Please join us for the opening reception of GLASS HOUSES, curated by Eddie Martinez.

DEREK AYLWARD, PATRICK BRENNAN, JOHN COPELAND, DENISE KUPFERSCHMIDT, LIZ MARKUS, SAMANTHA MOYER, SARA MURPHY, RYAN SCHNEIDER, JADE TOWNSEND

Werkstätte is pleased to present GLASS HOUSES, a group exhibition curated by Eddie Martinez. Indicated by its title, the exhibition explores the function of transparency and its ability to obscure delineations of interior and exterior. Incorporating painting and sculpture, these nine artists blur common boundaries by bringing nature indoors and domestic objects outdoors.

Derek Aylward is a painter living and working in Boston. Aylward integrates his everyday surroundings into his work with images of nature and the influence of folk art. Patrick Brennan’s Potluck (B.Y.O.B) is culled from a series he began in early 2008. Utilizing acrylic and oil paint, and collage elements including foam, popsicle sticks and gold mylar, the highly textural work functions as part painting and part sculpture. John Copeland’s large-scale paintings readdress traditional/classic compositions with loose brushwork, generous color and an excess of paint that drips. For Glass Houses, Copeland’s still life offers human figures now customary to his work whose faces are obliterated by impressionistic brushwork, and color. Denise Kupferschmidt creates images, idols, icons and ceremonial items that are part of her own myth. Her pieces for the show can be understood as domestic artifacts: cast plaster with collage and paint, Denise creates window-like objects directing the viewer to look through the patterned face.

Liz Markus has made a name for herself by creating color studies in poured acrylic paint on raw canvas that often tow the line between figuration and abstraction. While still considering the history of painting, the small canvases Markus made for the show are an enlargement of the practice: she offers plainly figurative works painted with a brush. Liz is represented by ZieherSmith.

Sam Moyer’s work tethers the ethereal with the commonplace. The completed incarnation of a work begun for the Dark Fair at the Swiss Institute, she presents fifteen garbage bags made to look like a New York City pile of trash. Each bag is fitted around an armature that supports a 40 watt light bulb; Moyer then pokes thousands of holes into the bags to create an inversed star scape effect.

Sara Murphy’s work for Glass Houses, her first New York City show, examines the concept of home and constitutions of space. Her imagery deals with houses and stacks of bricks – the materials of which houses are made. Sara applies layer upon layer of oil paint onto wood creating more of an object than a painting.

Ryan Schneider uses vibrant color and pattern to render his collage-like, psychological, and often voyeuristic, still life paintings and nudes. Like John Copeland, he redefines classic compositions in a contemporary manner. Schneider is represented by Priska Juschka Fine Art.

Jade Townsend works with materials such as sheet cardboard, latex, masking tape and pine armature to create sculpture and installation. The works are imbued with history as well as allegory: entire rooms “fall apart” at the seams to reveal the full narrative. Townsend is also represented by Priska Juschka Fine Art.

Eddie Martinez is an artist and curator represented by ZieherSmith in New York. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited widely, including: Galarie Loyal, Stockholm; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles and Peres Projects, Berlin. The artist recently released a dual-artist catalogue with artist Chuck Webster, published by PictureBox, Inc.