For immediate release
Contact: John Craven Bloedorn or Kathryn DeMarco, 286-4837
300 dpi press photographs are downloadable below; each has title and description
Durham — That Was Then: Paul Hrusovsky and George Jenne, opens with a reception for the artist on May 19th, from 5 to 7 pm.
That Was Then reunites George Jenne, a Rhode Island School of Design faculty member and current UNC-Chapel Hill Teaching Fellow, with his early mentor Paul Hrusovsky, the well-known Triangle artist and arts advocate. The gallery will be transformed as Hrusovsky’s brilliant canvases play against Jenne’s provocative installations.
The show continues through July 7. Craven Allen Gallery is located at 1106 ½ Broad Street in Durham. Gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, please call the gallery at 286-4837 or visit www.CravenAllenGallery.com.
PAUL HRUSOVSKY
Biography
Paul Hrusovsky earned a BFA in painting and an MA in art education from Ohio University and completed post graduate studies at Washington University. He has exhibited widely and his paintings can be found in the numerous private and corporate collections. An arts advocate and educator, he has taught students at every level from kindergarten through university.
Artist Statement
Ten years ago, I first painted images reminiscent of my childhood textbooks. These acquired images provided comfort as I was growing up but I was fascinated with the whole new meanings they took on when as an adult I isolated them from the original context.
I have now returned to these images with a new interest in making vibrant statements with size, shape, color and texture. Again I explore family relationships and in doing so I examine sexuality, fear, joy and anxiety. I sometimes start with a story, develop a story or change a story. Each work has a special place in my life and some I can share.
Teaching has always been a big part of my life. Children always inspired me with their fresh, naive and free images. George Jenne was one of those students and today I still look at cutouts and drawings he gave me when he was a child. I now describe George as the “hipster” artist working with an old man. He has challenged me, influenced me and is a big part of my fond memories of time spent in the schools in Chapel Hill.
GEORGE JENNE
Biography
George Jenne makes sculpture, video and installation to affirm his belief in the pleasure of repulsion. He pairs that which is sick and deranged with humor, joy and beauty as an allusion to our need to leaven our faults and self loathing with compassion.
“For me to work from behind the lens of a video camera, is to tap the pathological side of creativity – to impose control through obsessive scrutiny. High Definition Video, with its bald faced detail and buttery frame rate suggests a reality beyond the perception of human vision. It syphons greedily, when used in extreme close up and offers, out the other end, the disorientation and awe of unrealized surfaces. In this sense, video is predisposed to fetish and in my work, each intimate image is a myopic surrogate for expansive places and boundless phenomena. Capture. Shoot. Zoom in. Zoom out. The act of gathering these images is obsessive, aggressive and penetrating.”
Jenne has exhibited at numerous venues including Exit Art, PS 122, The Center on Contemporary Art, Jack the Pelican Presents, and Frosch & Portmann. His work has been reviewed in The New Yorker, Art in America, Time Out New York and the Washington Post. He is a former faculty member of the Rhode Island School of Design and is currently a teaching fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He splits his time between New York and North Carolina.
CV
BORN
1973 Richmond, VA
ACADEMIC
2011-present
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Teaching Fellow
2005-2011
Faculty – Rhode Island School of Design – Providence, RI
1995
BFA Film/Video – Rhode Island School of Design – Providence, RI
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2013 “Deep Fake” – Frosch & Portmann – New York, NY
2012 “Love in the Ruins” – Lump Gallery – Raleigh, NC
“Down in the Den” – in collaboration with Damian Stamer – Freight + Volume – NYC
2011 “CUT” – Frosch & Portmann – New York, NY
2010 “Don’t Look Now” – Civilian Art Projects – Washington, DC
2007 ”Diamond Jubilee” – Branch Gallery – Durham, NC
2006 ”Snipe Hunt” – Jack the Pelican Presents – Brooklyn, NY
2004 “Behind the Rainbow Soccer Field” – Valley Forge – Brooklyn, NY
2002 “The Five Cent Fallen Colossus” – Craven Allen Gallery – Durham, NC
2001 “Faculty Farm” – in collaboration with Harrison Haynes – Space 1026 – Philadelphia, PA
GROUP EXHIBITIONS/FAIRS
2012 PULSE NY – Frosch & Portmann – New York, NY
SCOPE NY – Civilian Art Projects – Washington, DC
2011 “Pan’s Pipes” – collaboration with Ryan Hill and Erick Jackson – Civilian Art Projects
Washington, DC
RISD Faculty Biennial – Chase Center Galleries at the RISD Museum – Providence, RI
2010 “SANTA” – Frosch & Portmann – New York, NY
SCOPE NY – Civilian Art Projects – New York, NY
2009 “Hellzapoppin” – PS122 Gallery – New York, NY
“Curly Q” – Jack the Pelican Presents – Brooklyn, NY
“One Night Stand” – Envoy Enterprises – New York, NY
“Old School” – Jack the Pelican Presents – Brooklyn, NY
RISD Faculty Biennial – Chase Center Galleries at the RISD Museum – Providence, RI
2008 “Brainwave” – Exit Art – New York, NY
2007 “Behind the Wall” – Civilian Art Projects – Washington, DC
SCOPE – Basel – Jack the Pelican Presents – Basel, Switzerland
