September 17 - October 18, 2015

440 Gallery is proud to present Sanctuary, a series of new photographic works by                           Amy Williams. This solo exhibition marks Williams' sixth and final exhibition at the 440 Gallery, presenting photographs that were shot at the Okefenokee Swamp located in Southeast Georgia. Sanctuary explores abstraction in an ecologically pristine environment where lily pads appear to dance on the surface of swirling dark swamp water. Throughout, the artist shows her continued work in an analog process, shooting with a Holga medium format film camera and hand printing each image in collaboration with master printer, Gunar Roze.

Amy Williams studied painting and photography at the University of Texas, Austin. She has been enamored with the photographic medium since she made her first pin-hole camera from an oatmeal box in the 5th grade. She taught herself how to print her own photos in the darkroom at the age of 16 and has never stopped loving the smell of chemistry, and the amber glow of a safelight. Amy Williams has exhibited her work in both New York and Paris and is featured in private collections throughout the United States and Europe.

August 13 - September 12th, 2015

440 Gallery presented its summer exhibition Off the Press, a group show featuring hand-pulled prints that span a variety of media, both old and new, juried by Kathleen Caraccio and Roni Henning. 

Participating Artists: Jo-Ann Acey, Linda Adato, Audrey Anastasi, Michael Arike, Zahra Banyamerian, Neil Berger, Samantha Buchanan, Sadikisha Saundra Collier, Regina Corritore, Erin Cross, Mary DeVincentis, Leslee Fetner, Gabriel Garcia Roman, Darcy Gerbarg, Sheila Gritte, Mary Hood, Crystal Johnson, David Klein, Melissa Maske, Nathan Meltz, Florence Neal, Adam Pitt, Marilyn Propp, Roxanne Faber Savage, Lorena Salcedo-Watson, Julia Samuels, Christine Staehelin, Peach Tao, Mary Teichman, April Vollmer, Ellen Weider, Harold Wortsman, Mary Therese Wright

About the Jurors: Kathleen Caraccio is the Founder and Director of the K. Caraccio Printing Studio and Gallery in NYC. Since 1977, Caraccio has been Master Printer for artists such as Romare Bearden, Mel Bochner, Louise Nevelson, and Sol Le Witt. She has taught at Columbia University, NYU, Parson's School of Design, Pratt Institute and the National Academy School. Contact Kathleen Caraccio at www.kcaraccio.com.

July 9 – August 9, 2015

440 Gallery presented a show of Tom Bovo's recent photographs, "The Other Side of Summer." For his third solo show at the gallery, Bovo turned his attention away from cityscapes and still lifes, and focused instead on the Santa Barbara Harbor. During a recent visit, he worked by wandering the waterfront at dawn and again at dusk. The city was quite a change for Bovo, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, and he found the location fascinating. 

"Santa Barbara is dominated by the ocean, and the harbor is at the very core of the city. Everything revolves around fishing, pleasure boating, surfing, and deep sea diving. Even the building codes are designed to give everybody living in the hills around the harbor, which locals call 'The Riviera,' a clear view of the beach, harbor, and Pacific Ocean. Santa Barbara is all about the ocean." 

Bovo's interest in photography started in childhood when his father, a photography enthusiast, gave him a camera. He later studied painting and printmaking at Columbia University and this training is deeply felt in his photography. For decades, Bovo worked in the commercial photo industry in New York City, but has focused on his own work in recent years. His photographs are in private collections in the U.S. and Europe. Please visit the website for more information about the exhibition and related events. 

Bovo was featured in 2 articles leading up to the exhibit: Tom Bovo Photography: Seeing Brooklyn Through a Different Lense, and Talking with Photographer Tom Bovo About “The Other Side of Summer”.

