Ocketopia: a group exhibition

Curated by Austin Thomas

@ Lesley Heller Workspace 54 Orchard Street New York, NY 10002. t 212 410 6120. Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Saturday 11 – 6. Sunday 12 – 6

Featuring a selection of artists from Bushwick’s legendary Pocket Utopia with a group of artists from Lesley Heller. “Ocketopia” mixes and matches sculpture, painting and prints with a salon and a neighborhood gallery tour.

Artists include: Deborah Brown, Elisabeth Condon, Rico Gatson, Libby Hartle, Brece Honeycutt, Jane Kent, Grace Knowlton, Molly Larkey, Jim Osman, Judith Page, Kevin Regan, Adam Simon, David Storey, and Kay Thomas

“Ocketopia” presents a selection of artists from Bushwick’s legendary Pocket Utopia with a group of artists from Lesley Heller. “Ocketopia” mixes and matches sculpture, painting and prints with a salon and a gallery tour.

Pocket Utopia, Austin Thomas’s limited-run exhibition and salon space in Bushwick, Brooklyn closed in July of 2009 but not before creating a solid artist community that has lead to a continuing dialogue. At Lesley Heller the conversation continues in the vein of community by opening it up to various new artists.

Jane Kent has editioned a three-screened print for the occasion, Kay Thomas presents a one-of a kind photogram, and Deborah Brown, who exhibited at Pocket Utopia and regularly at Lesley Heller, imagines a dangling and empathetic family tree in her painting titled “Shoe Tree.” Hanging from the ceiling, Judith Page’s auto-glass encrusted fan reflects its own psychic universe, and Libby Hartle’s dark crystals emerge and emit energy from inside the wall.

Rico Gatson’s “Mask” boldly sparkles a black and white proclamation and David Storey draws a personal surface tension between figuration and abstraction. Adam Simon’s painting titled “Meeting” skillfully depicts an orchestrated encounter, while Brece Honeycutt, using yarn and Kevin Regan, drawing, group undulating rows to a central meeting place. Jim Osman’s painted boxes of elongated rectangles stack up amicably while Molly Larkey’s inspired “Blurry Squiggles” with its pinkish tones might mimic social dancing. Elisabeth Condon’s frames a full conversation, with a welcoming distraction and Grace Knowlton’s mixed-media photography has a sculptural manner of speaking that visually connect to other pieces in the exhibition.

Whether bold or inspired, dangling or dancing all the work makes for an open-ended diverse dialogue. Please join us for a salon discussion titled “All the Art that’s Fit to Print,” a discussion of artist-run, fine art publishing and experimental methods to printmaking, including alternative methods of art distribution on Wednesday, April 7th from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. There will be a closing Art Stumble tour of the show and neighborhood galleries on Sunday, April 18th beginning at 2:00 p.m. lead by Austin Thomas.