January 13 - February 9, 2022
It Speaks for Itself:Arnold Brooks, Rifka Milder & Julie Tesser
Lost + (Re)Found:A Group Show by the New York Artists Circle
On the Wall: Tatanka:Olivia Beens
Carter Burden Gallery presents three new exhibitions: It Speaks for Itself featuring recent paintings by Arnold Brooks and Rifka Milder, and ceramic sculpture by Julie Tesser; Lost+(Re)Found featuring twenty five select artists from the New York Artists Circle; and On the Wall featuring an installation entitled Tatanka by Olivia Beens. The exhibition runs from January 13 - February 9, 2022 at 548 West 28th Street in New York City. The gallery hours are Tuesday - Friday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Due to the recent surge of COVID-19 infections we will not be having an opening reception.
In adherence with the NYC Safety Mandate Program, Carter Burden Gallery requires proof of vaccination or a recent/within 72 hours negative PCR COVID-19 test result, and masks are mandatory.
Olivia Beens
Tatanka, the Lakota name for Buffalo or Bison, is an installation by Olivia Beens inspired by the Wyoming landscape and the history of our country’s westward expansion. The plight of the buffalo, once nearly extinct is intertwined with that of Native American peoples. While in residence at the Jentel Foundation for the Arts in Sheridan, Wyoming the artist was moved by the vast open spaces of the area. Using found photographs, aerial views of Wyoming and Colorado Beens intersperses cast buffalos to indicate the near eradication of our country’s national mammal. There are now between 150,000 and 200,000 bison mostly in our national parks where there were once millions on the open plains America.
Sculptor/educator Olivia Beens, born in 1948 in the Netherlands of Czech and Dutch parents and lived in Portugal until age 7. After receiving a BFA from Pratt Institute in 1977 and an MFA from Hunter College in 1982 she moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan where she still lives and works. During the 1980’s she exhibited installation and performance work in many alternative art galleries including Franklin Furnace, ABC No Rio, PS 122 and was a member of artists groups such as Colab, PADD, and other political art groups. In 2014 and 2015 she was a (SPARC) Artist In Residence at Sirovich Senior Center and completed a series of ceramic murals that are permanently installed in the grand auditorium. She has taught through many arts organizations, worked for the New York City Department of Education, Brooklyn College and Pratt Institute. Beens has received commissions for public art works through Public Art for Public School and has been awarded a New York State Council on the Arts fellowship as well as residencies to the Mac Dowell colony for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Hambidge Center and received a Fulbright-Hayes fellowship to Turkey, and traveled to India and Portugal with grants.
Arnold Brooks
Arnold Brooks presents a recent series of black and white palimpsest paintings in It Speaks for Itself. Brooks’ work depict white text on a black ground; the writing is removed and painted over again and the process continues leaving ghostly shadows behind the vivid words in the foreground. These works are theoretically never finished, as the artist continues to erase and build up text. As in his other works, Brooks’ theme of compelling the viewer to question which plane recedes and which plane comes forwards continues through these most recent paintings.
Arnold Brooks is a painter, musician, filmmaker, and printmaker born in Panamá. He has exhibited his paintings and prints in the U.S. and internationally. He has exhibited videos at Anthology Film Archives in NYC and other venues. He participated in “Teknisk Uheld”, an international sound art exhibition in Copenhagen, Denmark. Brooks is included in the collections of Appalachian State Art Department, Brooklyn Museum, and MMAC Collection / Frost Art Museum / Florida International University, Miami, FL. He received a research grant from New School University titled The Alchemical Marriage of Intaglio and Lithography to attempt the combination of Lithography and Intaglio into a single unified technique. He is an Associate Professor at Brooklyn College where he teaches printmaking.
Rifka Milder
In It Speaks for Itself, Rifka Milder presents both large and small scale oil paintings. Milder builds the paint upon the canvas in expressive marks. Fording paths in the composition, she connects organic form and line to create energetic paintings that vibrate with contrasting color. Her abstract oil paintings are inspired by music, nature and her travels. Everything the artist has seen from Central Park to Morocco, Italy, India and more, continues to influence what she paints. Milder states of her paintings: “Everything I have seen is and isn’t here.”
Rifka Milder received her BFA from California Institute of the Arts. She has exhibited internationally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions, including at the Grady Alexis Gallery in New York, the Isabel Ignacio Galeria de Arte in Sevilla, Spain, the De Witt Wijnen in Gouda, Holland, the Gallery at the Preserve in Rockefeller State Park and Merge Gallery. Her 2007 solo show Reflections II at Merge Gallery in Chelsea was reviewed in the May 2008 issue of Art In America by Joe Lewis. Isthmus Pictures and Sound published a suite of ten of her monoprints. Her work can be found in private collections nationally and internationally. Milder continues to live and work in New York City, where she is originally from.
Julie Tesser
In her first exhibition with Carter Burden Gallery, Julie Tesser presents ceramic works inspired by the botanical world. Allowing the material to speak for itself, the artist embraces clay’s tactile quality and creates sculpture that are informed by the structural elements of plants, primarily cacti, succulents and flowers. The artist states, “I am fascinated by the act of their growth and I explore the mystery of this life force in my work.” The arrangement of the sculptures is also an important aspect of the pieces; when placed together they speak of beauty, growth and interdependence.
Julie Tesser received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art. Her work, influenced by forms from the botanical world, has varied in size from large installations to small and intimate collections of natural objects. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including Plaxall Gallery Atlantic Gallery and 440 Gallery in New York City, The Bedford Gallery at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, CA, The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, PA and the Clay Art Center in Portchester, NY. Tesser has been a visiting artist, working with students in grades K-4 to create ceramic and glass mosaic murals for their schools. Prior to the pandemic, she prepared an installation of an outdoor cactus garden with students in grades Pre-K-10, for Tuxedo Park School in Tuxedo Park, NY. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Lost+(Re)Found
What is Lost? And What is Found? In 2021, The New York Artists Circle presented an online exhibition of 117 selected artists who explored and revealed what is truly important in our lives, as they coped with waves of serial losses and change during this pandemic time. Carter Burden Gallery has invited the New York Artists Circle to put together an in-person gallery version of the online exhibition. The (re)grouping of selected work led to two consecutive shows of 50 works distilled from the original 117; presenting an new opportunity for (re)reflection, (re)entering and (re)viewing up close and personal, aiming for a (re)bound through the (re)found. This important exhibition includes statements from each artist accompanying their work. The show offers the opportunity to (re)visit your own experience and (re)flect on these significant events.
Artists include: Monique Allain, Ellen Alt, Beth Barry, A. Bascove, Lois Bender, Alli Berman, Karin Bruckner, Diane Englander, Cora Jane Glasser, Eileen Hoffman, Lori Horowitz , Elaine Housman, Arleen Joseph, Jenna Lash, Wendy Moss, Cathy O'Keefe, Francine Perlman , Leah Poller, Melissa Rubin, Barbara Schaefer, Jacqueline Sferra Rada, Julie Shapiro, Darcy Spitz, Syma, and Gail Winbury.
