JENN FIGG / TRICIA KEIGHTLEY AT PROJECT 4

JENN FIGG
TRICIA KEIGHTLEY

April 24 - May 29, 2010
Reception: Saturday, April 24, 2010 - 6:30-8:30 pm

Project 4 presents a two-person exhibition featuring paintings by Tricia Keightley and sculptures by Jenn Figg. By discerningly entwining a pastiche of industrial and commercial scraps, these artists interpret the urban environment and create composed yet frenetic arrangements.

Works by Keightley and Figg incorporate materials and objects that take on new energies when removed from their historical, functional or physical context. Keightley, through her meticulous abstract acrylic paintings representing, for example, antiquated engineering elements, and Figg, through her technique of combining found objects and commercial items with an eccentric sensibility, depict intriguing contemplations on our past, present and future material culture. Both artists are currently based in New York City.

Project 4
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor, Washington, DC 20009
tel: 202 232 4340 
infoATproject4galleryDOTcom
http://www.project4gallery.com/

THE FANTASTICAL / Project 4

Justin Gibbens
Julie Hughes
Mel Kadel
Jordan Kasey
Sophie Ruspoli

March 13 - April 17
Opening reception: Saturday, March 13, 2010 - 6:30 - 8:30 

Project 4 presents a group exhibition of works that express scenes, realities and spaces peculiarly situated away from our familiar, everyday visual experience. Artists participating in The Fantastical exhibition present works where, either by revealing idiosyncrasies of the artist’s mind or by altering commonplace appearances to create new perspectives, fantastical realms arise in conjunction with existing curiosities and tension.

While each of these artists takes inspiration from natural, experiential reality, their imagination and emotional self bends the linearity of this reality. Northwest-based draftsman Justin Gibbens takes inspiration from thickets, undergrowth and odd fauna to create brilliantly imaginative Audubon reminiscent watercolors and collages. His treatment of the paper causes these pieces to appear as if they themselves come from a distant and strange domain. Also working on paper, Los Angeles based artist Mel Kadel’s enigmatic characters traverse transcendent and cerebral spaces while encountering curious challenges of the mind and body.

Expanding on the genre of landscape, Baltimore artist Jordan Kasey and Washington DC based photographer Sophie Ruspoli both create stages where mystifying phenomena can occur. Kasey’s immersive painting, “Sunrise” depicts a serene and extraordinary land, where existence seems eerily suspended. Ruspoli, using the factual medium of the camera lens, manipulates the architectural functions of a 4 x 5 camera to capture surreal views of nature, different from what the human eye is capable of naturally perceiving. A second floor sculptural installation by Los Angeles based artist Julie Hughes physically represents an other-worldly environment inspired by such terrestrial and complex structures such as human bone and mold, adding further dimension to this exhibit’s exploration of the fantastical space that exists just beyond rational thought.

Project 4
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor,
Washington, DC 20009
202 232 4340 
http://www.project4gallery.com/

Adam “5100” Feibelman at Project 4

ADAM "5100" FEIBELMAN

Underbelly

January 30 - March 6, 2010
Reception: Saturday, January 30, 2010 - 6:30-8:30 pm

Project 4 presents a solo exhibition of paintings by San Francisco based artist, Adam “5100” Feibelman. Drawing from historical influences in photography, printmaking and painting and combining them with the contemporary process of graffiti, Adam “5100” Feibelman creates photorealistic, monochromatic scenes reminiscent of the grit of industrial cities.

Using a photograph as a guide, Adam “5100” Feibelman disects the image into multiple meticulously hand-cut stencils. One by one, stencils are applied to a wood panel with spray paint in the manner of printmaking, a medium specific to the artist's background and personal studio practice. The object produced takes on the form of a painting and a genre most closely related to photorealism. The result is an image that refers back to the photographic image with the craft of the original image elevated to a new status resulting from a skillful, specifically hand-made process.

Project 4
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor,
Washington, DC 20009
tel: 202 232 4340
http://www.project4gallery.com

CORNELIA SCHULZ at Project 4

 

Cornelia Schluz

December 23, 2009 - January 23, 2010
Reception: Saturday, January 16, 2010 - 6:30pm - 8:30 pm

Project 4 presents a solo exhibition of San Francisco abstract painter, Cornelia Schulz.   The bold perimeters of Schulz's paintings matched with the intricate and refined surfaces, result in an engaging dialogue between grand modernist ideals and reflective, personal reverie.

