NIGHTWORK
MARÍA KOROL 2020 EDGE AWARD
NIGHTWORK MARÍA KOROL 2020 EDGE AWARD OCTOBER 10 - NOVEMBER 19
GALLERY OPEN BY APPOINTMENT To reserve a time, visit www.swangallery.org or email gallery@swancoachhouse.com
The Swan Coach House Gallery and the Forward Arts Foundation are pleased to present Nightwork by María Korol, recipient of the inaugural 2020 Edge Award. The $10,000 award is given annually by the Forward Arts Foundation to an early-career or under-recognized visual artist of merit in the greater Atlanta area. The prize also includes a two-week residency at The Hambidge Center. The finalists for the award—Larkin Ford, Michael Jones, Dianna Settles and Jason Sweet—received $2,000 each and have work displayed in the front Gallery space during Korol’s exhibition. Nightwork is the result of Korol’s scholarly research on the history of the Zwi Migdal, a Jewish mafia based in Argentina during the late 19th and early 20th century. The Zwi Migdal carried out a large sex trafficking operation in which humble, impoverished Jewish women from Eastern Europe were enticed to Buenos Aires in hopes of a better life, but instead were forced to become “women of the night” in their new country. These women were seldom recognized for their strength or having agency of their own. Instead, they were often reprimanded and chastised for having no moral character. Spurred by historical research, Korol reimagines these women, their experiences, and the taboo space they occupied in society. Using ink, soft and oil pastel on paper, the artist creates visual stories that bring that reimagined history to the viewer. Through the subjects’ body language and facial gestures, the artist charges the characters with a newfound capacity and power to command their environment. Bodily distortion, absurdity, humor, and abstraction enable Korol’s large- and small-scale works to explore a complicated lifestyle that is widely different from her own. While creating this work, Korol also layered in some of her own family history. Korol’s fusion of the personal and the historical points to the struggles, loss of identity, and adaptability experienced by immigrant communities. Other timely themes such as class, gender, race, sexual violence, and resilience are spotlighted. A special addition to the exhibition includes an audio-visual tour de force, which can be intimately experienced in the Gallery backspace. Korol collaborated with composer Elena Rykova to create a three-screen animation and sound piece titled A Cow in The Backyard. The composition blends moving images created by Korol, digital recordings of everyday sounds by Rykova, and a live recording of a seven piece ensemble of brass and stringed instruments from Ensemble Mosaik (Berlin). This exhibition is sponsored by Betty and Bob Edge
MarĂa Korol MarĂa, 2020 Pastels on paper 14 x 15 inches (framed)
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MarĂa Korol Cuarentena, 2020 (Quarantine) Ink on paper 27 x 35 inches (framed)
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MarĂa Korol El Mercado Espectacular, 2019 (The Spectacular Market) Ink on paper 30 x 36 inches (unframed)
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MarĂa Korol Eva, 2019 Pastels on paper 14 x 15 inches (framed)
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MarĂa Korol Ruth, 2019 Pastels on paper 14 x 15 inches (framed)
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MarĂa Korol La Dote, 2020 (The Dowry) Gesso, oil pastel, oil paint on paper 48 x 74 inches (unframed)
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MarĂa Korol CĂłmo Llegar, 2020 (How to Arrive) Oil pastel on board 12 x 16 inches
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MarĂa Korol Violeta y Sus CompaĂąeras, 2020 (Violet and Her Companions) Oil pastel on board 12 x 16 inches
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MarĂa Korol Perdiendo la Realidad, Milonga Fina, 2020 (Losing Reality, Fine Milonga) Oil pastel on board 12 x 16 inches
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MarĂa Korol Mercado de Chicas, 2020 (Market of Chicks) Ink on paper 27 x 35 inches (framed)
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MarĂa Korol Rabia, 2020 (Rage) Ink on paper 27 x 35 inches (framed)
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MarĂa Korol Mujeres, 2020 (Women) Ink on paper 83 x 47 inches (unframed) 21
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MarĂa Korol Laburo Nocturno, 2020 (Nightwork) Oil pastel on board 12 x 16 inches
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MarĂa Korol Actividad Diurna, 2020 (Daywork) Oil pastel on board 12 x 16 inches
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MarĂa Korol Vestigios, 2020 (Remnants) Table Installation Ceramic and glaze Assorted sizes
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María Korol La Casa Lujosa de Av. Córdoba, 2020 (The Luxurious House on Cordoba Avenue) Ink on paper 47 x 82 inches (unframed) 28
MarĂa Korol Mujer de Arrabal, 2020 (Woman of the Arrabal) Ink on paper 47 x 87 inches (unframed) 29
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MarĂa Korol Olivia, 2019 Pastels on paper 14 x 15 inches (framed) 32
MarĂa Korol Ruby, 2019 Pastels on paper 14 x 15 inches (framed) 33