June 4 – July 5, 2015

Memoryweave, Susan Greenstein's third solo show at 440 Gallery, represented a dramatic departure from her earlier pastel and watercolor cityscapes. These vibrant monotypes derive from an early fascination with patterns. Greenstein's childhood home was filled with vivid patterns - including Moroccan djellabahs, Egyptian stamped metalwork, Indonesian batiks, and Guatemalan textiles - collected by her parents. This imagery has influenced the artist throughout her career and offered a rich source of ideas and endless possibilities for her recent foray into printmaking. 

Greenstein's process is reductive. It involves inking up a plate and then removing ink to expose the white of the page or the color from an earlier layer. Greenstein also uses Chine-collé in her work, the addition of collaged paper allowing fields of color to breathe through the patterns. 

"One of the most interesting aspects of focusing on pattern is its meditative quality. As a pattern repeats itself, it changes slightly and steadily, revealing the artist's hand. Sometimes you can almost feel the artist breathing in and breathing out in the subtle variations." 

Greenstein studied painting and drawing at Pratt Institute. For a decade she worked as an illustrator for magazines and children's books. She has been teaching art for many years and she greatly enjoys working with young children. She feels that their enthusiasm helps her to stay focused on what has always been exciting about art-making for her. Greenstein enjoys painting and drawing on-site around New York, but is currently preoccupied with her newest passion - printmaking.

April 30 – May 31, 2015

For her fifth solo show at 440 Gallery artist Shanee Epstein exhibited spatial give and take, the shifting between the simple and the complex, the narrative and the abstract, and the geometry of shape with the sensuality of color and texture. This body of work consisted of collages using handmade paper and fragments of earlier work. Some of the new pieces are extremely simple, some layered and complicated, some remain within the boundaries of the rectangle, some have edges that push beyond those boundaries and create new shapes. 

In her last exhibit at 440 Gallery Epstein pushed into a newer dimension and experimental forms when she exhibited photography and sculptural work made from transformed wooden cigar boxes. This current work was a return to a more familiar medium but the body of work is informed by those diversions; it has expanded beyond its earlier limits. The edges of these pieces were undefined, they jut in unexpected ways and suggest the sculptural attitude of the boxes. She is physically expanding the edges of the work; which are not pre-defined but develop organically. The work incorporated past drawings, paintings and photographs into current layers of paint, handmade paper, bits of string and embroidery. The juxtaposition of old work and new work added an autobiographical element to her mark making. 

"I am trusting the sensibility of the process. Learning to be quiet with each piece and allowing it to develop mirrors my own state of mind as I am working, whether it be simple, quiet or complicated." 

Shanee Epstein received her MFA at Pratt Institute, where she was awarded the Pratt Institute Award for Painting. She studied art at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and received early training in sculpture, pottery and painting at her uncle's studio on Cape Cod and traditional figurative classes at the Worcester Art Museum. She has exhibited extensively in the United States and her work is in private collections in North America, Israel and Europe. In 2005 she co-founded the 440 Gallery in Park Slope Brooklyn.

March 26 - April 26, 2015

"My path as an artist has been a constant reassessment, recalculation and re-direction. There are roads not taken that are never encountered again. There are things I cannot control, patterns I understand and can even predict, but they are still disruptive." Nancy Lunsford 

440 Gallery proudly presented Recalculating..., a solo exhibition of new work by one of the founding members of the gallery, Nancy Lunsford. Lunsford was also participating in the Affordable Art Fair with 440 Gallery (booth 2.10) the weekend of March 25 - 29. 

For her fifth solo show at 440, Lunsford invoked the GPS voice that automatically recalculates the route when you make an unexpected turn. She has long been fascinated with patterns and their repetition, but lately this interest has turned toward disruptive life patterns, with a specific focus on pregnancy, death, religion and art, as agents of change. Personal narrative remains a central theme, and her family and Appalachian upbringing figure prominently in this new work. Just as certain themes recur, so does Lunsford's adaptive and multifaceted use of many media and styles - from collage and printmaking, to photography and video. 

