AAI LES-Rotating Studio Program Recipients

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AAI Lower East Side Rotating Studio Program Recipients - Fall 2010

Gail Biederman

Image: Gail Biederman, "Local Landscape," 2008, yarn and nails, approx. 9'h x 46'w

Statement:
Through mapping, I examine the connections between body, identity, and place. Maps helps me realize where I am not only physically, but temporally and emotionally. Creating mood as much as meaning, my maps reconstruct places and events and restore them as new experiences. I often begin with ordinary street maps of the places where I have lived and to which I remain connected. Through my manipulations, the messiness of real life enters into these dry abstractions. Sites are personalized. Geographical spaces transform into psychic places; inside and outside merge into one. www.gailbiederman.com

Sonya Blesofsky

Sonya Blesofsky's installations deal with urban anxieties related to construction, development, urban renewal, and collapse. Blesofsky works with easily accessible and recognizable materials such as paper, aluminum foil, tape and glue to create temporary, life-size installations. The fragile architectural structures she creates serve as metaphors for memory and loss, and each piece will fall apart, decay or eventually be deconstructed.

Blesofsky received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and BA from UC Santa Cruz. She has held residencies at the CUE Art Foundation, Smack Mellon, Dieu Donne Papermill, Chashama, LMCC’s Workspace:120 Broadway, Plane Space, and the California Legion of Honor. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. http://sonyablesofsky.com

Brian Scott Campbell

Image: Brian Scott Campbell, "The Complex," Graphite and Charcoal on Paper . 20' x 6' . 2010

My drawings emerge as a fever dream of cult film references, recalled or lost memories, and passages from J.G. Ballard novels. The images are familiar, yet uncanny landscapes that suggest a modern Shangri-La; a palatial, earthly paradise. The mirage of architectural forms and exotic wilderness is viewed through a darkened pane of glass, or through analog slippage. In my drawings I am seeking to describe the thrill of surrendering to a strange place, as well as the disruptive urge for domain. I think of my drawings as a reflection upon the desire for escape, future longing, and the aesthetics of false utopias found everywhere in contemporary life, from films to corporate annex. www.brianscottcampbell.com

Bang Geul Han

Bang Geul Han was born and raised in Seoul, Korea. Based in US since 2003, her videos and installations are deeply personal, yet they question the structures and systems of mediated space, including how experiences of personal narrative are refracted and translated through their encounter with the expectations and codes of public space. Han tries to establish playful systems that explore complex yet fascinating relationships between language and memory, thought and speech, cultural identities and social codes.www.banggeulhan.net

Selection Panel: Our thanks to the 2010 selection panel for their time and expertise: Ian Cofre, Independent Curator; Eduardo Difarnecio, Artist & AAI member; Shinnie Kim, Program Manager, International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP); Kimberly Marrero, Independent Curator + Arts Advisor - KM Art Advisory; Jen Mazza, Artist, LES - RSP Resident, Fall 08

This program is generously supported in part, by public funds by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and The Pollock-Krasner Foundation. We would also like to thank the following organizations and individuals who helped make this essential program possible; the panel participants, Julie Quon, 2010 Open Call Manager, Katherine Fox, Kimberly Zhu, Program Assistants and AAI Board Members Zeina Assaf and Bill Massey. who dedicated their time and energy to make this program happen.