MarĂa Korol Piel Divina, 2019 Pastels on paper 14 x 15 inches (framed) 34
MarĂa Korol Raquel, 2019 Pastels on paper 14 x 15 inches (framed) 35
A Cow in the Backyard, 2020 (on view in Gallery back space) Stop motion video and electronic music for three screens accompanied by brass and string instruments Collaboration between MarĂa Korol (visuals) and Elena Rykova (sound) Music score interpreted by Ensemble Mosaik (Berlin) 36
Click here to view the video premiere at Kesselhaus in Berlin
MarĂa Korol Hormigas, 2020 (Ants) Pastels on paper 27 x 35 inches (framed)
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MarĂa Korol Sol Violeta, 2020 (Violet Sun) Pastels on paper 20.25 x 28.25 inches (unframed)
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MarĂa Korol La GorgĂłna, 2020 (The Gorgon) Pastels on paper 20.25 x 28.25 inches (unframed)
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María Korol Artist Statement
Bio
I re-contextualize history and mix it with personal experience to make artworks that rely on memory, inventiveness, distortion, and humor. I aim to evoke a sense of place and interiority, allowing my drawings to surprise me as I let them grow through improvisation, as if encountering a city and its people for the first time.
María Korol’s artistic practice is firmly rooted in drawing and painting, including explorations in three-dimensional formats and interdisciplinary collaborations. She is interested in storytelling and the imagination, history and its distortions, and humor. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1980, she was exiled for four years in Brazil during the military dictatorship and later returned to grow up in her home country. She moved to the United States in 2004. Korol has shown her paintings and drawings nationally and internationally in Bogotá, New York, Berlin, and Atlanta, among other cities. Her artwork is in numerous private collections and in those of the University of California-Irvine and Agnes Scott College. She is a distinguished fellow of the Junge Akademie der Künste, the Hambidge Center, and the Women’s Art Institute. She is a 2018-20 resident of The Creatives Project and a 2019 Hughley Fellow. Based in Atlanta, she is a visiting professor of art at Morehouse College.
Using ink on paper, I start by drawing a particular narrative. Through a process of layering, scraping, painting outside the outlines, following impulses to change every shape, I often remove the lifelike aspects of the image completely in search of an essence. The work is an active meditation on topics that interest me, unburdened from didactics and explicitness. Books, historical periods, and memory are starting points for my work. I focus on the human actors and try to carve them out in my drawings with specific details. I am obsessed with body language and facial gestures, and I challenge myself to notice and remember those qualities in people around me to later create my characters. When I am drawing a particular person, I use a mixture of what I can conjure up in my mind’s eye and my own physical mimicry, trying out ways to embody a particular intention, personality, or emotion, and exaggerating it. After I feel all this go through my body, I set to drawing the figure from imagination. As I draw, I approach the paper very openly, without a preconceived idea, searching for the image actively, allowing purposeful accidents to inform my decisions. Each drawing should help me understand something new. The more astonished I can make myself feel the more successful I consider the piece.
2020 EDGE AWARD FINALISTS LARKIN FORD MICHAEL JONES DIANNA SETTLES JASON SWEET
Larkin Ford The Apostles, 2020Â Oil on canvas 48 x 36 inches 44
Larkin Ford Artist Statement
Bio
My paintings, drawings, sequential art, and video works originate from a combination of memory, secondhand narrative, and invented imagery. I combine fragments of events from my childhood in rural North Carolina with the present, using figures created largely from imagination and environments drawn from observation in Atlanta. This slurry of fact and fiction imbues my depictions of familiar environments—shabby domestic interiors and neglected public spaces—with an emphasis on absurdity and the bodily grotesque. Many details that arise through the painting process alter the original narrative or add secondary threads that run through multiple images.
Larkin Ford teaches Drawing and Painting at Georgia State University, where he earned his MFA. He spent his formative years in rural North Carolina, and weaves this and other personal experience into enigmatic narratives through drawings, paintings, and sculptures. Ford has exhibited work in Atlanta at Whitespace, The Mast, and Showerhaus’s High Rise Show. For more information and images, please visit www.larkinhford.com and Instagram @larkinford.
As the works move from looseness to specificity through an iterative process of drawn, painted, and written studies, their framing narratives increase in complexity. Images begin with specific anecdotal threads from personal experience, and the creative process informs their turn toward ambiguity and polyvalence. Eventually the narrative’s initial cohesion ruptures to invite a broader web of potential associations.
