Franklin Evans | The Clemente Soto Velez LES Gallery

The Clemente Soto Velez LES gallery is proud to present the exhibition Parameters, curated by Daniel Rosenbaum, June 28 through Aug 2, 2019.

An opening reception, free and open to the public takes place June 28, 2019, 7-10pm.

The exhibition references the working practices, processes, and systems invented by each of the nine artists to permit and embrace unexpected associations and connections between their physical bodies , chosen working materials their concepts about science, nature, history, and craft. Please join artists Tomas Broadbent, Elisabeth Condon, Franklin Evans, Jess Fuller, David Humphrey, Stephen Maine, Daniel Rosenbaum, Michelle Segre, and Jennifer Sirey at the opening reception. The LES gallery is open daily from 3:30pm to 7pm.

 Thomas Broadbent is fascinated with astronomy, representing it here through a mosaic process of overlapping sheets of watercolors similar to how NASA produces astronomical photos. The painting in this show is of a prominent lunar crater chain formation on the moon.

Elisabeth Condon imbues eastern brushwork with a western sensibility in spontaneous abstract paintings. Her pours and spills color yield unexpected compositions in which sketches made on travel, vintage textile patterns, and flowers flow in and out of liquidity.

Franklin Evans sifts through art history and “materiality” to create installations about making work, imparting a chaotic, contagious, and obsessively freewheeling pursuit of that experience to the observer.

Jess Fuller attaches flattened volumes of canvas resembling empty and irregular biomorphic shapes or brush strokes to stretched canvas. The paint is sprayed, brushed, stained or stenciled underneath and on top of the applied shapes which often appear pale over saturated grounds and seem to alternate between improvised and planned. The overall effect purveys a merger of what perceive as traditionally masculine and feminine.

David Humphrey’s extreme and fractured visual perspectives come together with a wry wit that juxtaposes and blurs distinctions between figurative and abstract, the organic and geometric. The paintings often have huge brush marks that interact with references drawn from cartoons, family photos and amateur paintings to create stylistically heterogeneous images.

Stephen Maine’s layered printing process causes an optical shift in the perception of figure and ground through combining and juxtaposing luminous oppositional colors. The indirect, intentionally imprecise production method emphasizes surface while eliminating the “hand” and its implication of authorship, uniqueness, and control.

Daniel Rosenbaum’s paints using a variety of approaches, but in this show he is showing a painting that involves painting over classical canvas print to bring out the underlying abstract composition through the interweaving of expressionistic brushstrokes. This interplay of analog painting and digital printing techniques causes the viewer to think twice about what is print and what is paint.

Michelle Segre’s sculpture reminds one of American dream- catchers, Calder mobiles, and repurposed everyday materials like bread, rocks, wire, paper mache, and paint. Segre’s work brings us to a meeting place of visionary states, the ancient, the postmodern and a blurring of the homegrown and the manufactured.

Jennifer Sirey grows bacteria, creating a duality between her materials and display that pushes between and protrudes through planes of glass and suggests an otherworldly birth, science fiction, and the feminine. Her process gives the viewer a feeling of being a voyeur, while looking at something a bit sexy and possibly alive.