Lauriston Avery, Damian Catera and Richard Etkin

The Hogar Collection is pleased to present, The Great Unknown, a group exhibition featuring abstract works on paper, sound, video and photography by Lauriston Avery, Damian Catera and Richard Etkin. The varied works find commonalities in their uses of atmospheric and subjective subjects. They evoke ideas of ephemerality, concentrate on the subtleties of their creation and their visual existence is a captured record of that fleeting moment. As well they all posses a sense of controlled randomness at work, be it from sudden snapshots, sampled media or expressive brushstrokes, they all embrace the unknowingness of what comes next.

In Lauriston Avery’s works on paper, he has chosen the format of irregularly shaped circles that seem as if they could be spun out from the vortex of a black hole. Working with layers upon layers of thin washes of paint, he creates ever so subtle contrasts of color that resemble expansive and expanding universes. They portray a mood of darkness that proves to be alive by a glowing warmth of light that seems to emanate from their cores. Lauriston is an emerging artist living and working in New York and Brooklyn and this is his first exhibition at the gallery.

Damian Catera’s newest video, generated from bootleg super-8 concert footage is an exploration into the process of how memory is constructed and reconstructed as a discontinuity. The pure subjectivity of these less than perfect documentations of a contrived spectacle, lend themselves well to the conception of memory as a succession of ephemeral moments. As well, Catera will be presenting an algorithmic surround sound installation created from Beethoven’s Eroica. His work has been exhibited and performed at such venues as The Chelsea Art museum, The Kitchen, The Institute of Contemporary Art in Prague, The International Biennale of Contemporary Art (Prague), Art In General, The Jersey City Museum and The Hogar Collection among others.

In Richard Etkin’s most recent series of digital photographs, he presents to us the reflections and lights of the nighttime. Their allure resembles a slip into a familiar haziness. Like in a dreamy state of vertigo the images resemble oncoming headlights or the distant taillights to a groggy eye. The pictures are in the fashion of snapshots taken “along the way” that happen to delve into unknowing investigations of the minute and unseen. There is a commanding sensitivity to the confusion of his subject matter, that teeters on the edge of romanticism. Richard is also an emerging artist living and working in Brooklyn. He studied under the direction Guillermo Kuitca in Buenos Aires, Argentina and this is his second group show at the gallery.