Nathan Bernstein Gallery is pleased to present Five from Fourteen, a group show featuring the works of James Case-Leal, Anna Glantz, Ali Harrington, Heidi Howard, and Alyssa Piro, all 2014 graduates of Columbia University’s MFA program.
James Case-Leal’s black rainbow paintings began as a personal meditative practice pointed towards being rather than doing, in an effort to make art that could transform his environment and create a symbiotic relationship of comfort and care between the paintings and himself.
Anna Glantz’s paintings deal with ambiguity and unstable spatial realities. Glantz is drawn to images that straddle two realities, which are sometimes the relationship between what she is painting and the style in which it is painted. Rather than acting as a form of self-expression, she uses style as an index.
Ali Harrington’s work revolves around the exploration of visionary landscapes through drawing and sculpture. Sense of place is the driving force behind her work and responding to the memory of being there. The sculptures, which she refers to as Crumples, involve transforming 2D imagery into three-dimensional forms.
Heidi Howard paints close friends who are often other artists, and family members. Her process for her work ranges from making drawings of the sitter, taking photographs, to live models, each approach being chosen in reaction to her sitter. The paintings are a record of textures, gestures and her dialogue with her sitters.
Alyssa Piro’s sculptural self-portraits depict her head from the eyes up expressing various moods or feelings. She views the works as surrogates for herself, asserting into the universe in ways that she cannot as a person. Piro’s sculptures are a spatial, emotional, physical and mental infiltration to their environment that gives the artist feelings of power and control.