toomer labzda is proud to present its first group exhibition, step & repeat, featuring Marin Abell, Ivin Ballen, Alisa Baremboym & Leah Dixon. This exhibition brings together four artists whose work is connected through ritual and process.

Exploring the futility in performative sculptures, Marin Abell experiments with and fuses materials, bodies and environments, which fuel his continual pursuit of ‘unlearning’. In the collaborative video ‘Radio Zipline’, sound is treated as a tangible object, which generates an acoustic footprint. Footage is choreographed from different locations, playing side-by-side, attempting to harmonize the physical acoustics of the landscape by alerting the viewer to the irregularity of sound and movement.

Ivin Ballen’s recent cast paintings employ depictions of materials, such as cardboard, tape and clay, as well as tropes of modernist abstraction. Compositionally, these recent paintings draw influence from geological processes such as subduction and obduction. However their surfaces are more temporal, relying on the impression of common materials, as well as artistic processes that would imply both haste and intent.

Alisa Baremboym’s complex depictions revolve around domestic rituals of consuming and cleaning. Her abstractions incorporate images of food, which are photographed, manipulated and transferred onto textiles. The gesture of wiping the surface, becomes an act of abrasion in the work as cultural signifiers are captured, removed, repositioned and repurposed.

Leah Dixon processes publicized uprising and bloodshed in the media by collaging yoga mats. Emblems of war become graphic symbols, patterned and coded with direct visual reference to Afghan rugs and the practice of yoga. Amassed violent imagery is defused by the embodiment of prayer and self-observance assumed by the functionality of shape and materiality.

Marin Abell currently lives and works in Alabama, where he is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Sculpture Department of the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He received a BFA in sculpture from James Madison University and an MFA in sculpture and expanded practice from Ohio University. Abell has participated in numerous residencies and has performed at and exhibited extensively in the US, including the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art and the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art. He was recently awarded Smack Mellon’s ‘Hot Pick’ 2011 – 2012.

Ivin Ballen lives and works in Brooklyn. He received a BFA in sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Ballen has exhibited widely in New York, including two solo shows at Winkleman Gallery as well as recent inclusion in a group show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.

Alisa Baremboym, born in Russia, lives and works in New York. She received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and an MFA from Bard College, New York. Baremboym is represented by 47 Canal in New York. She has exhibited nationally in numerous group exhibitions, including White Columns, New York, is currently on show at SHOWROOM, New York and will make her London debut at Regina Gallery this year.

Leah Dixon lives and works in New York. She received her BFA in Drawing and Painting from the Ohio State University. Dixon has curated exhibitions in New York and Miami and founded an artist studio program, which ran for four years in New York. She has exhibited nationally and is currently focusing on her solo show at toomer labzda in 2012.