“Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke
This presentation at The Other Art Fair features works by New York based artists: Chelsea Cater, Mauricio Cortes, Keiran Brennan Hinton, Hannah Plishtin, and Cayman Robson. These artists share a similar painting technique and also have a common vocabulary within their practice.
In contrast to the speed of time and expansion of space that the digital world has created in our current society, a characteristic among these young artists is an attempt to slow things down and look close. Rather than sourcing images from a pre-constructed lens, they are looking inward, to domestic spaces, memories, personal experiences, and moments that aren’t quite tangible, yet are captured through the process of creating their works and the viewer’s act of observation.
As Alain de Botton has said, “We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability.” In Keiran Brennan Hinton’s large-scale, panoramic, atmospheric painting, the artist uses a limited value palette of various red hues that allows a familiar scene of an interior living room to emerge over time and distance. Similarly, Chelsea Cater’s The big comfy captures an intimate domestic setting through the artist’s use of contrasting cool and warm hues and skewed perspective. Cayman Robson has created a series of small-scale works on paper that depict fragments of familiar objects from the artist’s surrounding environment placed within abstracted landscapes. Presented in a similar format to mass-produced trading cards, these works explore the concept of collectibles in dialogue with internal narratives rather than consumer products. Composed of layers of geometric fragments, Falling into Place, Mauricio Cortes’s large-scale, abstract painting delves in the complexities of the moment of transition, in both the physical and emotional sense. In her intimately sized series of watercolors, Hannah Plishtin, like Keiran Brennan Hinton, uses a monochromatic color palette. Here, loosely layering different values of blue and black paint she creates compositions where the subject is ambiguous. Whether depicting water, sky, or folds in a blanket, the harmonious contours allow the viewers to make their own associations. These artists encourage the viewers to look inward, to reflect on those memories, feelings, and experiences that are unspoken.
Born in Hilo, Hawaii, Chelsea Cater currently lives and works in New York. She received her B.A. from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York and completed the Independent Studio Program at Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Cater has participated in numerous group exhibitions including, Stop and Smell the Roses, The Mothership, Woodstock, New York; The Tragic Instant, Back Gallery, Basilica Hudson, New York (both 2017); Smart Dust, sla307, New York; People Who Work Here, David Zwirner, New York; Show No. 1, 6Month Space, New York; Big Draw, Catalyst Gallery, Beacon, New York; and Feedback System: Romance, Etiquette & The Internet, sla307, New York (all 2016). Cater is a recipient of the L.A. Summer Residency at Otis College of Art and Design which she will attend this June. In 2012, the artist received the Elizabeth Coonley Faulkner Senior Thesis Prize from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York.
Website: chelseacater.com Instagram: gnarlysimon
Mauricio Cortes was born in northern Mexico and moved to the United States in 1999. He received his B.F.A. from The Cooper Union, New York and M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut. Earlier this year, Cortes participated in a group exhibition Old Glory at Mulherin, New York. His work was recently on view in 2016 exhibitions, including Of Another, a two-person exhibition with Karen Dow at the Silk Road Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut; Group Show at 6BASE, New York; Sunrise/Sunset, a group show at Infinity Room, Los Angeles; and Double Dip, a thesis group show at Greenhall Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. In 2015, his work was exhibited as part of the Biennal de las Fronteras in Tamaulipas, Mexico. The artist is the recipient of the Schell Center for International Human Rights Travel Fellowship from Yale Law School (2015); the Benjamin Menschel Travel Fellowship; the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Painting Fellowship (both 2011), and the Jóvenes Creadores Mexican National Council for Culture and Arts painting fellowship (2013). Cortes currently lives and works in the Bronx.
Website: cortesmauricio.com Instagram: mauricio_cortes3
Born in Toronto, Keiran Brennan Hinton currently lives and works in New York. He received his B.F.A. from Pratt Institute and his M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art. Most recently, the artist’s work was on view in Matter of Fact, a solo exhibition at Mulherin, New York. In 2016, the Katonah Museum of Art in partnership with sherry b dessert studio in New York commissioned Brennan Hinton to paint an outdoor mural on the side of a department store in Chappaqua, New York. His work was concurrently on view in a group exhibition, OnSite Katonah, at the museum. In 2014, the artist’s work was the subject of a solo exhibition Open House at NOFO Gallery, Toronto. His work has been featured in a number of group exhibitions, including Group Show at 6BASE, New York and Double Dip at Green Hall Gallery, New Haven (both 2016); Mercury Rising at Mulherin, New York; Large Works at FRONT art space, New York (both 2015); among others. The artist is the recipient of the Gloucester Landscape Painting Prize, Yale University (2015); Yale International Scholarship (2014-2016); Outstanding Merit Award, Pratt Institute (2010-2014); and the Presidential Scholarship, Pratt Institute (2010-2014).
Website: keiranbrennanhinton.com Instagram: keiran.brennan.hinton
Hannah Plishtin was born in Lenox, Massachusetts and currently lives and works in Brooklyn. She received her B.A. in Fine Arts and Architectural Studies from Connecticut College in New London. She also studied Architecture in Copenhagen and drawing and painting at California College of the Arts in Oakland. Her work has been included in group presentations in the Berkshires, Massachusetts. Plishtin is the recipient of the Bridget Baird Award for her study in the Ammerman Center for Arts and Certificate Program and the Lee and Ann Higdon First Prize Award, Connecticut College (both 2013). In 2012, she received the Pre-Professional Program Architecture and Design Award for her work at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad.
Website: hannahplistin.com Instagram: hannahplishtin
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Cayman Robson currently lives and works in New York. He received his B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence. The artist’s work has been featured in a number of group exhibitions, including Group Show, 6BASE, New York (2016); New Contemporaries, RISD Museum, Providence; There Is No Try, Memorial Hall Gallery, Providence (both 2014); Paint Video/Video Paint, JLA Collective, Olneyville, Rhode Island (2013); Turning Left, Memorial Hall Project Space, Providence (2012); and Selected Works, Studio 39, Kansas City (2011). In 2013, Robson was one of ten curators of the group exhibition, The Pink Panther Imitates Nothing, at Memorial Hall Gallery, Providence. The artist is the recipient of The Gamblin Paint Award (2014); Herbert Claiborne Pell III & Eugenia Diehl Pell Scholarship Award (2013); and Kiwanis Artist of the Year (2010).
Website: caymanrobson.com Instagram: caymanrobson
Curator’s bio
Marina Gluckman is the founder and director of 6BASE, a rotating artist’s studio and exhibition program in the South Bronx dedicated to providing a platform for artists, both local and international, to realize and show their work. In addition to overseeing 6BASE, she co-curated People Who Work Here (2016) at David Zwirner in New York, where she has worked in the research and exhibitions department since 2012. She also helped organize OPEN16: Feargal Cunningham (2016) at FRONT art space in New York. Gluckman received her B.A. in Art History and Architectural Studies from Connecticut College in New London. She also studied modern and contemporary Spanish art at Complutense University of Madrid and worked at the Fundación Gala Salvador Dalí in Figueres. Gluckman was born and raised in New York.
Website and Instagram: 6base.nyc