Lunsford's artistic career began in Nashville doing portraiture, courtroom sketching and mural painting. After a stint as a singer/songwriter, she moved to Brooklyn in 1976, and earned a degree in art history and English literature from New York University. She then spent ten years abroad, in Indonesia and Turkey, where she made art, wrote art reviews, and studied traditional shadow theater and court dance. 

Upon returning to New York, Lunsford ran Wisteria Art Space in Brooklyn, curating exhibits and producing theater pieces. She also collaborated on installations at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition and the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center. A weekly sketch group that met in Lunsford's studio was the catalyst for a group exhibition that eventually led to the founding of 440 Gallery with Shanee Epstein in 2005.

February 19 - March 22, 2015

440 Gallery proudly presented, Titanicae, a show of new work by artist Katharine Colona Hopkins. For her third solo show with the gallery, Hopkins has created an installation that explores the patterns and phenomena of organisms that survive in extreme environmental conditions. The show's title refers to a bacteria found on wreckage from the Titanic, a species that has adapted to feed on the ship's metal surface. The show opens Thursday, February 19th, with an artist reception on Friday, February 20th. 

Hopkins began with the creation of small cups, crafted from paper pulp, which as singular objects are delicate and fragile. When combined with well over a thousand others, however, the effect points to the power that individual organisms can have when they form large collectives, as witnessed in Halomonas titanicae's ability to consume a massive man-made ship. Individually painted in deep browns and vibrant blues, the cups create a sprawling mass across the gallery wall. On the opposite wall Hopkins plays with the idea of containment. When placed within the confines of a frame - pattern, form, and repetition pay homage to natural processes and organisms while highlighting a deeply engrained human need to control and contain. 

This show marks a departure for Hopkins from representational painting and drawing. However, the themes of decay and renewal remain constant throughout her body of work. In her last show at the gallery, That Perfectly Arranged Mouth (2013), she exhibited paintings of dead animals, in vibrant unnatural colors. The effect was less grim than elegiac. Whereas Rite (2010) was an exploration of sacred spaces and featured an animated film of an imaginary underground passage.

January 15 – February 15, 2015

440 Gallery opened its doors as a pop-up gallery in Park Slope, Brooklyn in January of 2005. Within a few months this temporary gallery developed into an artists collective under the guidance of founders Nancy Lunsford and Shanee Epstein. Now the gallery celebrates its tenth anniversary with a group show featuring the current membership. The opening reception is Thursday, January 15th, from 6 - 9pm. The show runs through February 15th. 

This celebratory exhibit, curated by members Gail Flanery and Amy Williams, will showcase a variety of styles and techniques including sculptural reliefs by Fred Bendheim, photography by Tom Bovo and David Stock, and paintings by Katharine Colonna Hopkins, Ellen Chuse and Karen Gibbons. Laurie Lee-Georgescu will exhibit woodcuts and Vicki Behm will present drawings and collage. The work of Susan Greenstein, Jay Friedenberg, founders Lunsford and Epstein, as well as curators Williams and Flanery will also be shown. 

As a collective, the members run the gallery in its entirety. 440 has grown slowly and organically, dedicated to the exhibition and sale of artwork with the goal of facilitating a lively exchange, both within the neighborhood and the artistic community at large.Currently the gallery mounts eight solo shows each year and 10 group shows, including two national juried exhibitions. In a decade, this unassuming little storefront gallery has shown the work of well over a thousand artists as well as hosted hundreds of performances including readings, dance, music and theater.

December 11, 2014 - January 11, 2015

440 Gallery celebrated the tenth year of hosting its annual small works show. This juried exhibition featuring small artwork always draws a big crowd. Nearly eighty artists are represented with artwork in a variety of media including painting, collage, sculpture, photography and more. 

Juror: For over twenty-five years Bill Carroll has been involved in the New York art world in a variety of roles. He was the Director of the Charles Cowles Gallery, then in Soho, for nine years; and the Elizabeth Harris Gallery in Chelsea for eight years. Bill also worked in non-profit at the Dia Art Foundation, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Nancy Graves Foundation, and is presently the Director of the Studio Program of The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. 

