STOREFRONT (16 Wilson Avenue, Brooklyn) is pleased to open its fall season with AUSTIN THOMAS: Drawing on the Utopic. This exhibition features new collage and text pieces by the artist. An opening reception for the artist will be Friday, September 17 from 6-9PM. Storefront is open weekends 1-6PM or by appointment by calling 646-361-8512.

Austin Thomas’ collages are deceptively delicate studies. Sometimes caught in the act of unfolding against or through the gridded skin of a graph paper background they explore enduring thoughts about the speciation of drawing and sculpture.

Thomas’ varied performative actions and artworks may be broadly described as delineating and creating ‘social sculpture.’ In homage to Joseph Beuys’s famous formulation and the idea that social systems add up to (or can be rearranged to constitute) one great work of art. Her ‘practice’ has included Perches (hybrid sculptural/architectural objects around which events are created); an artist-run gallery in Bushwick; a traveling El Camino that provided a moving space for lectures about art; and many other public actions that have created spontaneous communities around art, discussion, and most recently a fresh air camp for kids and adults.

Thomas’ text pieces punctuate this varied practice by adding a relational narrative of overheard public conversations. These works appear to fall apart just when they begin to fall together-they’re sketches of the way life is, as organisms (like us) negotiate their desires across the permeable borders of being.

In a recent blog post Thomas writes, “Next up, experiments in and with new and different, reformed, informed and all encompassing forms of selfhood (folded, presented, performed, baked, butted, and drawn crooked).”

ALSO, ON EXHIBIT IN THE BACKROOM: PORTRAITS: new work by Leslie Alexander, Deborah Brown, KK Kozik, Amy Lincoln, Rebecca Litt, Matthew Miller,Mira Schor, Peter Schroth, John Silvis, Christopher Vazquez, Mary Jane Ward, Brenda Zlamany, and others.

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STOREFRONT is one of Bushwick’s leading gallery’s presenting both emerging young talent and established historically significant artists. Its exhibition program has been the featured in ARTNET MAGAZINE, THE CITYist, TIME OUT NEW YORK, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, NEW YORK PRESS, NEW YORK POST, THE NEW CRITERION, L MAGAZINE, THE BROOKLYN RAIL, THE NEW YORK TIMES, WNYC, and written about locally including BUSHWICKBK, GREENPOINT GAZETTE, WILLIAMSBURG GREENPOINT NEWS + ARTS. Visit www.storefrontbk.com for more information.

HOURS: Weekends 1:00-6:00PM or by appointment 646-361-8512.

DIRECTIONS: L train to Brooklyn, Morgan Avenue Stop. Walk four blocks on Morgan to Flushing Avenue. The gallery is located on Wilson Avenue between Noll and George Streets.