THE SPACE ITSELF

Opening Reception  April 27, 2019, 6 - 9 PM

APRIL 27 - MAY 12, 2019

191 North 14th St. Brooklyn, NY 11294

The Space Itself, an independent exhibition of sculpture, video, and drawing, questions what it means to be human at a time of increasing uncertainty, division, and digital isolation. The artists in the exhibition express these feelings in uncanny and playful ways, re-examining how to embody critical experiences or navigate through day-to-day routines. Their handling of materials, light, and space challenges us to consider our own sensitivity towards public architecture, personal relationships, language, and the natural world. The Space Itself will include work by Mary Ayling, Trevor King, Clara McClenon, Aimee Odum, Christine Rebhuhn, Adam Liam Rose, and Barb Smith. 

Smith and Ayling build bodily narratives, while Rose and Odum create experiments for the future. McClenon and Rebhuhn propose new ways of looking and King references the past through impressions and outlines. All require traversing these themes with the presence of an early industrial era steam boiler - a shadowy mass that regrounds one’s own focus back to a sensorial present. Back to The Space Itself.

The opening reception will be held April 27th, 2019, 6 - 9 PM. The exhibition will be on view Saturdays and Sundays, 12 - 6 PM, or by appointment, through May 12. This exhibition is free and open to the public. Concurrent events will take place on evenings and weekends. For more information, contact thespaceitself@gmail.com or visit the spaceitself.com

Mary Ayling (b. 1982) is an interdisciplinary artist interested in how language and communication are expressed through the body. Ayling received her MFA from the University of Michigan (2015) and her BFA in glass and print media from the Columbus College of Art and Design (2005). She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her recent solo exhibitions include In Search of Stardust, at One + One + Two (San Francisco) concurrent with the Artist Residency, and Breathing Room at Slusser Gallery (Ann Arbor, MI). She has been invited to speak about her work at Evergreen Valley College (San Jose, CA) and University of Maine, Farmington. 

Trevor King (b. 1988) is a visual artist based in Queens, New York. Working between sculpture, video, and installation, King undertakes open-ended, immersive projects that ruminate on the endurance of the human spirit in the face of time and mortality. King received a BFA from Slippery Rock University (2011) and an MFA from the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan (2015). He has been a resident artist at Touchstone Center for Crafts, Ox Bow School of Art, Haystack Mountain School, and Sculpture Space NYC. In 2014, He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, including Melting Point, a recent group show at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles California, and STILLNESSNESS a recent solo exhibition at Emmanuel Barbault Gallery in New York City. 

Clara McClenon (b. 1988) creates drawings negotiating the seen and the unseeable. Her lyrical analysis of the mystery of perception pulls from her work at the intersection of art and science. McClenon earned a BS in Neuroscience from Washington and Lee University (2010), and a MS in Information and MFA from the University of Michigan (2016). She was an artist in residence at Vermont Studio Center in 2017 and at DRAWinternational, a research center in Caylus, France in 2015. Her studio is in Greenpoint. 

Aimee Odum (b. 1989) lives in Brooklyn, NY working in ceramics, video and installation to explore the slippery merge between virtual and natural worlds. She received her MFA in Ceramics from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (2016). Odum has been invited to speak about her work at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and Virginia Commonwealth University. She was awarded the Sturgis International Fellowship (2015) and invited to the DNA Summer Residency (2017.) Recent solo exhibitions include Infinite Infinite at Arts + Leisure Gallery (New York, NY) and Thoughts in the Sky at Random Access Space, Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY); as well as two-person exhibitions at GRIN, (Providence, RI); Elijah Wheat Showroom (Brooklyn, NY); Satellite Art Show (Miami, Florida); and Hectoliter, (Brussels, Belgium).    

Christine Rebhuhn (b.1989) is an artist based in Queens, NY. She received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2015), and a BA from Kalamazoo College (2011). Solo exhibitions include Emotional Shorthand at NARS Foundation in Brooklyn, NY, Rim's Edge at Soo VAC in Minneapolis, MN, and Cold Sweat at Makeshift, Kalamazoo, MI. She has has been part of several group exhibitions in the United States, and in the Gyeonggi International Ceramics Biennale in Incheon, Korea in 2015. Her work was recently published in ArtMaze Magazine and Maake Magazine. She has also been awarded residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Elsewhere, NARS Foundation, and Makeshift. 

Adam Liam Rose (b. 1990) is an interdisciplinary artist born in Jerusalem and raised mostly in the United States, His works investigates aesthetic systems of power embedded within architecture, drawn from political realities in Israel / Palestine and the United States. Rose has exhibited at museums and institutions including the Jewish Museum in New York, the Chicago Artists Coalition, Mana Contemporary, Sullivan Galleries Chicago, and Ortega Y Gasset Projects. He was a fellow at the Bronx Museum of the Arts’ AIM Program, the Art + Law Program, and is a recipient of the Artist Contemporary Residency Grant. Rose was awarded artist residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Ox-Bow School of Art, A-Z West: Institute of INvestigative Living, The Vermont Studio Center, and the Chicago Artist Coalition’s HATCH Residency. He received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2012) and an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts (2017). 

Barb Smith (b. 1979) is a Queens-based artist born in Kokomo, Indiana. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from Bard College. Her work invites reflection on one’s relationship to the material world - mining tension between seeing, touching, and recalling. Solo exhibitions include Mother Tongue at the Fine Arts Center Gallery, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR; Cup at 315 Gallery, Brooklyn; Strike-Slip at Páramo, Guadalajara, Mexico; and Unexpired Time at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, Mesa, Arizona; Recent group exhibitions include the Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York; and In Practice: Material Deviance, SculptureCenter, New York; Smith was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture in 2011 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2012. 

CONTACT

Email: thespaceitself@gmail.com

Instagram: @thespaceitself

Website: thespaceitself.com

Location: 191 North 14th St. Brooklyn, NY 11294 (Greenpoint)

Accessible via Bedford Ave. L Stop, Buses B43, B48

Open Hours: Saturday & Sunday 11 AM - 7 PM or by appointment

This exhibition was made possible with the support of Joshua Rechnitz. Jessamy Fiore served as Curatorial Advisor and Trevor King and Aimee Odum were Lead Organizers.