Schulz sophisticatedly manipulates the oil paint, alkyd resin and acrylics that spread throughout and emerge from her assembled shaped canvases.   Having been educated in painting around the same time as iconic 1960's painters such as Richard Tuttle and Elizabeth Murray, similarities in sensibilities and experimentation with shaped canvases are certainly evident in Schulz's work.  Continuing also in the footsteps of artists such as Barnett Newman and Frank Stella, she sought to redefine the rectilinear orientation of the art object.  In this exhibition, Schulz presents some of her most recent paintings where abstract, biomorphic and at times floral forms coat segments of her constructed compositions while applying her contemporary, idiosyncratic handwriting to a historically rich concept.   

Cornelia Schulz exhibits with Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco.  Since 1962, she has exhibited at such prestigious institutes as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the University Art Museum, Berkeley, California and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC, along with many other commercial galleries around the country.  In 1973, Schulz began teaching at the University of California, Davis, where twice she chaired the Art Department. In 2002, Schulz retired with the title of Professor Emeritus.

Project 4
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009202 232 4340 
http://www.project4gallery.com/

Laurel Lukaszewski at Project 4

November 6 - December 18, 2009

If you haven't been over to Project 4, you are in for a real treat. Stop by and see the work of Laurel Lukaszewski. Laurel is a founding member of Flux Studios, in Mt. Rainier, MD. Laurel Lukaszewski creates installations and sculptures primarily from clay—usually porcelain or stoneware. Most of Laurel's works are composed of extruded forms resembling three-dimensional line drawings or calligraphic brushstrokes.

There's no denying when you walk into Project 4 that the artists work is captivating and inspired. A realm of porcelain transforms the space into a statement that bridges poetry, nature and the transient nature of existence, a must see during the final week. The exhibition pairs beautifully with the well designed space in midtown DC.

While the artist is clearly inspired by specific forms from the natural world, her poetic installations come to evoke a more abstract sense of the transient beauty present in all of our experience, physical and emotional.  Lukaszewski explains that the phrase "icho-go ichi-e", which derives from the Japanese tea ceremony, corresponds to the work in this exhibition serving "both as an encouragement to seize the day and as a memorial for what has been lost."  

Project 4
www.project4gallery.com
1353 U St NW # 302
Washington, DC 20009-4444
(202) 232-4340

Laurel Lukaszewski at Project 4

a solo exhibition of new works by local ceramics artist, Laurel Lukaszewski. 

November 6- December 18, 09

The conception of this body of work arises from the artist's interest in the Japanese phrase, "ichi-go ichi-e", which roughly translates to "one moment, one time" in English. 

The simple and elegant individual porcelain forms that Lukaszewski creates for this exhibition become rich and expansive installations throughout the gallery.

Project 4
1353 U street NW, 3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009
202 232 4340

DIANE BURKO

through November 30th 2009 

On exhibit in the lobby at 901 E Street NW, Washington, DC

Project 4 and Pew Charitable Trusts present a solo exhibition of paintings and photographs by Philadelphia-based artist, Diane Burko. This particular body of work is part of a series inspired by the artist’s travels to Iceland. Burko’s interest sprung from Iceland’s fame as the most volcanic country in the world and its breathtaking scenes of glaciers, geysers and waterfalls. From land and air, she photographed landscapes that captured unconventional views of spectacular natural spaces.

Burko’s canvases depict a perspective of space that is expansive and monumental, yet simultaneously visceral. Her photographs reveal intimate structures and details found within nature. Both media, however, hover between abstraction and representation as they honor complexities of nature as well as the process of painting.

Diane Burko received her BA from Skidmore College and her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. Throughout her distinguished career, she has been awarded numerous fellowships and grants including a substantial public art commission sponsored by the Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia and the Marriott Hotel. Burko’s work is included in many public collections and she has participated in lectures and symposia throughout the United States.

