Press Release - "Being Human is Hard"
Adam Alessi
”Deflated Figure (2)”
Oil on canvas
8 x 10 Inches
2019
info@part2gallery.com
pt.2:LA
Being Human is Hard
Adam Alessi
Alyss Estay
Ethan Stuart
Kellen Chasuk
Maria Guzman Capron
Molly Bounds
Nadair Asghari
Rachel Hayden
Samantha Rosenwald
Opening reception: Sunday, January 19th, 2020, 12-8 p.m.
Showing through: February 15th, 2020
info@part2gallery.com
818 N. Spring Street, #202
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Being human is hard. How do we process (or detach ourselves from) our experiences, memories, anxieties, and desires? pt. 2: is pleased to present “Being Human is Hard” a group show by Adam Alessi, Alyss Estay, Ethan Stuart, Kellen Chasuk, Maria Guzman Capron, Molly Bounds, Nadair asghari, Rachel Hayden, and Samantha Rosenwald in which the artists grapple with these questions through the lens of comedy, complacency, power, and disassociation.
ADAM ALESSI (b. 1994, Los Angeles, CA)
Adam Alessi works primarily in oil, acrylic and graphite on paper and canvas often using found imagery. He has shown throughout LA including at Insect Gallery and That That Gallery and in Mexico City, Mexico. Adam lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
ALYSS ESTAY (b. Los Angeles, CA)
Alyss Estay received her BFA in Printmaking from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 2012. Utilizing manipulated photographs as a reference, Alyss paints to connect her conscious and subconscious while exploring different states of cognition. She has shown throughout the U.S. as well as internationally in China and Mexico City. Alyss’s work is often a multi-layered process in which she uses photography and subsequent editing as a medium to inform her paintings. Her process of shooting photographs is often happenstance and devoid of conscious thought for what her paintings may become. She chooses a photo as a reference for a painting when she senses her subconscious is sharing something her conscious mind can connect with through the image. In this way, she attaches relevant emotions and perceptions through the subject matter and or compositions. Alyss will often heavily edit the photo to produce electric, unnatural colors with heavy grain creating an unrefined atmosphere. In doing so, she seeks to convey different states of cognition such as: expressing the sense of detachment from oneself, isolation, shyness, anxiety, musings, mental chatter, and a general sense of a familiar unfamiliarity. Alyss lives and works in Los Angeles, CA
ETHAN J. STUART (b. 1989, Owego, NY)
Ethan J. Stuart attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and is influenced by modern masters and artist group “The Hairy Who?”. In delving into his personal history through painting, Ethan confronts his past to recontextualize memories from his religious upbringing and the traumas of adolescence. Ethan has shown internationally in group exhibitions curated by Kurt Beers of Beers Gallery, London, Pratt Museum Gallery, and with Kate Mothes of Young Space. In 2019 he was an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles. These very personal paintings act as a tool for Ethan to navigate disjointed, distant memories, particularly tragic, unprocessed memories from adolescence. He makes an effort of looking through the lens of a younger Christian boy; ignorant yet hopeful. Stuart also uses old family photos as a way to help get him access that long ago time and place.
KELLEN CHASUK (b. 1995, Napa, CA)
Kellen Chasuk attended Pacific Northwest College of Art and the San Francisco Art Institute. She has exhibited widely throughout CA and the Pacific Northwest as well as alongside Alicia McCarthy in Brussels and Coppenhagen. Kellen’s studio practice involves the representation of collected lived experience, everyday thoughts, objects and textures. The reflection of daily life and its accumulated anxiety is explored through a humorous lens, validating and providing comfort for the artist’s own tangled view of life. Kellen lives and works in Oakland, CA.
