NICOLE FIACCO GALLERY

The Nicole Fiacco Gallery is pleased to present UPSTATE II, the second in a series of exhibitions highlighting the work of four accomplished artists who live or work in the area, but who have had  limited regional exposure.

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Melora Kuhn (American b. 1971) will present a series of portrait paintings and related sculpture.  Kuhn uses found photographs combined with well known historic imagery to create a narrative for each sitter. Using the turn of the century photo booth as her model, Kuhn places a central character in front of a black and white backdrop, replacing the typical scenes of English gardens and French chateaus with images of sinking ships, bombed out houses and hurricane skies. With these combinations, Kuhn explores a singular and collective memory of events that reverberate to effect the present.  Kuhn is an internationally exhibited artist having been included in The Finland Biennial, Aboa Vertas Museum, Turku, Finland; Florence Biennale, Florence Italy and in gallery exhibitions in London, Paris, Munich, New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Seoul, Korea.  Kuhn studied Painting and Theory in Italy prior to earning her B.F.A. at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1994.  Kuhn recently moved to Germantown, NY from New York City.  Kuhn is represented by ZieherSmith in NYC.

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Catherine Mosley will exhibit a series of recent collaged paintings that embody notions of order/disorder.  A renowned printmaker, Mosley’s mixed media paintings are created by the artist printing and painting her own collage material, utilizing stencils, mono prints, various transfer processes and woodcuts.  The works combine 16” x 20” panels into larger works.  Mosley is interested in continuity amongst the panels, working first with each individually and then combining panels to construct a more complex and challenging composition.  Mosley uses translucent materials so as to encourage multiple layers of colors to reach the surface, creating blurred shapes that are suspended in geometric boundaries.  Catherine Mosley has exhibited her work internationally including at venues including the Espace Gallery, Delhi, India; the Brooklyn Museum, NY and Mass MOCA, North Adams, MA.  Mosley is known for her expert printmaking work with Robert Motherwell Editions from 1978-1991 and she has worked with several other important artists on their editions including Dan Flavin.  Catherine Mosley divides her time between New York City and Canaan, New York.

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Erik Schoonebeek’s (American b. 1982) paintings are visionary compositions that attempt to give abstract forms the context of place.  Representational form (landscape, object or symbol) is intervened upon by curving, abstract lines or bursts of geometric abstraction that toy with asymmetry.   Revolving around notions of otherness and the exotic, Schoonebeek manages to maintain a sense of humor in his pursuit of the intangible and his desire to escape the confines of a particular subject matter.  Schoonebeek has exhibited his work at the Jeff Bailey Gallery in NYC; the James W. Palmer Gallery at Vassar College and the Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA, among others.  He earned his B.F.A from SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, during which time he was assistant to the artists Joyce Robins and Thomas Nozkowski.  Schoonebeek is currently working on his M.F.A. at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

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Allyson Strafella (American b. 1969) will exhibit a selection of recent drawings.  Using a typewriter to make marks into layers of colored transfer paper, Strafella has created an unlikely visual language.  The artist describes this as “…a drawing language ‘written’ by type, and a written language drawn as mark and form.” Influenced by time spent working on an organic farm, making marks in the earth with a tractor, Strafella began to understand her abstract drawings in relationship to the landscape around her.  Strafella’s primary interest in landscape is to investigate the physical orientation to space, form, and placement, rather than the representation of a particular place. Strafella has received numerous honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002 and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 1999.  Her work has been exhibited at the Drawing Center, NY, NY; the The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT; Museo De Arte Contemporaneo Esteban Vicente, Segovia, Spain; The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA; Dieu Donne, New York, NY; Josee Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY and Von Lintel Gallery, New York, NY, among others.  Strafella’s work is included in the following museum collections The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA; The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA; Yale Art Museum, New Haven, CT.  Allyson Strafella lives and works in Hudson, New York.