Jeff Gabel, David X. Levine, Monika Zarzeczna

Spencer Brownstone Gallery is pleased to present its summer group show, ‘This is not a Drawing’. Using Magritte’s famous surrealist work “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” as a point of departure, the exhibition investigates how drawing attempts to surpass its various limitations and take on the more esoteric qualities of other mediums. Whether the results of such attempts are sublime or contradictory, successful or floundering, all possess two realities; one that is two-dimensional and another that is independent of linear constraint.

‘This is not a Drawing’ will feature works on paper by three artists employing widely varying approaches to the medium.

Jeff Gabel’s graphite and colored pencil renditions of his personal blog – a wry and unique take on the generic web template and its seemingly mundane content (artistic ennui, creative angst) – turns the idea of blogging about art on its head, achieving a dynamic to which the strings of the commonplace no longer connect. These works are neither blog entries nor drawings but something entirely different.

David X Levine’s renderings of abstract shapes are executed with a heavy application of colored pencil that endows their surfaces with a severe waxy build up. Their simplicity quickly gives way to a zen-like complexity as if they aspire to exist in a realm that is more sculptural (read: Brancusi and Arp) than two-dimensional.

Monika Zarzeczna’s works incorporate a multitude of visual elements, -ranging from figurative to abstract and sacred to profane. Simultaneously scattered and compact, the placement of these elements is curiously off kilter and seemingly free-floating, while the juxtaposition of religious and secular imagery forges a Magrittian contradiction of sign and symbol.

Jeff Gabel was born in Portland, Oregon and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He makes small-scale pencil drawings that often revolve around routine day-to-day embarrassments, best-forgotten college experiences, or the artist’s unhealthy obsession with the rock band Kiss. He has shown at Artist Space, White Columns, the Weatherspoon Museum, and Spencer Brownstone Gallery.

David X. Levine was born in Boston, MA, and is a self-taught artist now living in New York City. His deep interest in poetry and popular music are reflected in the lyrical and sensitive quality of his color pencil drawings. Over the past 5 years he has had solo exhibitions at Cynthia Broan Gallery, NYC; Bodybuilder and Sportsman, Chicago; OSP/Steven Zevitas Gallery, Boston; and Dust Gallery, Las Vegas.

Monika Zarzeczna was born Warsaw, Poland, raised in the Netherlands and moved to New York in 2002. Her work consists of drawing, installations and includes a public art project in Nijkerk, the Netherlands and interactive sculptures in Brooklyn. She has exhibited in the Sculpture Center, JCAL, Pluto Gallery, NY, Repetti Gallery, NY, Washington Square Galleries, NY, David Castillo Gallery in Miami and in galleries and art institutions in the Netherlands.