Maria Guzman Capron
”Aquí”
Fabric, thread, stuffing, batting, wire, sand, paint and yarn
21 x 15 x 13 inches
2019
info@part2gallery.com
MARIA GUZMÁN CAPRON (b. 1981, Milan, Italy to Colombian and Peruvian parents)
Maria Guzmán Capron received her MFA from California College of the Arts (CCA) in 2015 and a BFA from the University of Houston in 2004. She is a cofounder and past member of CTRL+SHFT Collective and also works part-time as a facilitator at NIAD Art Center. Maria has recently shown with Nook Gallery in Oakland, CULT Exhibitions in San Francisco, Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art in Buffalo, NY, at Deli Gallery in NYC and at Mana Contemporary in Illinois. Maria makes art for pleasure, working with her hands to produce objects that reflect an aesthetic that speaks of femininity, power, romance, drama and desire. These objects are born out of intuition, lead by touch and feeling, where inert materials—clay, fabric and paint can become anything. There are narratives that weave in and out of the works; multiple fragments of stories, some continuous references and others that just appear for an instant. The objects become records, relics, her own archeological artifacts carving out a space in which to have a voice without having to excuse it. Maria lives and works in Oakland, CA
MOLLY BOUNDS (b. 1990, Texas)
Molly Bounds received her BFA in printmaking from Metropolitan State University in Denver, CO in 2014. She has exhibited widely throughout California and the Southwest including at RULE Gallery in Marfa Texas, at Athen B. Gallery in Oakland and at pt. 2: Oakland. Molly’s work highlights the complexity of inner dialogue surrounding notions of possibility and limitation. Highly influenced by narrative and sequential art, Bounds correlates the training of doubt with the scope of one’s own capabilities. Within visions of suspended motion and contemplative pause, stills from a subdued life reveal internal conflict, urgency, complacency, and fleeting opportunity. Molly lives and works in Los Angeles, CA
NADAIR ASGHARI (b. Concord, CA )
Nadair Asghari is a multidisciplinary artist working in media ranging from tattoo work to furniture design with a sustaining focus on painting. Using various acrylic mediums, his painted surfaces yield a fanatical attention to edge and texture while also making room for gesture and improvisation. His work has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, and throughout the Bay Area including at New Image Art in LA and at pt. 2: in Oakland and at Gallery 16 in San Francisco. Nadair lives and works in Oakland, CA.
RACHEL HAYDEN (b. 1992, Cincinnati, OH )
Rachel Hayden earned her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2015 and now works at The Walters Art Museum as a director of children’s programming. Rachel seeks to make sense of the messy parts of life. In her paintings, Rachel “likes to approach a difficult or ambiguous feeling with childlike simplicity. Using pure, bright colors and simple shapes” she creates an ensemble cast of subjects: herself, the moon, hands, fruits and flowers, teardrops, raindrops and sweat drops. When choosing images to paint, Rachel looks for the constants — things that will always be a part of her life, but whose significance may change when placed in different scenarios. By adopting these images into her alphabet, she feels a new love and ownership of them. They are like game pieces she can move around on a board, knick-knacks she can organize on a shelf, or magnets arranged on a refrigerator door. A handful of bits and pieces shuffled around can create different stories, and as her alphabet of images grows and changes, the stories she tell slowly shift. “In painting, I have power to playfully manipulate forces greater than myself, and find control over my own visual narrative. In my job as an early childhood educator at an art museum, I spend a lot of time discussing art with preschoolers, toddlers, and babies. I’ve found a fondness for a clear, concise image, with easy-to-identify parts. I want paintings that can be broken up into bite size pieces.” Rachel’s work deals with sensations both physical and emotional, as well as phenomena of time and space. Rachel has recently shown with HARPY Gallery in Rutherford, NJ,First Amendment Gallery in San Francisco and at Resort in Baltimore. Rachel lives and works in Baltimore, MD.
SAMANTHA ROSENWALD (b. 1994, Los Angeles)
Samantha Rosenwald received her BA in Art History from Vassar College in 2016 and her MFA in Fine Art from California College of the Arts (CCA) in 2018. Samantha has shown with galleries such as Zevitas Marcus in Los Angeles, CULT Exhibitions in San Francisco, Good Mother Gallery in Oakland, and Mostyn Gallery in Wales, and has been featured in publications such as New American Paintings, Art Maze Magazine, and Voyage LA. Samantha works primarily in painting, colored pencil, and ceramic. By threading together contemporary culture, visual pun, and the dogmas of art history, she creates absurd, personal, and darkly funny portraits which illustrate what it feels like to be alive. Samantha lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
pt. 2: is a contemporary art gallery that opened its Oakland location in March of 2018 and its Los Angeles location in October of 2019. We feature monthly exhibitions by emerging and mid-career artists. pt. 2: LA is located at 818 N. Spring Street, #202, near the Chinatown exit of the Metro Gold Line, and has open gallery hours Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Opening receptions at pt.2: are always free and open to the public. To receive a preview of the exhibition please contact info@part2gallery.com.
Samantha Rosenwald
”Peepee the Caterpillar Contemplates Mortality”
Colored pencil on canvas
14 x 14 Inches
2019
info@part2gallery.com