The artists chosen for the show are: Jo-Ann Acey, Kristin Adamczyk, Lianne Alcon, Arshes Anasal, M.P. Armelin, Eric Banks, Christina Baril, Stephen Basso, Joshua Beliso, Stacy Bergener, Sue Blanchard, Adisak Chiwhanung, Frieda Christofides, Casey Concelmo, Milan DelVecchio, Tom Duimstra, Rina Dweck, Joan Easton, Jim Ebersole, Richard Estrin, Janice Everett, Donna Festa, Debra Friedkin, Alan Gaynor, Gail Ghezzi, Sean Grandits, Susan Greene, Susan Greenstein, Rachel Heinold, Barbara Hessel, Doug Holst, Owen Karrel, Jamie Kay, Matthew Kirby, Roz Kochman, Tara Kopp, Marina Korenfeld, Taeko Kuraya, Matthew Langland, Camille Laoang, Kathleen Erin Lee, Jeanette Levy, Robert Lobe, Chris Lucius, Brian Madonna, Sabina Magnus, Tali Margolin, Spencer Merolla, Isabelle Milkoff, Todd Molinari, Ellen Moses, Kellie Murphy, Ronald Peters, Cindy Press, Anna Redwine, Mari Renwick, James Rose, Mark Rosenthal, Evan Schwartz, Natasha Shapiro, Jenine Shereos, Stephan Sieg, Ross Smirnoff, John Sousa, Elizabeth Sowell-Zak, Marcy Sperry, William Tarnowski, Preston Trombly, Lisa Tubach, Dominique Vitali, Jeanne Marie Wasilik, Amy Weil, Jeanne Wilkinson, Dale Williams, Divine Williams, Cindy Zaglin, Dganit Zauberman, Erin Zelley.

October 23 - November 23, 2014

One might wonder why an artist like Ella Yang, whose passion for plein air painting was ignited in the lush countryside of Italy's Umbria, would want to paint disintegrating pilings in the Gowanus Canal, or a local bodega that has seen better days. Yang, in fact, has painted many such views over the past several years. As trite as it is, the saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" holds true for Yang, who finds aesthetic appeal in the commonplace, often overlooked structures and scenes in her surroundings. Her second solo exhibition at the 440 Gallery, Look Again, showcased a selection of these paintings from October 23 to November 23, 2014. 

Yang finds poetry in the way sunlight strikes and reflects off surfaces, whether a man-made object or a natural one, and in the patterns shadows create. Her paintings have a timeless quality, as she selects views that focus on the old, especially the architectural elements that pervade her compositions. This selection of works also has poignancy - some of the paintings, such as Eagle Clothes, depict aspects of Brooklyn neighborhoods that are disappearing gradually. 

Yang takes great pleasure in traditional methods of oil painting. Typically, she starts a painting on-site and returns multiple times to develop the composition, build up masses of colors, and correct tonal values. Back at her studio, she often applies glazes to heighten the translucency and a sense of light in specific areas of a painting. She states that "at best my paintings pay tribute to the abundant benefits of attentiveness." 

Ella Yang, a native New Yorker and first-generation Korean-American, is mostly self-taught. Yang shows her work at the 440 Gallery and in solo and group exhibitions at other galleries in New York City and environs. She also sells directly from her studio near the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. Her paintings are in private collections in the United States, as well as in Hong Kong, Italy, France, and Austria. In August, the renowned ART in Embassies program honored her with the selection of three paintings for the U.S. Embassy in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2006, she spent a month at the internationally recognized artist residency program the Vermont Studio Center. She is proud to be included in the book 100 New York Painters, by Cynthia M. Dantzic (Schiffer Books, 2006). Yang is a graduate of Yale College with a B.A. in architecture.

