Katherine Bernhardt and the "Knock-off Couture"

Katherine Bernhardt's paintings are copied from the glossy pages of Vogue Magazine and other Fashion Giants. She rips apart these perfection striving images and leaves them dripping with life in mammoth gestural incarnations. Katherine captures the best part of fashion: power and desire.

Katherine is represented by Canada gallery , and part of the Saatchi Collection.

Acrylic on Canvas, courtesy of Canada Gallery, NY

Liz Rywelski's American Portraits

image courtesy of space 1026 and the Tehran Biennial
image courtesy of space 1026 and the Tehran Biennial




In these portraits, artist, Liz Rywelski , visits Kmart stores, creates a temporary identity and then asks for the assistance of the store’s employees in having her portrait taken.

On one trip she is a recent college graduate, hoping to take pictures to send to her family. On another trip, she is the fiance of a soldier stationed in Iraq, and wants to send her beau a portrait. She introduces herself to some of the employees as a customer in need of assistance, creative assistance, and then allows herself to become a canvas for their creativity and their sense of style. She asks them to choose clothes for her, makeup, accessories, and then in the in-store photo studio, staffed by an untrained photographer, she allows them to select the best backdrop, props and poses.

Rywelskis project is based on her role as facilitator as opposed to singular creator. However, instead of collaborating with a singular artist-genius, Rywelski collaborates with the employees of Kmart, working individuals whose low-wage employment at a large retailer has been expurgated of most substantive creativity. She allows these employees to transform their role as wage-laborers into creators – working with them in the store, they become Rywelski’s master printers.

text courtesy of Space 1026

"Celebration" by Raul Denieves

Raul was the only male artist included the "Multi Faceted Female" show. Asked to make a portrait of his mother, "Celebration" is the cosmic outcome of this request. Birthing a child, she is a mother, she is the moon, she shines off the light of her own creation. A Mardi-Gras Madonna, she celebrates her labor with an explosive fervor; just like the artist himself. Made entirely of tape, glue and beads, she is a vivid testament to the immense beauty and possibility inherent in simple tools and "low art" craft objects.

Raul is represented by Newman Popiashvili Gallery

sculpture. 8'x4'x'4. tape, glue, beads, mixed media.
courtesy of the artist.

White Violet by Logan White

Logan White is able to capture an exquisite subtlety of narrative through her photographs. "White Violet" is a body of work that speaks of femininity, enigmatic beauty, coming of age, and the underlying supernatural mystery of it all. Her voice is humble but profound as one can sense an admittance of the unknown, divine beneath the face value of her portraits still lives, and collages.

"White Violet" 2009
Photographic Body of Work. 28 color archival prints.

Renata Mann's World Wide Web

Jeweler Designer by trade, Renata Mann extends her trademark woven necklaces into an intricate luminescent web. Mann has the ability to weave together disparate materials into a homogeneous whole and breath energy through her designs. "The world wide web" seems vibrant and alive, likened both to an insect's nest, as well as human communication networks.

"World Wide Web"
Installation 2009
fishing line, glass beads, stringed lights, mixed media

The Mother Board by Molly Lowe

The Motherboard, a Cockpit.

A control center, a thinking cell, an active brain.

Made nearly entirely of found materials and recycled trash, the mother board asks us to cross into an internal system of semiotic processors and configurations, as signs tell us to "touch/don't" "go/stop" "male" "female". This complex system leads one to ultimately wonder "who designed this?", as Lowe's aesthetic makes no attempts to hide the make shift, DIY approach holding together this artificial intelligence. What is the organic reasoning dictating this control device, and what is it controlling?

A compelling view on notions of electrical motherhood, the desire to communicate with the unknown, and the need to control.

"Mother Board"
Installation 2009.
Found objects, cardboard, plastic, christmas lights, black paint.

The Multi Faceted Female

A celebration of the female in her many forms.