Resident artists Averell Mondie, Vanessa Gonzalez, Josh Short, and Carrie Rubinstein will discuss their work.
About the artists:
Averell Mondie hails from Memphis, TN. His self-taught photography focuses on portraiture, street photography, and photojournalism. Averell strives daily to capture city life, particularly in his hometown, in a unique gritty, moody, and minimalist style.
Spurred often by galvanizing community development, Averell walks, bikes, and buses through the corridors and alleys of Memphis, chasing light and exploring relics deeply rooted in the city’s past. His style becomes more defined daily, composing many of his shots with a cinematic frame, focusing on low light, aggressive shadows, and desaturated tone.
Vanessa Gonzalez is a printmaker who uses mixed media in her art work. She was born in Laredo Texas and raised in Leon Mexico. Gonzalez was exposed to Latino art and culture from an early age, which inspired her to become passionate to its rich cultural traditions. Vanessa is currently living in Memphis TN, where she earned her Masters Degree in Fine Arts at Memphis College of Art and is an elementary school art teacher at a charter school. Vanessa’s work has being exhibited not only in the United States but also internationally in Mexico, Australia, and Germany.
Joshua Short‘s work blurs the line between audience, artwork, and performer, inviting the viewer to complete the art. Much like the all-American spectacle of pro-wrestling, the audience is part of the performance. The action of entering into the artwork as a participant generates a more authentic experience by suspending the social filters that we carry into everyday life. Short uses cultural detritus as a point of departure. The inherited meanings found within cast-off objects combined with his artistic sensibilities creates an altered space that frames contemporary American Mythologies and Rituals.
Carrie Rubinstein is a Brooklyn-based sculptor who creates life-sized installations from paper with pen and ink. She earned her B.A. in Studio Art from Smith College, a Post Baccalaureate degree in Sculpture from Brandeis University, and her M.F.A. in Sculpture from Hunter College with an exchange semester at L’École des Beaux Arts in Paris. In 2013, she was a sculpture resident at the Vermont Studio Center. This experience generated early work for Retrofit, a full room installation made entirely from paper through drawings, hollow constructed forms, and casting. Brooklyn’s Rhombus Space presented Retrofit, which was Rubinstein’s first NYC solo show, and she was their August 2015 artist-in residence. In June 2017, Rubinstein created the paper installation, Found Underground, at Hunter College’s Thomas Hunter Project Space in Manhattan. In September 2017, Retrofit traveled to the Krasl Art Center in St. Joseph, MI. This was Rubinstein’s first solo museum show. Other notable NYC based group shows include exhibitions at Arts@Renaissance, Brooklyn Museum’s Go Open Studio Project, A.I.R. Gallery, Orgy Park, and The Roger Smith Hotel.