Project 4
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor, Washington, DC 20009
202 232 4340
http://www.project4gallery.com/

RELATIVELY EPIC / RAYMOND UHLIR

Raymond Uhlir, I am Not Your Father

September 19 - October 24, 2009
Opening Saturday, September 19, 6:00 - 9:00pm

Project 4 presents, “Relatively Epic” by Raymond Uhlir. The artist’s first solo exhibition at Project 4 reveals a winding narrative not only within the paintings themselves, but throughout the entire gallery space as the viewer moves from one piece to the next. The clean crafted, meticulous paintings reminiscent of cartoon cells reflect on human interaction and drama as they set the stage for Uhlir’s epic.

Uhlir’s work is driven by the persisting conflicts among ideologies and mythologies and between rationality and religion in Western civilization. By combining influences from pop culture, art history and religious imagery, Uhlir creates allegories, which confront these conflicts and present them in startling and fantastical scenes.

Project 4
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009
202 232 4340
http://www.project4gallery.com/

MARGARET BOOZER : DIRT DRAWINGS

Jun 27 – August 16, 2009
Artist’s talk, July 25, 2:00pm
@
AU Museum at the Katzen
4400 Massachusetts Ave

Free and open to the public.

In these installations of unfired local clays, Boozer's graphic compositions of color, pattern and texture create small geologic events, manifestations of cause and effect celebrating clay's physical properties. Colors change, shapes warp, cracks emerge as counterpoint to the artist's hand in these fragile and mutable works that cross genres between painting and sculpture, abstraction and representation.

FOON SHAM show closing: June 13, 2009

Foon Sham at Project 4: (Phone) Book Smart By Jessica Dawson
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, June 5, 2009
(Washington post online article link: here)

Artist Foon Sham works so subtly that we strain to detect even his most radical modifications. The Northern Virginia-based sculptor adheres to a narrow vocabulary of form, turning out objects that rework the urn, the totem, the helix and other, mostly natural forms.

Until now, Sham's go-to material has been wood -- chips and tiles of it, some prefabricated, others with their bark still attached -- that he stacks to form his structures. Sham still embraces his hardwoods, but a new material has entered the lexicon.

Though his 12 works on view at Project 4 replicate familiar forms -- towers and totems and stacked wall pieces -- fully half employ a radical new building block: the phone book.

Glenn Harper, editor of Sculpture Magazine, writes, "...it is clear that Sham's work always approaches the viewer with more than a discrete aesthetic experience. His work approaches you through multiple perceptions and cognitions, channeled through the artist's as well as the viewer's conceptual and palpable experience of the world...the smooth and rough, the laminated and carved, the singular and the stacked, the minimal and the multiple are all integral aspects of the work."


For additional information please contact:
Anne Surak, director

Project 4
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009
202-232-4340
info[at]project4gallery.com
http://www.project4gallery.com/

Hours: Wednesday - Friday 2:00 - 6:00 pm, Saturday noon - 6:00 pm and by appointment.
(located at the intersection of 14th Street and U street NW)
Metro Access: Project 4 is easily accessible by metro. Project 4 is located one block west of the green line U St/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo metro station, 13th Street exit.

Galleries: Foon Sham at Project 4 - washingtonpost.com

Foon Sham
May 9 - Jun 13, 2009

Project 4, Foon Sham, Sculpture Exhibition

Project 4, Foon Sham, Sculpture Exhibition

Foon Sham, interior of wrapture, 2008, 71.5” x 27” x 26”, black walnut

(Photo Credits: Anne Marchand, Published Courtesy Project 4 and the Artist)

I posted an earlier article on Foon Sham's exhibition on view at Project 4. Today's Washington Post writer, Jessica Dawson has a great review on Foon Sham and his sculpture at Galleries: Foon Sham at Project 4 - washingtonpost.com.
You still have time to see this excellent sculpture exhibit!
www.project4gallery.com

Project 4
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009
202-232-4340
info[at]project4gallery[dot]com
wednesday-saturday, 12:00-6:00 pm and by appointment