Michael Jones Disinfected History, 2020 Mixed media 35.5 x 51 inches (framed) 46
Michael Jones Artist Statement
Bio
My body of work titled The Pavement Series focuses on abstract cityscapes through painting, public art and murals. In these works, I amplify and distort perspective and space within urban environments. The traffic, different vehicles, schools, churches, light poles, power lines and skylines are the subjects of my compositions, and when arranged with bold shapes and colors, I am able to capture the movement and constant change of our communities.
Michael Jones was born in Dallas, Texas, where he attended the Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts. He relocated to Atlanta, Georgia in 1994, where he received his bachelor’s degree in Painting and Sculpture from Atlanta College of Art (presently SCAD) in 1998. His focus was in non-objective, abstract paintings, sculpture, and video. In 2017, Michael completed Chamblee Gateway, a 336 x 16-foot mural in Chamblee, Georgia. In April 2018, Michael completed Butta Upper Westside, a five-story mural on the parking deck of Broadstone Yards apartment complex in Atlanta’s upper west side. In July 2018, Michael curated Westside Murals, a collective effort between the community and 14 emerging Atlanta-based artists. This project brought mural and street art installations onto the interior walls of the self-service car wash bays at the Clean Moto Car Wash in Southwest Atlanta. His Pavement Series can be seen through multiple corporate environments, business interiors and apartment complexes throughout Atlanta including Buckhead Grand, Invesco, PNC, and Primetals Technology.
Dianna Settles Infinity Doesn’t Interest Me, 2020 Acrylic on panel 30 x 40 inches 48
Dianna Settles Artist Statement
Bio
In 2014, I traveled to my father’s home country of Vietnam, where, for the first time, I witnessed room after room of artwork featuring figures I could relate to and see myself in. This began my still indeterminate synthesis of traditional Vietnamese styles and the colonial influences of the canon of European painting. The presence of marginalized bodies in my work is historically important, and permeates my translation of conflicting feelings, rendered through bodies, colors, and objects into sources of power and reclamation. Along with drifting this line between European and Vietnamese artistic lineages, I also collapse the space between the portrait and still life forms - my work often functions as a still life of faces, and simultaneously as a portraiture of objects.
Dianna Settles is a Vietnamese-American artist in Atlanta, Georgia who received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2014. Her current work explores moments of joyful stillness amidst the cascading series of crises called modern life, accomplished through her synthesis of traditional Vietnamese and classical European painting styles.
My paintings materialize ephemeral experiences of joy, potentiality, and friendship in order to reflect on, revisit, and remember them in all their ecstasies and agonies. These images are ways of processing my identities, and celebrating the beauty and uniqueness of the worlds my friends and I construct and inhabit. Inspired equally by actual occurrences and potential arrangements, and combining disparate objects, people, places, and actions from moments of my life, my compositions are collages that take on a richness that gestures beyond the individual emotional and historical resonances of their components - towards all possible arrangements of a life worth living. Whether portraying grand adventures or the oft-overlooked, banal moments of the everyday, I aspire to celebrate the desire to fully participate in communal life, and inspire joy in the struggle to do so, even in a society so inhospitable to this desire. Many of my paintings illustrate joyful collective experiences, exalting in these moments and exploring ways to further elaborate the forms of life that precipitate them. At other times, my subjects are caught in moments of isolation, raising questions around the structures and obstacles keeping us from such meaningful and pleasurable lives. My vibrant colors, poetic compositions, and detailed, playful mark-making help me refine and reveal shared experience, and elevate it beyond individual dreams and memories.
Recent exhibition highlights include the two-person show The One That Got Away at Delaplane in San Francisco, CA, her solo show 99 Flowers at Versa Gallery in Chattanooga, TN, and participation in Of Origins and Belonging at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. As the inaugural artist of Living Walls’ international exchange program, she completed the 180’ long mural To Our Friends / Á Nos Amis in Paris, France in July of 2019, adding to her portfolio of work as a muralist in Atlanta, Oakland, and Pittsburgh. She was recently accepted into the Atlanta Contemporary Studio Artist Program. Currently, she is preparing a large portfolio of new paintings for upcoming shows, including an exhibition with Gerald Lovell and Jurell Cayetano at MINT Gallery in Atlanta and a solo show at Institute 193. In addition to her own art practice, Dianna runs Hi-Lo Press, a print studio and art gallery in Midtown Atlanta, which is home to drag figure drawing nights, the Atlanta Paint Club, an 1843 Robert Mayer Parks lithography press, and regular poetry readings, film screenings, dance parties, potlucks, and a variety of other events and workshops.