September 18 - October 19 , 2014

Coloratura, literally "coloring" in Italian, is a term that refers to elaborate operatic melody. Gail Flanery's solo exhibition at 440 Gallery exemplifies both those senses of the word. This new collection of works on paper sings with the exuberance of a virtuoso. Flanery's forte is color: rich and nuanced, reveling in bold contrasts or subtle juxtapositions. Primarily a printmaker, the artist creates one-of-a-kind monotypes by manipulating the inks and printing plates and later adding pastel or pencil to the print. In her recent work she has also added elements of Chine-collé and collage, usually strips of handmade paper. Coloratura, Gail Flanery Works on Paper, will ran from Thursday, September 18 through October 19, 2014. 

Flanery's work seduces with an initial impression of simplicity and formal purity. Yet it holds our interest with a depth that tugs beneath the surface. The artist has cited her yearly painting and fishing trips to Montana as a source of inspiration and we sense the vast, desolate beauty of western skies in the work. Yet, the tilted horizons and intense colors infuse the landscapes with an energy that is rooted in an urban sensibility. Flanery has stated "I believe all art forms are found in nature. My artwork is inherently suggestive of landscape, although the geography is not specific." The work is not a literal rendering but is instead the emotional impression of earth and sky, a sensory memory of a landscape. 

An artist with a consistent practice and exhibition history over several decades, Flanery was a denizen of the 1970's downtown art scene when Soho was the rough and tumble Bushwick of its day. The then low rent district was rife with struggling artists, and Flanery gained an invaluable education in the intrigues of the art world. Her agent suggested she try printmaking in order to meet the demands of a booming '80s art market. Hooked on the medium, she eventually became entranced with the process of creating unique monotypes as opposed to the creation of many reproductions of a single image.

August 21 - September 14, 2014

Ever since our ancestors depicted the hunt for dinner on the walls of caves, cuisine and its culture have always met in the visual arts. 440 Gallery hosted their annual summer theme show Food for Thought, a national juried exhibition exploring food in all its manifestations. For many of the selected works the cliche "starving artist" has less to do with physical hunger and more to do with the disconnection between nourishment and the food we eat: a photograph of a blue-tinged chicken carcass, a mosaic made up of brightly colored cereals, and a cake made of cement. They suggest metaphysical starvation in a land of plenty. The following 26 artists were selected by the juror Jennifer Coates: Elizabeth Albert, Alan Alejo, Sarah Allen, Eric Banks, Zel Brook, Mitsuko Brooks, Bill Cullen, Patricia Denys, Mary DeVincentis, Andrew Francis, Lauren Garfinkel, Neal Levin, Brooke Marcy, Tali Margolin, Laura Murray, Lucas Novaes, Gun Roze, Toni Silber-Delerive, Frances Sniffen, Dani Steele, James Strong, Meagan Thompson, Lisa Tubach, Melissa Walker, Hyeonkyeong Yeo, Rachel Youens. 

The juror for this show was Jennifer Coates, a painter, musician and writer living in New York City. She has written reviews of art exhibits for publications such as Time Out New York, Art in America and The Brooklyn Rail, and has taught in art programs around the country. She has also widely exhibited her work in numerous group shows and has had solo shows at Feigen Contemporary, Kevin Bruk Gallery and Luxe Gallery.

July 17 - August 17, 2014

In his inaugural solo exhibit at 440 Gallery, Jay Friedenberg's digital images vibrate with a neon intensity. His photographs of New York City scenes are digitally manipulated, the colors and details pushed into surreal landscapes. In one image an inky black cityscape glows with electric daubs of light, and in another the encroaching twilight casts the city into a blue fantasy. Some of his induced effects suggest other techniques such as pointillism, cartoon or graphic imagery. 

