| Artist: Vivian Massry | |
Being the product of a mixture of different cultures and ideologies, I believe I have been walking on opposite paths simultaneously. It is this duality that I try to evoke in my work. Using as a point of departure modernism and abstraction, which historically developed as a language that was particularly male in perspective, and looking at the trajectory of women artists using the human body in their work, I began to make the use of more traditionally female mediums such as skin and makeup to create abstract images. To produce these works I paint and juxtapose different body parts and then photograph them from a close distance. Unwilling to commit myself to one medium I am able to break boundaries between these by creating a single piece while painting on a three-dimensional surface, photographing and editing the images digitally. By producing large prints of these images every wrinkle, all the skin texture and even the body hair are accentuated. . When looking at these bizarre corporeal and sensual images the viewer can tell that the body has been used but is unable to tell what part of the body it is, thus drawing a fine line between figuration and abstraction. Furthermore, I also began to investigate the association that is often made between women and nature by creating images that suggest the landscape through details of the human body. Informed by my Hispanic and Middle Eastern heritage, as well as the meditative quality of repetition and pattern present in the work of many female artists, I have continued to create site-specific installations such as photo-collage floor installations, These pieces are created with custom-made postcards of images I photograph, which are pasted onto boards one by one creating a pattern. These boards are then varnished and arranged side by side covering the gallery's floor, enabling the viewer to become part of the piece by walking on it.
Biography Born in Mexico City, Mexico
Selected Solo Exhibitions 2006 Ground Floor Gallery, (May) Balmain, Australia 2005 Ground Floor Gallery, Figurative Abstractions, Balmain, Australia Selected Group Exhibitions2006 Cocoa Bar, Brooklyn, NY 2005 Ground Floor Gallery, Trinity, Balmain, Australia Hudson County Courthouse, Frames of Mind, curator Meredith Lippman, Jersey City, NJ Solomon Projects Gallery, Blue Ocean Institute Benefit, Atlanta, GAEyedrum Gallery, Infusion, curator Maria Lucia Sarmiento, Atlanta, GA2004 Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, Out of Bounds: Contemporary Hispanic and Latino Art,curatorHank Foreman , Boone, NC Westside Gallery, Bridging the Gap, curator Rachel Gugelberger, New York, NY James Howe Gallery, Kean University, The Space Between Words, curator Judith Page, part of Transcultural New Jersey, Union, NJ Liu Haisu Museum, Imaginative Photography, New York – Shanghai, Young Artists Exhchange curators Jian-Jun Zhang and Jia Wu, Shanghai, China Arthouse at the Jones Center, New American Talent 19, juror Jerry Saltz, Austin Texas Creative Arts Guild, Transplantation, Adaptation, Globalization, curators Waldo Vince and Victoria Martin-Gilly, Dalton, GA Visual Arts Gallery, Heavenly Bodies, curator Ann Ellegood, New York, NY Artlink, International Young Art finalist, Tel Aviv, Israel
2003 Artists Space, A Night of One Thousand Drawings, New York, NY Westside Gallery, Revisiting Art History, curator Rachel Gugelberger, New York, NY Aljira- a Center for Contemporary Art, Dancing in the Dark,Aljira Emerge 2002 Spring, fellowship program, curator Calvin Reid, Newark, NJ 2002 Mason Gross School of the Arts, MFA First Year Review, New Brunswick, NJ Parsons School of Design, Senior Thesis Exhibition, New York, NY Parsons School of Design, Weather, New York, NY Parsons School of Design, Sculpture, New York, NY 2001 Parsons School of Design, Book Show, New York, NY 2000 Parsons School of Design, Choices, New York, NY 1999 Parsons School of Design, 2nd Annual Painting Competition, juried exhibition, NewYork,NY 1995 Del Mar Fair, juried exhibition, Del Mar, CA 1994 Del Mar Fair, juried exhibition, Del Mar, CA Poetry Unlimited, Art and Music, La Jolla Recreation Center, La Jolla, CA Publications2005 Rutgers University, The Space Between Words, Transcultural New Jersey catalog, New Brunswick, NJ 2004 Arthouse New American Talent, The Nineteenth Exhibition, Austin, TX, Reproduction on p.64. (catalogue) 2003 Aljira- a Center for Contemporary Art, Dancing in the Dark,Aljira Emerge 2002 catalogue, Newark, NJ. p.32, 44, and 53., reproduction on p.44. 2000 Magen David Star, Volume VIII, issue I, page 9. With reproductions on cover and page 9 1994 Frank, Jean,Poetry Unlimited, Art and Music, Volume 2, issue 3, May - June, 1994, page 2, “Artist of the Month”. Reproductions on cover and p.2
Curated Exhibitions2005 Monmouth Festival, show designer 2004 Westside Gallery, T-Gallery: Retor+1, cocurators Vivian Massry, Saskia Jordá and Rachel Gugelberger, , New York, NY Public Lectures/Presentations 2004 Turchin Center for the Arts, Panel Discussion, Boone, NC, organized by Hank Forman Kean University, Kean Little Theater, Art Dialogue, panel discussion, Union, NJ, organized by Judith Page 2003 Parsons School of Design, Freshman Orientation, Tishman Auditorium Parsons School of Design, Life After Undergraduate School panel, New York, NY, Awards2002 Aljira fellowship, Emerge 2002 , Newark, NJ Education2004 MFA Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY 2002 BFA Fine Arts, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY Emerge 2002, fellowship program, Aljira, Newark, NJ 1999 AAS Fine Arts, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY
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