Spotlight on New Gallery Artists: Kathline Carr, Alexandra Rozenman and Shao Yuan Zhang
This months spotlight on new gallery artists we are featuring Kathline Carr, Alexandra Rozenman and Shao Yuan Zhang. Below the artists share a bit about their studio practice and their artwork.
Kathline Carr
"As an artist and writer with multiple practices, part of my hybrid process is figuring out how disparate elements of my work might fit together. Though byproducts of this process are what end up being the work, the struggle for integration is mostly not seen--like my studio!
My visual work is primarily landscape-based, in various forms of abstract interpretation; process-driven mark making; drawn forms derived from memory or motion; and cut/sewn fabric and paper. Cut paper in the form of stencils have been making their way into my work by means of monotype, spray painting or scanning/printing. I am pursuing cut paper into more sculptural forms lately, but continue to work with language and 2D images.
As an avid hiker, I am always looking at the shapes of things in nature and later drawing/painting the remembered or imagined shape. They can often be rock-like, or like the souls of rocks, which are very old and pure. Art practice is a lot like hiking: there can be very exciting moments, and once in a while the path opens up and reveals a completely wonderful perspective...but the bulk of the time is rather plodding, watching your feet and putting in the time."
Alexandra Rozenman
"I grew up in the Soviet Union where artistic freedom was repressed. My parents were dissidents and art-lovers. My imagination was stimulated by forbidden freedom and I have been painting for as long as I can remember. I grew up in Moscow and living in the Soviet Union. I received a tough classical education. Later on I abandoned it and ended up studying with well-known dissident artists. As a teenager I became part of Moscow alternative cultural scene of the 1980’s.
Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway by J.M.W. Turner
In 1988, I was 17 and my parents decided to leave Russia. This was the time of Perestroika and most young people of my age were full of hope and excitement about the future in Russia. That’s why I didn’t feel excited or ready to become an immigrant. Nevertheless, as I had no other choice but to follow my parents who were struggling at that time to make this fearless decision. I started reading books about modern American Art. As I read in a kind of chaotic way I felt rather confused. Based on my readings, I concluded that if I wanted to become a real artist in America I had to go to New York.
However, in 1989 I found myself in Pasadena, California. That’s where my aunt who sponsored our trip lived. Pasadena shocked me. I felt like I had landed into another planet. I started looking for ways to move to New York and found a program “Studio Semester in New York,” which if accepted would give artists studios to work in and an art-world related job. My small studio space on Lower East Side had no heat and pieces of plywood in broken windows. Somehow it did not bother me. I thought it was how American dreams must be built.
I worked many jobs including some very exciting ones, I was an art assistant to Douglas Davis as his Russian/English translator in Ronald Feldman Gallery for a few months. I was lucky to get a job as a baby sitter in the house of a retired ballet dancer who was opening an Art School. She hired me as an instructor and my American teaching career began without me knowing. I knew very few people and my English was far away from what it should have been. I felt tired, insecure and frustrated and New York became unbearable to me. I applied to Graduate schools in 1993 because I had no idea what else to do. After being accepted to Museum School I moved to Boston.
For the last 5 years I have been working on a series originally titled “Transplanted,” which focuses on humorous narratives of me cohabiting, moving with, running to, waiting for … etc. with famous artists. By inserting myself into the painting, I point out the irony of living with an artists work as it relates to me. I immerse myself into the lives and works of artists for inspiration and the history of painting. I research vistas or scenes of everyday life during the eras of the artists who I metaphorically meet, and mix it with mine. Through this series I touch upon issues of artistic influence and dialogue, emulation and creativity, continuity as well as discontinuity in contemporary art and the world as a whole."
Shao Yuan Zhang
"I lived in China before moving to the United States in 1988. Since then, I've lived in California, Utah and Boston, where I currently reside. I finished my undergraduate program in painting in China and finished my graduate program in printmaking in the United States. My early training is deeply rooted in traditional Chinese ink painting and western printmaking, which piqued my interest in minimalist colors. I love the simplicity and purity of a such a color palette, but also its richness, versatility and beauty. I aim to achieve simple, yet deep beauty in my oil paintings.
Over the past year, I have been exploring and experimenting with the integration of Chinese art concepts and elements into my current artwork. The marriage of my bicultural experience is directly reflected in my equestrian works.
I express my feelings and understanding of the world through my art. In the process of expression, I focus my attention on the process itself and the process of understanding, application and exploration of the medium, materials, tools and techniques of painting. Painting is a process of establishment, destruction and re-establishment. New discoveries are constantly made in these processes. Every ounce of "damage" to the existing image brings new possibilities and opportunities that are simultaneously surprising and encouraging."