Friedenberg's artistic style has many influences including the Impressionists who utilized optical blending techniques and use of intense color. He also favors the work of the modern Japanese woodblock print artists, who were experts at laying down adjacent colored areas to produce interacting effects. Some of his work has attempted to replicate the mosaic patterns seen in their prints. The Fauvists Vlaminck and Derain hold some appeal for him as well in terms of their use of primary colors. Friedenberg's subject matter is both banal but stylized, with aerial perspective views of Manhattan and rush hour commuters whose shapes are stretched thinly into space. 

Jay Friedenberg is atypical in the art community as he is both an artist and a vision scientist. For the past 15 years he has been investigating topics in human vision related to art perception. He has published numerous scientific articles and uses his understanding of human aesthetic perception to inform his artwork. His photographic images have won him honorable mention in The Artist's Magazine All-Media Competition in 2012 and he also placed as a contest winner in the 2013 Digital Arts California International Photography Contest. In addition to the 440 Gallery he has exhibited his works at the Tivoli Art Gallery in Tivoli, New York and at the Urban Passage Gallery at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. He is a member of the Mystic Art Association, the Pastel Society of America and the Connecticut Pastel Society. His landscape images have been published in The Pinyon Review, Cyberwit.net and The Poughkeepsie Journal newspaper. He has authored four books on graphic design.

June 12 - July 13, 2014

In his inaugural solo exhibit at 440 Gallery, long-time Brooklyn-based artist Fred Bendheim brought a bolt of energy, bright color and visual bravado to the world of art. Bendheim constructed abstract, shaped paintings on cut-out surfaces. These "shapings" are usually made of wood and often painted in exuberant primary oil colors. Their geometric lines possesd a formal restraint, a coolness that balances the heat of their electric hues. Bendheim's technical execution is orderly and meticulous, but the curves and jutting angles convey a visceral freedom. 

Bendheim states that his work is "based on principles, not precedents. It is about the immediacy of the forms, lines and colors and their relationships to each other and the spaces that they inhabit." He cites the shaped canvases of Elizabeth Murray as an influence as well as the vibrant simple cutouts in the late work of Matisse. The rhythmic repetition and geometry of forms in some of the work recall the patterning of Islamic art or Navaho weaving. The Native American theme recurs in Bendheim's totemic vertical constructions and in the motif of his use of the four cardinal directions. 

Fred Bendheim has exhibited widely, including at the Museum of Arts & Design, NY; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The National Gallery of Costa Rica; The Instituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Venice, Italy; The Plotkin Museum, Scottsdale, AZ; The Brooklyn Public Library, NY; Denise Bibro Fine Art, NY; Bradley International Airport, Los Angeles, CA; The Mayo Center for Humanities, Scottsdale, AZ. His commissions include sculptures for Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and paintings for the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, among others. His past art has taken the form of large room-sized installations, outdoor billboards with children's art, sculptures and fountains made of many materials and mural-sized drawings. He has written many articles about art for the British journal The Lancet and teaches art classes at the Art Students League in New York City.

May 8 - June 8, 2014

An unbridled horse towers over a house; a bear lumbers through a vague unnatural landscape; a child and large bird nestle with one another: animal imagery suggests passions or instincts often subdued by our social mores. In Domesticated, Karen Gibbons' fourth solo exhibit at 440 Gallery, these images dominated her paintings and collages, subtly provoking the tension between the tame, contained aspects of our culture and the natural animal impulses of the individual. Gibbons' work recalls aspects of both Twombly and Chagall; as here she uses animal imagery to create an emotional narrative about self-transformation. 

The painting that marked Gibbons' pivotal foray into this series is a tribute to her late cousin. It depicts a large white horse superimposed on a house. The artist mixed photographic collage with layers of transparent acrylic paint to create a shifting, ghostlike impression. Her practice of incorporating found objects and painting over found canvases introduces the elements of chance and discovery into the work. In this series, Gibbons used enlarged prints of old family photographs, mingling memory and emotion with the surreal and mystical. The animals - birds, horses, dogs - in all the works are symbolic, but they also refer to actual events in the artist's life. The horse is more than a mythological symbol of freedom or passage to another world, it is the animal that fascinated and carried the artist and her cousin on its back in their childhood. 