SCOPE – Hamptons – Jack the Pelican Presents – Easthampton, NY
2006 ”Grendel” – Jack the Pelican Presents – Miami, FL
SCOPE -Miami – Jack the Pelican Presents – Miami, FL
Aqua Art Fair – Branch Gallery – Miami, FL
“Converter” – Riviera Gallery – Brooklyn, NY
“Pleased to meet you.” – Branch Gallery – Durham, NC
2005 SCOPE Miami – Jack The Pelican Presents – Miami, FL
Art Cologne – Branch Gallery – Cologne, Germany
“RISD Faculty Biennial” – Rhode Island School of Design Museum – Providence, RI
“Twenty-eight Days” – Wendy Cooper Gallery – Chicago, IL
2004 “Northwest Annual” – curated by Ken Lum, Center on Contemporary Art – Seattle, WA
“RISD Biennial” – curated by Shamim Momin, Claire Oliver Fine Art – New York, NY
“Transformers” – Transformer – Washington, DC
Transformer Auction exhibition – Fusebox – Washington, DC
“Anima Botanica” – Branch Gallery – Carborro, NC
2003 “Anima Botanica”– Branch New York – New York, NY
“The Out-Of-Towners” – Transformer – Washington, DC
2000 “The Last Supper” – Inshallah Gallery – Los Angeles, CA
BEVERLY MCIVER: SMALL WORKS IS EXTENDED THROUGH MAY 5TH.
Durham — Beverly McIver: Small Works, opens with a reception for the artist on February 25th, from 5 to 7 pm. McIver will also give a painting demonstration and gallery talk on March 24 from 5 to 7 pm.
While viewers can see a major retrospective of Beverly McIver currently at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Small Works offers a portrait of the artist working in a more intimate scale, and features mixed media works on paper and monoprints, as well as her signature oils on canvas. The exhibition showcases some very personal pieces; text, sewing—a craft she learned from her mother—and collage feature in many of the paintings. Although smaller in size, the artworks in Small Works have the beauty and power of self-revelation so evident in her largest paintings. Also on view will be a recent portrait of the artist by her mentor, Philip Pearlstein. A documentary about McIver, Raising Renee, will be featured in February on HBO. Beverly McIver was recently named “Top Ten in Painting” in Art in America.
Portrait of Beverly McIver by Philip Pearlstein
The show continues through April 7. Craven Allen Gallery is located at 1106 ½ Broad Street in Durham. Gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, please call the gallery at 286-4837 or visit www.CravenAllenGallery.com.
ABOUT BEVERLY MCIVER
Beverly McIver, named in 2011 as one of the “Top Ten in Painting” by Art in America, was born in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1962. She is the youngest of three girls born to Ethel McIver. Her oldest sister Renee is mentally disabled. Renee is 48 but has the mindset of a second grader. Beverly is Renee’s legal guardian and they currently reside in Durham, North Carolina.
Beverly is widely acknowledged as a significant presence in contemporary American art in general and has charted a new direction as an African American woman artist. She is committed to producing art that consistently examines racial, gender, social and occupational identity. Her sister Renee is a frequent subject of the artist as well as other family members.
Her work is in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Weatherspoon Art Museumin Greensboro, N.C., the Baltimore Museum of Art, the NCCU Museum of Art , the Asheville Museum of Art, The Crocker Art Museum and the Nelson Fine Arts Museum on the campus ofArizona State University.
She is currently the Suntrust Endowed Chair Professor of Art at North Carolina Central University. Prior to this appointment, McIver taught at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. for twelve years, Duke University, North Carolina State University and North Carolina Central University. She has also held residencies at many of the nation’s leading artist communities, including YADDO, the Headland Center for the Arts, Djerassi, and Penland School of Crafts. She has served on the board at Penland School of Arts and Crafts and currently serves on the board of directors at YADDO in Saratoga Springs, NY.
McIver’s work has been reviewed in Art News, Art in America The New York Times and a host of local newspapers. She has received numerous grants and awards including the Anonymous Was A Woman Foundation grant, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard University, a Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation award, a distinguished Alumni Award from Pennsylvania State University, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and Creative Capital grant.
Raising Renee, a documentary film by Academy Award-nominated and award-winning filmmakers Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan will have its television premiere on HBO in February, 2012. The feature-length documentary follows the artist for six years, documenting the consequences of her promise to take care of her mentally disabled sister Renee after their mother dies.
McIver’s solo exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Art , Reflections: Portraits by Beverly McIver, continues through June 24, 2012.
McIver earned a bachelor’s degree in art from North Carolina Central University, a master of fine arts degree in painting from Pennsylvania State University and an honorary doctorate from North Carolina Central University.
UNSCRIPTED
Mark Brown: Painting, Steve McClure: Drawings & Prints, Caroline Vaughan: Photography
Postponed until July.