Highlight/ Project 4 / Foon Sham

Project 4 has a light airy space at 1353 U Street NW that's just right for exhibiting the sculpture of Foon Sham. Up a flight of stairs, thru an unmarked door, onto a sculpture deck and the gallery invites you into it's two tiered space. A colossal work by Foon Sham towers in the twenty foot atrium, giving visitors a unique view of the sculpture from the 2nd level. You can peer over the balcony and look down into the work to see it's construction. I like the way Mr. Sham puts pieces of wood together to create undulating forms from geometric shapes. Many of these larger works combine the look of a vessel with references to architecture in the warmth of natural wood. Foon Sham's addition of recycled phone book pages into his work, links ideas of identity, population, and the environment to these evocative pieces. I highly recommend a trip to see this exhibition. Seek out this unique gallery perched on top of the 14th and U St corridor and treat yourself to a fabulous art experience.

Foon Sham
May 9 - Jun 13, 2009

Foon Sham, Opening Night
Spiral Vessel, 32 ” x 45” x 65”, phillipine mahogany

Gallery Director, Anne Surak (R) and visitors

Wrapture, 71.5” x 27” x 26”, black walnut

Opening night at Project 4, Foon Sham, Sculpture Exhibition

Opening night at Project 4, Foon Sham, Sculpture Exhibition

Opening night at Project 4, Foon Sham, Sculpture Exhibition

Opening night at Project 4, Foon Sham, Sculpture Exhibition

Project 4 is a new voice in the growing Washington D.C. art scene. The gallery's programming promotes an international, forward-thinking exhibition schedule of contemporary art and design. Focusing on one-person shows and thematic exhibitions by mid-career and emerging artists, the gallery also invites guest curators to host exhibitions emphasizing trends in contemporary art and design. It is, in effect, a room for art and ideas spanning a range of cultural issues. -from Project 4 Website

THE SPACE

The gallery is 1000 square feet on two levels, including a twenty-foot double-height space. Designed by Washington based architecture firm Inscape Studio, the gallery is meant to be flexible and provide a platform for a variety of media including installation, video, sculpture and site specific works. Project 4 is located at the intersection of historic 14th and U Streets NW, a burgeoning area of restaurants, galleries, bars and stores half a mile east of Dupont Circle. It is less than one block from the U Street-Cardoza stop on the Metro's Green Line.

-----------------------------------------------

Project 4 is in a building that houses the 2,000 square feet Hamiltonian Gallery owned by physics professor Paul So. The current exhibition at Hamiltonian, "FELLOWS CONVERGE: Redefining the Environment," is a group exhibition marking the culmination of the Hamiltonian Fellowship's first year. Exhibiting artists include: Helen Frederick, Christian Benefiel, Tom Block, Anne Chan, Ian MacLean Davis, Leah Frankel, Linda Hesh, Mike Dax Iacavone, Youngmi Organ, Bryan Rojsuontikul and Michael Enn Sirvet. The galleries are located in a neighborhood with several other contemporary arts galleries, including, Hemphill Fine Arts, G Fine Art and Gallery Plan B.

Project 4
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009
202-232-4340
info[at]project4gallery[dot]com
wednesday-saturday, 12:00-6:00 pm and by appointment

FOON SHAM

Foon Sham, pages, natural or manmade, 2009, 9.25” x 21.5” x 3”, wood and phone books

May 9 - June 13, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 9, 6:00-9:00pm

Project 4 presents a solo exhibition by Washington DC based sculptor Foon Sham. From their overall composition to how each component fits together, Foon Sham’s intricate wood sculptures utilize principles of design and nature to create a complex, synthetic poetry. In his deepening study of structure the work has become more architectural in its reference to building as well as to the human body and the environment.

Sham's current body of work continues this exploration of space through material by appropriating recycled phone book pages into the sculptural forms. The project began in China as a comment on population and identity, but has evolved into a conversation about his preferred medium, wood, and its relationship to the environment.

Project 4
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009
202 232 4340
http://www.project4gallery.com/

Hamiltonian Artists / So-Hamiltonian Fellowship Program

Hamiltonian Artists and Project 4 are hosting an evening of music, hors d'oeuvres and wine for a fundraiser for the So-Hamiltonian Fellowship Program on April 8th, 2009, with the music performed by the Formalist Quartet. The Formalist Quartet is a string ensemble dedicated to the performance of adventurous and relevant repertoire, focusing on contemporary pieces as well as exploring a diverse spectrum of early baroque music.

