Peeled

Rachel Barrett "Fixing To Leave," digital-chromogenic print, 2010

Curated by Risa Shoup

Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible…
– Paul Klee

Peeled features the work of three artists who have looked through the lens of a camera and created images that depict the world as they see it. The artwork they have created makes visible their perspective – that which would otherwise remain bound only in words, impossible to fully share without the images on view here.

Rachel Barrett’s background as a commercial photographer lends a documentary sensibility to her work that captures the ephemeral in the every day with warmth and careful sensitivity towards the people and places she sees through her camera lens. And yet, the works often appear haunted by what we cannot see – that which came before, after, and just outside the edge of the photograph. They ask us to look deeper.

Joshua Frankel’s drawings serve as blueprints from the animations from which he then creates screen prints. Frankel’s work offers us a an opportunity to see a living world of his own creation at various stages in its process. New York City appears as we have never seen it before, but as he has often imagined it to be. Within his body of work, this New York City is very much a reality for us to experience.

Finally, Christian Fuller’s work offers glimpses of natural elements in fantastic new realities that exist within the boundaries of his photographs. The most abstract, his work nevertheless shares the same sense of being haunted by what we cannot see with Barrett’s and it similarly presents a reality born in imagination like Frankel’s.

Curator Risa Shoup invites us, as spectators, to find more parallels and tensions between the work of these three artists. Peeled will engage the viewer visually, emotionally and intellectually – offering us the chance to see the world as it has been perceived by the other.

The Curator: Risa Shoup

Risa Shoup works as the Managing Director of Recession Art. She became part of the team as Guest Curator for What is the Where? in fall 2010. Currently, she is the Associate Director of the Invisible Dog Art Center, and a Fellow at the Pratt Center for Community Development. She is also pursuing Masters in City and Regional Planning from the Pratt Institute. In 2010 and 2011 Shoup curated two small group shows of multi-media, sculpture and new media work at the Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn, NY. In July 2011, she opened “Ode Hotel,” an exhibition of sculptural and installation-based works in the Old Hotel section of The Wassaic Project’s Maxon Mills exhibition space. In January 2012 she curated The Bricoleurs, an exhibition of the work of artists who explore the medium of collage and assemblage, and examine expanding the canon of these processes, co-curated with Christian Fuller at the BRIC Rotunda Gallery. And in March 2012, she curated a site-specific installation by sculptor R. Justin Stewart at the Invisible Dog. Besides Peeled, Risa curated a show entitled On Purpose that will be opening at the BRIC Rotunda Gallery this fall.

The Artists

Rachel Barrett is a Brooklyn based fine art photographer. She received her BFA in Photography and Imaging from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2003 and her MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in 2008. A 2012 Wassaic Project Artist-in-Residence, Barrett is a recipient of the 2011 Tracey Baran Award, 2011 PDNs 30 and 2010 Tierney Fellowship in addition to numerous other awards and honors for her personal work. Internationally exhibited, she is a studio artist at The Invisible Dog Art Center, a freelance contributor for The New York Times and an Assistant Professor of Digital Imaging at Kingsborough Community College.

Joshua Frankel is a New York City based animator, filmmaker and visual artist. Originally trained in painting and drawing, in 2001 Frankel began creating animation and visual effects, mostly for TV commercials. In 2006 Frankel made his first short film, BICYCLE MESSENGERS, which fused the aesthetics of his paintings and drawings with photoreal visual effects techniques. Since then Frankel has been working in a variety of media, attempting to use the powers he has acquired in advertising for good, rather than evil. His credits are expansive and eclectic. In 2008 he was commissioned to make a ads for Obama. In 2012 alone his films have been shown at the Cannes Short Film Corner, the Los Angeles Animation Festival, Pause, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, Curcuito OFF, Cut Out Fest, Anima Mundi, CAMP Festival for Visual Music, and Anim’est. His drawings, prints, paintings and films have been shown at galleries and museums around the world.

Christian Fuller was born in Agana Heights, Guam in 1977, grew up in Houston, TX, and currently works and resides in Brooklyn, NY. He studied Literature and Creative Writing at Naropa University and attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design for Sculpture. He has exhibited his work at Flux Factory, NY; Cornell University, NY; Glasslands Gallery, NY; HARCOZA, Tokyo, Japan; Soap Factory, MN; and published work in the Australian art publication Invisible City. He was a member of the band The Gamut that performed throughout New York and Brooklyn in such venues as Monster Island, Knitting Factory, Shea Stadium, Cake Shop, Paris London New York West Nile, SUNY Purchase, and Bruar Falls. He is currently working on a solo music project under the moniker Young Fossil, and will be curating the show Elastic Notion in March 2013 at BRIC Rotunda Gallery.

Images from the Peeled opening reception