The idea of opening an “online-only” exhibition during the age of COVID-19 is one that a lot of gallerists have, and for good reason. We put together exhibitions, solo, group, and thematic. Artists continue to create work that needs to be seen. But the idea of not physically having this work in the gallery and on the walls is not an idea that I like.
This exhibition was originally scheduled to debut on April 1st (oh, the irony). I held off on receiving the work at the time, but enough is enough. The works are here and on the wall. For the moment, it’s just me enjoying the exhibition, but looking forward to that changing, soon.
In the meantime, the exhibition is viewable on our website and exclusively on ARTSY. Help support the gallery and the artists we work with.
I am proud to present these four artists together. In this exhibition, they each address the natural world and our relationship to it. The paintings, drawings, and collages ignite a vivid exploration of explosive color with expressionistic style calling us to engage with the outside world in a time when we are often kept from it.
Angliker’s thick painting application and melting strokes make the kindred female flesh of her subjects connect to one another and ultimately herself. Renkl’s deft cutting and collaging bring together historical ideals of nature with contemporary hindsight. Olson’s exploration of both interior and exterior space taps organic shapes and forms, questioning the space between. Huszank’s off-kilter color associations of the wooded landscape question what natural in nature really is.
And in their words…
Chrissy Angliker:
In my painting practice I cultivate recurring subject matters of nature, people and intimacy. By bringing a group of female friends together I seek to study the dynamic and facets of the women most close to me. This series of works focuses on the expansion and contraction between the entirety and individualism of the divine female. I’m interested in the shift between gazing at and being part of the experience of sharing space, time and intimacy.
A big part of this body of work is about looking at women through the eyes and body of a woman. Looking at female nudes as a participant, not a voyeur. Spending time in the nude together is an experience of liberation, not only in that moment, but also through the knowing that our hidden forms and our friendship will be projected outward through the paintings.
Chrissy Angliker is a Brooklyn based Swiss American Artist. She was born in Zurich, Switzerland, and raised in Greifensee and Winterthur. In 1999 at age 16, Chrissy moved to the US to study Fine Art at the Walnut Hill School in Natick, Mass. In 2002, Chrissy had her first solo show at Gallery Juri in Winterthur, Switzerland. She has been featured in several publications, including Forbes online in 2017, and in the summer of 2018 her new nude paintings were included on Tate Modern’s Instagram account to accompany the theme of the “All too Human” exhibit. Her most recent Solo shows were in December 2018 at Stalla Madulain in Switzerland, and June 2019 at Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, California.
Billy Renkl:
Vintage and antique paper can be beautiful, and I find the way that it carries its history with it moving. It is like a body, the way that it ages, gets scarred, bears the marks of what has happened to it, who has owned it and how they used it.
Before the last hundred years or so, artworks in our tradition were mostly made of the same few luxury materials: oil paint on canvas, tempera on wood panel, stone or bronze, gold leaf on vellum. It was that way, in the European/American tradition, for maybe more than a thousand years. A hundred and six years ago, though, in the summer of 1912, Georges Braque had an incredible insight: he could paste down a piece of wallpaper that had been printed to look like wood onto his artwork, and forego drawing the wood himself. This was revolutionary - it opened up the whole world for artists. After Braque, artists could make art out of anything. To me, this revolutionary gift is as important in the history of art as the discovery of perspective in the Renaissance.
Billy Renkl studied Visual Communications at Auburn University (AL) and Drawing at The University of South Caroline. He teaches at Austin Peay State University (Clarksville, TN).
Renkl first employed collage in 1985. These works were the basis for an exhibition at The Nexus Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta (GA), followed by exhibitions in Tuscaloosa (AL), Lexington (KY), and Auburn (AL). A half-year residency in Basel, Switzerland allowed him to concentrate solely on collage, and resulted in exhibitions in Birmingham (AL), and Berlin, Germany. Collage has been the foundation for his work since then.
Renkl has had solo or two-person exhibitions at Vanderbilt University, Berea College, The Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery, The Indianapolis Arts Center, Manifest Creative Research Gallery (Cincinnati, OH), and The Jule Collins Smith Museum at Auburn University. He has been included in more than 50 group exhibitions, in venues such as The Tang Museum at Skidmore College (NY), and The Foley Gallery (NYC).
Megan Olson:
My painting style is an amalgamation of living in our current times, while also drawing from the canon of painting throughout history. I study the previous movements of art and work to develop an aesthetic of new painting that builds upon that history.
Drawing on the artists and techniques that have inspired me over the years, you may see technical elements ranging from materials used in Japanese scroll paintings to glazing techniques of European style baroque; hyper-realistic detail of surrealism to the looseness of abstract expressionism, as well as the color and materials of graffiti – which I consider very much a continuation of the formal and social canon of art historical painting.
As an artist, my inspiration comes both from painting itself and from the aesthetic experience of life; living in an urban environment yet sharing an affinity with nature; growing up with the cultures of the United States, while finding inspiration from travels abroad.
Megan Olson received her BFA from the San Francisco Art institute in 2002. She has had several solo exhibitions in New York’s Maxwell Davidson Gallery and Berlin Art Projects, Berlin and Istanbul. Her work has been reviewed by Hilton Kramer in The New York Observer and Scott Zieher in NY Arts.
Olson lives and works in New York City.
Szilard Huszank:
Small streams and waterfalls, felled trees, and forests are the revered subjects in landscapes that I explore with vibrant, near psychedelic colors. The oils are spread thick in long cascading gestures, punctuated by tighter lines that define natural details of stones and branches; soft flowing water framed by more solid ground. The imagery suggests untouched, pristine landscapes far removed from the pace of an urban world. The colors and content invite us into a fresh atmosphere, forcing the eye to readjust with newly assigned colors to each changing landscape.
Szilard Huszank was born in 1980 in Miskolc, Hungary. He currently lives and works near Augsburg, Germany. He studied at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Budapest and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Nuremberg, Germany. Solo exhibitions include galleries in Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg and Freiburg, Germany.Four of a Kind is on view through June 28th, 2020. Foley Gallery is open by appointment only. The exhibition is on view as an exclusive exhibition presented on ARTSY. To request images; please contact the gallery at hello@foleygallery.com.
Originally scheduled for April 1, the exhibition is now online in an exclusive exhibition with ARTSY
The work is also viewable at the gallery on an appointment-only basis.