Doors open at 7pm and tickets are $25. Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling the gallery directly at 202.332.1116. Some tickets will be available the evening of the show but those interested are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance. Proceeds raised will help further the So-Hamiltonian Fellowship Program and aid the future endeavors of our fellows.

Hamiltonian Artists
1353 U Street, NW (14th and U Streets)
Washington, DC 2009
202.332.1116

Anthony Pontius / Why on Earth?

the ill-fated march of a ploughed jogger

2007, oil on panel, 30"x36"

January 31 - March 7

Opening reception:
Saturday, January 31, 6 - 8:30pm

Project 4
1353 U Street NW
WASHINGTON, DC
202 232 4340

MARGARET BOOZER / Artist Talk at Project 4

Accumulation
Artist talk: Saturday, January 10, 2:00 pm
Washington DC based sculptor Margaret Boozer

Margaret Boozer approaches ceramics with an eye for painting and a mind for experimentation. She encourages clay’s physical properties to express themselves in unpredictable manifestations of cause and effect. Drying, warping, cracking- small studio processes echo large geologic events as clay reclaims its origin as earth. Boozer disguises her hand underneath clay’s distortions, then claims authorship with carefully orchestrated compositions driven by the randomness of the result. The work is unexpectedly recognizable as a variety of subject matter that crosses genres between representation and abstraction, painting and sculpture

Project 4
1353 U Street NW
3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009
202 232 4340
http://www.project4gallery.com/

MARGARET BOOZER

accumulation
dec 11, 08 - Jan 17, 09

artist talk:
sat, Jan 10, 2:00 pm


Project 4 has moved. their new address:

1353 u street nw
3rd floor
washington, dc 20009

MARGARET BOOZER

Accumulation

December 11, 2008 - January 17, 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 11, 6:00-8:30 pm
Artist talk: Saturday, January 10, 2:00 pm

Margaret Boozer approaches ceramics with an eye for painting and a mind for experimentation. She encourages clay’s physical properties to express themselves in unpredictable manifestations of cause and effect. Drying, warping, cracking- small studio processes echo large geologic events as clay reclaims its origin as earth. Boozer disguises her hand underneath clay’s distortions, then claims authorship with carefully orchestrated compositions driven by the randomness of the result. The work is unexpectedly recognizable as a variety of subject matter that crosses genres between representation and abstraction, painting and sculpture.

For additional information please contact:
Anne Surak, director
Lily DeSaussure, assistant director

Project 4 
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor, Washington, DC 20009
tel: 202 232 4340  
http://www.project4gallery.com/

Thomas Müller at Project 4

Nov 8- Dec 6, 2008

Project 4 presents a solo exhibition of work by Los Angeles-based artist Thomas Muller. Employing photography, sculpture and other media, Muller creates time-based installations that emphasize relationships between seemingly disparate objects and images. Through these ostensibly absurd associations he hopes to stress similarities and accentuate opposites in order to create a visual and conceptual tension.

As conceptual artists before him, Muller challenges the viewer to contemplate his definition of art and question what exactly that is.

Artist talk: Saturday, November 8, at 4:00 pm.
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 8, 6:00 - 9:00 pm

Project 4

Friday Night Gun Fight

A solo exhibition of new works by New York-based artist MICHAEL SCOGGINS .

September 20 - October 25, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 20, 6:00 - 9:00pm


Making reference to Naive Art and Art Brut, Scoggins creates large-scale trompe l’oeil replications of scrawled sheets of notebook paper to voice obscure political and psychological opinions. When he reveals his ostensibly personal views and emotions, he does so in a manner that is direct, but distorted by humor and irony. Scoggins’ scrawls feign a child’s perspective to make self deprecatory statements, jab at the political state of America and mock our social values. He achieves this by using fundamental and childlike imagery, language and materials —paper, markers, colored and graphite pencils and crayons. In this newest body of work, Scoggins comments on a range of issues spanning Washington, D.C.-gun control politics to mean girls. The works strive for grandeur in their larger than life size and boldness, but are restrained by the adolescent angst that remains to some degree in everybody.

Project 4