Karen Gibbons has been living and working in Brooklyn for more than 30 years, she holds a BFA from Pratt Institute, an MFA from Hunter College, and has shown her work regularly throughout New York City. Related professional experience includes painting murals, curating exhibitions, bookmaking, and teaching. Karen's creative inspiration is informed by her other work as an art therapist, a certified yoga instructor, and as a mother of three.

April 3 - May 4, 2014

At first glance, Laurie Lee-Georgescu's prints seduce you with vibrant color and exquisite draftsmanship, but a closer look takes you into an unsettling realm of human discord. In her inaugural solo exhibition at 440 Gallery, the artist showed her recent woodblock and linocut prints. The work was replete with scenes of war or disaster: a home scene disrupted by a soldier in a living room; tanks escorting school children; a house slanted and partially destroyed by some natural disaster posed against a bucolic landscape. Lee-Georgescu colors her finely rendered narratives in bright reds, deep indigos, lemon yellows and lush russets. These artistic choices play up the uneasy juxtaposition between beauty and tragedy, innocence and horror, and the sanctity of family life breached by external upheaval. Unresolved Conflict opens at 440 Gallery on April 3 and runs through May 4, 2014. There will be an opening reception on Friday, April 4, 6:00-9:00 PM. Several events related to the exhibition are planned, including a hands-on workshop for children. 

Lee-Georgescu's source material is primarily drawn from the evening news. She alters images from newspapers and photographs, editing out the defining elements or details that identify the where and the when of the event. With the specific context removed, she says "The images become both more mysterious and more universal: one sees only the relationship between unknown figures placed within an action." In Welcome the Abyss, for example, men hang desperately from the undercarriage of an ascending plane, the quintessential image of refugees fleeing every war. 

Lee-Georgescu employs several printmaking techniques with both Eastern and Western origins. She uses Japanese moku-hanga (wood block printing) best known for the ukiyo-e genre associated with Hiroshige and 17th -19th century Japanese masters, and obakashi, a technique of blending colors into gradients on the carved wooden printing plate. She also applies Western techniques making linocuts and woodcuts, as well as experimental modes such as acrylic and watercolor washes painted on the paper before printing.

February 27 - March 30, 2014

Every artist has themes and threads that run through their work over a lifetime. Finding The Root, Ellen Chuse's 4th solo exhibition at Park Slope's 440 Gallery, explored several that have been a powerful force in her work for decades. Spanning almost 30 years, these drawings and paintings reflect her engagement with nature and landscape in ways both abstract and representational but always personal. "The energy of trees rising and rooting simultaneously, and the vitality of leaves and plants as they reach for light and air have always fascinated me. The shapes and edges that define them and the spaces in between have been my muse for years," says Chuse. 

Finding The Root presents charcoal and chalk drawings from the 1980s and 1990s, as well as more recent paintings on paper from 2012 and 2013. These lively works, always bold in either color or black and white, come naturally from Chuse's previous life as a sculptor. Her focus on line and edge creates images that seem almost carved into the paper. While seemingly diverse in scale and subject matter, they all spring from a singular source. Inspired by pine and shad trees from Block Island to Rome and plants from places in between, the work reflects her continuing exploration of organic forms. These forms reflect and echo one another constantly throughout this vibrant exhibition.

January 16 - February 23, 2014

Vicki Behm views fragments of daily life in detail, noting idiosyncrasies and ironies with warmth and gentle mirth. In her second solo exhibition at 440 Gallery, New Drawings: Mexico and New York City, Behm presented her latest set of lively black ink drawings on hand made paper and collages. Her works comprised of images she encountered in her hometown of New York City and Oaxaca, Mexico, where she spends her summers: old bicycles, Volkswagen beetles, antique typewriters, denizens of Union Square Park, neighborhood cafés, plates of tarts, cheese displays, bottles of tequila, cowboy boots at a flea market. She incorporates labels from food packages and bottles, and 1920s postage stamps from Oaxaca. The drawings have a flattened and tilted perspective; the negative space competing for interest with the subject. Behm demonstrates an expressive line quality and lyrical style. The inclusion of incidental components reflects a meticulous attention to her surroundings, while keeping a light playfulness at the heart of each image.)

