Long Story Short

bkartspace

Long Story Short

Curated by Karin Bravin

Opening Reception

Thursday, April 2, 7-9pm

On View

April 2 - May 8, 2015

Todd Bienvenu

Nicholas Borelli

Katherine Bradford

Hilary Doyle

Kenny Rivero

Halley Zien

The paintings in this exhibition are on the brink of quenching our thirst for a tale. They suggest, prompt, and hint, ultimately leaving the viewer to unfold the narrative. Whether painting a setting, small detail, or fuller scenario, these six artists wake up the storyteller in all of us.

Todd Bienvenu’s work focuses on the dark and hilarious side of Americana tempered with a deep understanding of art history and pop culture. He paints babes, boozers, buckets of blood, brawlers, and more. Katherine Bradford’s ambiguously narrative paintings hint at epic tales. Her extraordinary subjects have included ocean liners, superheroes, the sea, and most recently, outer space. Nicholas Borelli’s work draws from nature, biology, horror movies and science fiction. The figures he depicts struggle with the universal forces of entropy, loneliness, and anxiety. Fascinated by often unnoticed spaces, Hilary Doyle guides our eye to the evidence of others’ lives. Each detail is a clue to an imagined narrative: a paper cup from a lunch break, a teenager’s wad of gum, graffiti ghosts left by mysterious midnight cleaning crews. Through playful replication of surface texture, she draws us closer to the extraordinary aspects the banal. Kenny Rivero’s vignettes possess complex identities and specific historical auras. Rivero excavates, but he also builds. Most often there is a specific narrative within each work, a story layered with affiliations, loyalties, psycho-social histories, and per-

sonal as well as shared iconography. Made from collage and paint, Halley Zien’s densely populated surfaces suggest claustrophobic interior spaces packed with feverishly active, expressive figures. Her paintings, packed with manic characters, drag you into a world of psychodrama and tension.

Trestle Gallery

168 7th Street, 3rd Floor

Brooklyn, NY 11215

M - F, 11am - 6pm

Buzz 35 to enter building

718 858 9069

Contact: Mary Negro

Managing Director

[email protected]

quig

Wow, looks like it'll be a really fun show. 

Marking my calendar.