Michele Abeles Tony Cox Raina Hamner Marc Hundley James Richards Amy Yao

curated by David Benjamin Sherry

“The underpinning, the secret message, secret activity, is to relieve human suffering by communicating some kind of enlightened awareness of various themes, topics, obsessions, neuroses, difficulties, problems, perplexities that we encounter as we end the decade.” Allen Ginsberg, Wichita Vortex Sutra

BELLWETHER is pleased to announce the first in a series of group shows curated by our gallery artists. Artists frequently keep company with other artists they admire and whose ideas resonate with their own. This series aims to situate the artist-curator within the context of their peer group and generation. First up is David Benjamin Sherry, a new artist to the gallery who will be having his debut show opening September 10, 2009.

Michele Abeles photographs are intended to coax the viewer into making their own connections between images. They are figments from the real world that read like a novel or movie to suggest the media-driven, twisted nature of contemporary human consciousness. Abeles’ work forms a slightly sinister world where nothing is as it seems and the mood is one of threat and anxiety. Born in 1977, Abeles graduated with an MFA from Yale University in 2007. Abele has recently exhibited at the Prague Biennale 4 The Newest New York, Nymphot,: Conversations Vol I at the Sasha Wolf Gallery in New York, and at the Co-Lab gallery in Denmark. Abelescurrently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Tony Cox creates a tapestry of patchwork memories. Through the teachings of his grandmother, Cox learned that handcrafted work could not be matched by machine. Through her influence, common everyday items took on new meaning by way of creative recycling. Shaped with patience and discipline, Cox’s images are assembled from places he experienced through timeless wandering, using everyday materials that are unique to their place of origin. Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1975, Cox has exhibited in American Fine Arts gallery in New York, Deitch Protects in New York, James Fuentes in New York, Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, New Image art Gallery in Los Angeles, and FD gallery in Barcelona, Spain. Cox currently lives and works in New York City.

When Raina Hamner made these paintings, she had left her home in New York City to live alone in the forest. This instinct to free herself from self-created and learned restrictions has led to a series of wild and unfettered paintings that break down habits of representation. With no planning and no idea for a narrative, Hamner tries to surprise herself with what can unfold when one is released from one’s world and expectations. Hamner lives and works between New York City and Woodstock.

Marc Hundley makes work to commemorate meaningful experiences from both his personal life and those lives of people close to him. Choosing accessible methods and materials, often from popular culture and found photographs, Hundley’s D.I.Y style of paintings and drawings can be easily recognized and experienced among strangers. A Canadian by birth, Hundley has lived and worked in New York for the past 15 years.

Whether working with re-edited found footage, curating artists’ videos, or making sculptures and assemblages from existing objects and images, James Richards’ work is about the inverting of the mass archive into the personal. Born in Cardiff, Wales in 1983 Richards gained his BA Honors in Fine Art at the Chelsea School of Art and Design, London in 2006. Since graduating, Richards has been involved in many group shows both in Europe and internationally, including Nought to Sixty at the ICA in London, and Younger Than Jesus at The New Museum in New York. Richards currently lives and works in London.

Shortly before attending graduate school on the east coast Amy Yao would often attend Screwball Dance Club, her friend’s DJ night in West Hollywood. Screwball Dance Club inspires the body of artworks on display that for Yao embody emotional freedom found through a psychological exploration of personal styles, abstraction, marginalization, and a reshuffling of the deck. Born in Los Angeles, California, Yao graduated with an MFA from Yale University in 2007 and a BFA from Art Center College of Design in 1999. She has recently shown her work in group exhibitions at Rachel Uffner Gallery in New York, Andrew Kreps in New York, NOBODIES in New York, China Art Objects in California, and Rowley Kennerk Gallery in Chicago. She has been a participant of B’L’ing and organizer of the Art Swapmeet at High Desert Test Sites.