1 December, 2001 – 19 January, 2002
Exhibition
Opening reception: Saturday, December 1st, 6-8PM
The Spencer Brownstone Gallery is pleased to announce both Jeff Gabel’s and Jane South’s first solo exhibitions in New York.
For his first solo show in New York, Jeff Gabel presents a series of small pencil drawings he has been working on from 1994 until today. His drawings relate images with text. His ideas about culture and society are articulated in a witty and ironical manner. The drawings mirror reality in such a truthful yet subtle way that the viewer becomes intimately engaged.
“The essentials: The drawings consist of fiction in nearly all cases. There is a fair number of real stories with fictional accents and visual non-matches for characters. Most of the drawings initiate from thoughts or real memories, but they are heavily embellished for fun. Any resemblances to real people are accidents. A few such accidents have occurred, in which cases the stories refer to someone else, or to no one. Finally, there is a very small number of real stories that refer to real characters. These norms are not chosen principles. Invention and whim simply outperform taxonomy and prescription when I’m working.”
BACK GALLERY
Making sketches for the armatures of her large concrete sculptures, Jane South became curious about the activity of drawing in relation to sculpture. She was particularly interested in the possibility of combining the two forms while retaining a simultaneous sense of two- and three-dimensionality. She began to simplify, distort, and manipulate the drawings: cutting out the spaces and assembling the remaining linear webs into sculptural elements that sometimes appear like models of the larger sculptures. She suspends these paper structures off the wall with tiny paper hooks and lines. Attached to the wall, the sculptural constructions cast shadows that flatten them out into two-dimensions again. These two- and three-dimensional drawings describe a fragile and playful imaginary landscape of ambiguous perspective and scales.
The show will also include her latest animation project.
Artist Bio
After obtaining his Master of Fine Arts at Pratt Institute, Jeff Gabel has participated in several group shows in New York including Parker’s Box, White Columns and Artists Space. This is his first solo show. A catalog will be printed for this occasion and will be available from the opening date.
Winner of both a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant and a Yaddo Residency this year, Jane South is currently an Arthur Levitt Jr. Artist-in-Residence at Williams College, MA. After graduating at Central School of Art (now Central/St. Martins) in London, Jane South moved to the US where she completed her MFA and has since been involved in several group shows including 12 Views at the Drawing Center this year.