toomer labzda is proud to present birds, bodies and bricolage, which includes painting, sculpture, audio and works on paper by six artists: taylor baldwin, jerry blackman, jason brinkerhoff, patrick coyle, jason gringler and bram muller. forms and materials are dissected, appropriated and reassembled to create identities, foreign to their original state.

through practices that break and build, themes of creation and destruction, representation and abstraction are displayed. new visual vocabularies are made as each artist tries to navigate the gravity of both historical and current events with a touch of delicacy and humor.

taylor baldwin’s campaigner is a severed human arm, frozen in an iconic gesture of political activism, becoming a symbol of violence and trauma in its isolation. Born in Tucson, Arizona in 1983, he lives and works in Virginia. Baldwin received a BFA in sculpture from RISD in 2005 and an MFA in sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007. He’s been awarded two fellowships at the Fine Arts Work Center, in Provincetown, Massachusetts, as well as at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Seven Below Arts Initiative in Burlington, Vermont. He has had solo exhibitions at Conner Contemporary Art in D.C. and Land of Tomorrow Gallery in Louisville Kentucky. His work has been exhibited at the Queens Museum of Art, Tucson Museum of Contemporary Art and P.P.O.W. Gallery, as well as in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Providence, Richmond, and Istanbul.

jerry blackman fabricates through an additive and subtractive process by imitating and pairing natural and synthetic objects. Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1984, where he lives and works. He received his BFA from Cooper Union School of Art, NY in 2006 and has been part of numerous group shows in New York galleries including Benrimon Contemporary and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise. He was recently accepted for the MFA program at Yale University.

jason brinkerhoff’s collages use fragmentation as a way to investigate the imagery of the human body; his deconstructed and reconstructed figures are both interrogations and re-imaginings of the female form. Born in Berkeley, CA in 1974, he lives and works in Menlo Park, CA. He recently had a solo exhibition, Some Women, at White Columns, New York and through White Columns, his work was exhibited at NADA Miami 2011 and the Independent Art Fair, NY. He was in a group show Grasping for Relics at ZieherSmith, NY and there he organized Other Bodies, an exhibition of found photographs drawn from Brinkerhoff’s personal collection.

bram muller’s schubird series is a tongue-in-cheek conceptual reconfiguration of musical history and nature where he digitally morphs the heads of famous composers and the bodies of birds onto the back of sheet music papers. Born in Groningen, Holland in 1977, muller lives and works in Brooklyn. He received his BFA from Academy Minerva in Groningen in 2004 (and he sneaked into a semester at Hunter college in 2001). Exhibiting only in the ever changing and expanding permanent collection in his own house – his artwork can be find in the finest bathrooms around the world. He claims Mrs. Toomer Labzda saved him from obscurity into relative obscurity.

patrick coyle’s park and backyard birds is one of a series of recent collages resulting from the simple act of layering a used sticker book page over a background image from the same book. The remaining text in the top layer describes the absurd new forms created by the leftover gaps in the page. Coyle has also recorded a rambling and tangential speech, which unites the collage, the artists in the exhibition, the owners of the gallery and the local wildlife. Born in Hull, England 1983 he is a London-based artist and writer. He completed MFA Art Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2010 and BA Fine Art at Byam Shaw, University of the Arts London in 2005. Recent exhibitions include CONCRETE POETRY, Hayward Concrete Cafe, London; Fig.3: I don’t know what to say, David Roberts Art Foundation, London; The Bottom Line, Tenderpixel Gallery, London and Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2010, A Foundation, Liverpool & ICA, London. Coyle has recently delivered performances at Spike Island, Bristol; The Mews Project Space, London; The Poetry Cafe, London; Arnolfini, Bristol; Flat Time House, London and Islington Mill, Salford. Recent publications include Timepieces (with Art on the Underground), Art Licks Magazine, ment journal, and the ICA’s Roland.

jason gringler’s fractured assemblages of smashed mirrors, wood and plexiglass are informed by painterly and sculptural vocabularies in a marriage of tactility and reflective ethereality. Born in Toronto, Canada in 1978, he lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and Toronto, Canada. He recently held a solo exhibition, September X at Galerie Stefan Ropke, Cologne, who also presented a solo project at VOLTA NY 2012. He has been included in group exhibitions in the USA, Canada and Europe and has held solo exhibitions in New York, Madrid and Munich, and is currently preparing a solo exhibition for Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy. In 2011, he was awarded a mid-career artist grant by the Ontario Arts Council.

*Modern Painters presents top 100 artists to watch (2012) includes jason brinkerhoff and patrick coyle