares a metallic swing seat in Jane Benson's sculpture titled The Swing. The loss of innocence and its memories here are quiet literally a sculptural Memento Mori. Gracefully transforming these algae into something of a bustled and plumed evening gown, The Swing encapsulates Benson's investigations into femininity and presentation - part Petah Coyne and part Ikebana.
In the back room, Martin Basher's installation of painting and readymades incorporates a scenic landscape, an enlarged lotto ticket, and a pair of sneakers. All of which, he balances formally in palette and critically in subject matter so that nature, desire, and hope are inextricably linked. Basher relegates the ideal Nature Getaway as Day-Glo object of consumption.
Martin Basher was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He currently lives and works in New York. He has shown at Susan Inglett Gallery in New York, and at Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, Mary-Newton Gallery, and ARTSPACE, all in New Zealand.
Jane Benson was born in Thornbury, England. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited her work at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; The Queens Museum of Art, New York; Bury Museum, England; Socrates Sculpture Park, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; White Columns, New York; Exit Art, New York; and Momenta Art, Brooklyn.
Ben Grasso was born in Cleveland, OH. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His work has been exhibited in solo shows at Thierry Goldberg Projects and at Agenzia 04, Bologna Italy. He was also included in group shows at The Grossman Gallery, Lafayette College, Easton PA; Momenta Art, Brooklyn; Bucket Rider Gallery, Chicago; the ECA Gallery, Edinburgh Scotland; and at Spaces Gallery, The Front Room, The J. McCullough Center Gallery, and Reinberger Gallery, all in Cleveland Ohio.