December 12, 2013 - January 12, 2014

They say great things come in small packages. As 440 Gallery presents its Ninth Annual Small Works Show this December, this adage may just prove true. The 80 pieces of artwork in the gallery, each piece no larger than 12", represents a strong Brooklyn artistic presence, but also showcases artists from all over the country. The show includes a variety of media—painting, photography, sculpture—chosen by this year's juror, Jessica Porter, art consultant and director of Porter Contemporary, a gallery in the Chelsea arts district of New York City. 

The much anticipated exhibition regularly opens with an overflow crowd spilling onto Sixth Avenue. There are three awards given each year: the Curators Award, the 440 Award, and the popular People's Choice Award which is determined by the number of "likes" received by the works in the show posted on 440 Gallery's Facebook page. Installed through the holiday season, the show attracts tourists, visitors in the neighborhood, as well as the many stalwart supporters of the local art scene. 

The eighty artists accepted into the show were: Torey Akers, Diane Allison, Kiley Ames, Audrey Anastasi, Efrat Baler, Beatrice Bardin, Nicole Brauch, Zel Brook, Melitte Buchman, Lloyd Campbell, Arthur Celedonia, Jana Charl, Erin Cross, Corinna D'Schoto, Steve Davis, Andrea DeFelice, Christine Dengel, Phil DeSantis, Anthony DiMaggio, Monica Emmons, Brian Everett Miller, Michelle Farkouh, Chloë Feldman Emison, Benjamin Ferguson, Donna Festa, Jane Foley Ferraro, Gail Ghezzi, Peter Goldwater, Johanna Goodman, Carlo Grassini, Leslie Green Guilbault, K. Gretchen Greene, Susan Greenstein, Anna Haczkiewicz, Tighe Hanson, Eric Hartley, Micòl Hernández, Aimee Hertog, Jen Hillman, Martha Ives, Dana James, Elizabeth Keithline, Richard Kessler, Bernice Sokol Kramer, Lisa Kurt, Susan La Mont, Kerry Lange, Matthew Langland, Garam Lee, Kristie Lee, Yu-Chun Ma, Tali Margolin, David Marion, Hildy Maze, Lee Meltzer, Steve Messenger, Kate Missett, Laura Murray, Michael Nelson, Raisa Nosova, Ronald Peters, Julia Ponzek, Barbara Rubensohn, Kathryn Shriver, Rebecca Simon, Frances Sniffen, Pamela Stein, Carlton Sturgill, Wonil Suh, Ilona Szekely, Lois Teicher, Yeachin Tsai, David Vega, Yuki White, Dale Williams, Divine Williams, Meghan Willis, Sangeun Yu, Hope Zaccagni, Abby Zonies.

October 24 - December 1, 2013

You pick them up off the ground, marvel at their colors, perhaps pocket a couple hoping by some off chance they might stay pretty for a while longer. They never do. In fact, the speed at which autumn leaves shrivel and brown never fails to surprise you. In his long walks around Brooklyn with his beloved beagle Augie, Tom Bovo played out this scenario often as the seasons changed. He was intrigued not only by how leaves changed over time, but also by how they differed from street to street. Each street had a particular collection of plants and trees that resulted in its own palette and variety of leaf shapes, just as neighboring countries might have different languages and modes of dress. As a photographer, Bovo found a way to capture the unique qualities of color, shape and pattern of the leaves he collected over time. These luminescent, almost painterly portraits of leaves will be shown together for the first time in Genius Loci, his second solo exhibition at 440 Gallery.

Newer Exhibitions     /     Previous Exhibitions