Slate Gallery presents BLACK & WHITE, a group exhibition of paintings and works on paper by gallery artists: Miriam Cabessa, Keith Haring, JAMA, John Kindness, Christian Nguyen, Dorothy Robinson, Taney Roniger, Nickolas Roudané, and Gillian S. Wilson.

Whether working with acrylic on canvas or with graphite on paper, Miriam Cabessa momentarily removes our personal associations of color and allows the viewer to glimpse a basic of painting and drawing – the play of light and dark. Cabessa had a solo show in the Tel Aviv Museum in 1995, represented Israel in the 1997 Venice Biennale, and exhibited at the American Jewish Museum in Pittsburgh in 2007.

JAMA’s art is a unique symbolic language based on geometry that he uses to break down his observations of life into essential structures. Inspired by Aristotle’s order of the universe, JAMA believes that the circle is the construct of life. From a circular form he fuses other geometric shapes connecting them within a linear web of spontaneous strokes. When working in black and white, his underlying structure becomes more visible. Cuban-born JAMA exhibited in his native country and Costa Rica before he emigrated to the U.S. in 2001 where he has had solo shows in Miami and New York.

“Archaeologist, inventor, craftsman, and social critic, John Kindness thinks of his art-making as labor and frequently collaborates with skilled craftspeople—lace-makers, casters, ceramicists, printers—insisting that the exclusion of the “useful arts” from the “fine arts” inhibits our appreciation of all art. Born and raised in working-class Belfast, he mocks Irish sectarian violence with the heroes of classical mythology”* in an art that recycles images, materials, techniques, and styles. Kindness work is in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MA among others.

Christian Nguyen’s large-scale drawings incorporate elements from monumental structures from antiquity and mythology, and also borrow references from fictional and art historical spaces such as those described by Borges or Da Vinci. They invite the viewer to explore highly psychological and charged architectural interiors embedded in barren landscapes. Nguyen, born in Vietnam, has been a recipient of a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant.

Dorothy Robinson’s belief in the expressive possibilities of the painting process coupled with a deep fascination with the metaphor of landscape and the earth’s processes result in dramatic landscapes that capture not a moment but changes of forms, elements and events. Robinson has been a recipient of a Pollock Krasner Foundation grant.

Taney Roniger, a 2007 Yaddo fellow, explores and analyzes the complex codes found in nature and technology with monochrome painting. What is common to them is pattern, a result of an invisible code inherent in nature.

Nickolas Roudané’s fascination with perceptual phenomena such as pareidolia, perceiving recognizable forms in the abstract, and skrying methods are sources of inspiration for his hallucinatory and luminous black and white paintings. Roudané is a recent graduate of Pratt Institute.

Gillian S. Wilson, sculptor and curator, outlines the smudges and stains found on discarded paper and used coffee cups until forms appear revealing patterns like those found in geography and biology. The cumulative effect of her mappings records random movements through space and time.