Exhibition Feature - DAVIS LAKE / BLOOM at 11 Newel Gallery
Jeff Kraus, Davis Lake, opening event, NFTs and painting installation, image courtesy of 11 Newel Gallery, 2022
11 Newel Gallery in Greenpoint, Brooklyn is pleased to present two solo exhibitions of the works by Jeff Kraus and Natan Lawson. The concurrent exhibitions, Davis Lake and Bloom, present paintings and NFTs forming a conversation around the nature of painting, process and digital art. The exhibition will be on view through March 27, 2022.
GALLERY CURATORIAL STATEMENT - In the two solo exhibitions, Davis Lake and Bloom, respectively by artists Jeff Kraus and Natan Lawson, 11 Newel gallery presents paintings and NFTs forming a conversation around the nature of painting, the process behind it and transposing digital art into the physical world.
Both artists use a process-driven approach to create images that draw the viewer’s attention to formal errors within the picture plane; from digital manipulations that reveal breaks in the structure of the pixelated image, to rebuilding the image once again through a meticulous process of ink transfer on canvas for Jeff Kraus, and a partnership between man and machine for Natan Lawson. The errant, misaligned, and deviant designs of both artists have character, and in this sense their breaks and abrasions take on the quality of signatures, evidence that something has happened and that someone caused it.
Jeff Kraus:
“Davis_Lake.24”, Pigment ink transfer on panel, 24 x 20 in
“Davis_Lake.30”, Pigment ink transfer on panel, 24 x 20 in
Thoughts on Davis Lake by Jeff Kraus:
Davis Lake explores a personal relationship to location, memory, and time through the use of everyday technologies such as an iPhone, a personal computer, and an inkjet printer. Digital panoramas collaged and glitched atop one another create a brief moment of stillness both familiar and foreign. In this impermanence, nature collapses against technology and new memories and landscapes are formed.
“Davis_Lake.16”, Pigment ink transfer on canvas, 40 x 54 in
“Davis_Lake.19”, Pigment ink transfer on canvas, 44 x 38 in
Natan Lawson:
“Bouquet”, Acrylic on canvas, 66 x 48 in
“Sound Garden 3”, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18 in
Thoughts on Bloom by Natan Lawson:
Bloom is a collection of 19 paintings that honor the flower as a collective symbol of hope and renewal. Compositions, colors, and scale collide to create work that seeks to elevate process, chance, and pure aesthetic enjoyment as necessary for life, and further, for metamorphosis.
“Which Came First”, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 66 in
“Metamorphosis (Wild Garden)”, Acrylic on Canvas, 48 x 33 in
Natan Lawson, Bloom, exhibition view, image courtesy of 11 Newel Gallery, 2022
Davis Lake and Bloom will be on display through March 27, 2022 at 11 Newel Gallery.
Check out our coverage of other current and recent art exhibitions
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES:
Jeff Kraus (b. 1985, Kalamazoo, MI) resides and works in Brooklyn, NY. In 2011 he received a BFA with an emphasis in Printmaking from Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Kraus’s work emphasizes the performative act of mark-making transcribed through formal explorations of the material. His approach to painting is immediate, compulsive, and rhythmic. Jeff has exhibited in galleries across Europe and the United States. He recently completed an artist residency at PADA Studios in Portugal. His work was featured in the Wall Street Journal and Whitehot Magazine.
Natan Lawson is a painter who produces hybrid artwork that intersects hand-made and computer-processed media. He collages imagery from an archive of collected printed materials that are simultaneously autobiographical and universal. He revisits bygone aesthetics as a meditation on collective and personal memory, producing paintings that echo traditional methods of creating images on a grid, especially textile production techniques like cross-stitch and weaving. This mechanical approach to painting involves misregistration, error, and imperfection, which impart the hand of the machine to the final work.
11 Newel Gallery Info
11 Newel Gallery champions emerging and mid-career artists at the crossroads of contemporary arts, new media and NFTs. The gallery’s programming consists of dynamic monthly exhibitions and special artist projects. We foster broader community building by inviting guest curators and studio residencies throughout the year.
Located in Greenpoint Brooklyn NY, 11 Newel opens to a luminous 3500 square feet space consisting of a main exhibition gallery, two project rooms and a storefront. A former dance studio, it was co-founded over the summer of 2021 by owner Christophe Sloan and artist Tessa Krieg.