Jason Sweet Boulevard Almost Finished, 2020 Welded steel, enamel paint, cement, concrete stains (two panels) 46 x 46 x 3 inches 50
Jason Sweet Artist Statement
Bio
The art I create is a genuine reflection of my interest in identity. Through art making, concept and form are used as a vehicle to personify this interest. The work attempts to balance polarities in contrasting elements through materials, design, and/or subject matter. The current body of work that I am making relates to identifying a number of complexities of gentrification as it relates to the city of Atlanta.
Jason Sweet is a sculptor, painter, drawer, performance and installation artist. He has exhibited his work internationally and has been awarded a number of public art commissions. Sweet is a former Assistant Professor of Art at Atlanta Metropolitan State College. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Sculpture from the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign, where he studied under renowned glass artist William Carlson and artist/critic Buzz Spector. For his Bachelor of Arts, he attended the University of Northern Iowa studying under the direction of sculptor Tom Stancliffe and performance artist Jeffery Byrd, while also apprenticing with artist and now Emeritus Professor at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, Preston Jackson. In 2001, he moved to Atlanta where he currently resides, continues his artistic practice, and is heavily involved with Atlanta’s art collective Smoke School of Art.
Pricelist Works by María Korol: María, 2020, pastels on paper, 14 x 15 inches (framed), $1500.........................................................................................................pg 6 Cuarentena (Quarantine), 2020, ink on paper, 27 x 35 inches (framed), $2400................................................................................pg 7 El Mercado Espectacular (The Spectacular Market), 2019, ink on paper, 30 x 36 inches (unframed), $2200....................................pg 9 Eva, 2019, pastels on paper, 14 x 15 inches (framed), $1000.............................................................................................................pg 10 Ruth, 2019, pastels on paper, 14 x 15 inches (framed), $1000........................................................................................................pg 11 La Dote (The Dowry), 2020, gesso, oil pastel, oil paint on paper, 48 x 74 inches (unframed), $4000................................................pg 13 Cómo Llegar (How to Arrive), 2020, oil pastel on board, 12 x 16 inches, $1500..................................................................................pg 15 Violeta y Sus Compañeras (Violet and Her Companions), 2020, oil pastel on board, 12 x 16 inches, $1500.......................................pg 16 Perdiendo la Realidad, Milonga Fina (Losing Reality, Fine Milonga), 2020, oil pastel on board, 12 x 16 inches, NFS..........................pg 17 Mercado de Chicas (Market of Chicks), 2020, ink on paper, 27 x 35 inches (framed), $2400..............................................................pg 18 Rabia (Rage), 2020, ink on paper, 27 x 35 inches (framed), $2400.....................................................................................................pg 19 Mujeres (Women), 2020, ink on paper, 83 x 47 inches (unframed), $4000..........................................................................................pg 21 Laburo Nocturno (Nightwork), 2020, oil pastel on board, 12 x 16 inches, $1500..................................................................................pg 24 Actividad Diurna (Daywork), 2020, oil pastel on board, 12 x 16 inches, $1500..................................................................................pg 25 Vestigios (Remnants) - Bottles, 2020, ceramic and glaze, assorted sizes, $400 each.......................................................................pg 26-27 Vestigios (Remnants) - Combs, 2020, ceramic and glaze, assorted sizes, $200 each....................................................................pg 26-27 Vestigios (Remnants) - Lipsticks, 2020, ceramic and glaze, assorted sizes, $80 each..................................................................pg 26-27 Vestigios (Remnants) - Corks, 2020, ceramic and glaze, assorted sizes, $80 each.....................................................................pg 26-27 La Casa Lujosa de Av. Córdoba (The Luxurious House on Córdoba Ave.), 2020, ink on paper, 47 x 82 inches (unframed), $4000....pg 28 Mujer de Arrabal (Woman of the Arrabal), 2020, ink on paper, 47 x 87 inches (unframed), $4000....................................................pg 29 Olivia, 2019, pastels on paper, 14 x 15 inches (framed), $1000..........................................................................................................pg 32 Ruby, 2019, pastels on paper, 14 x 15 inches (framed), $1000...........................................................................................................pg 33 Piel Divina, 2019, pastels on paper, 14 x 15 inches (framed), $1000..................................................................................................pg 34 Raquel, 2019, pastels on paper, 14 x 15 inches (framed), $1000.........................................................................................................pg 35 Hormigas (Ants), 2020, pastels on paper, 27 x 35 inches (framed), $1400...........................................................................................pg 37 Sol Violeta (Violet Sun), 2020, pastels on paper, 20.25 x 28.25 inches (unframed), $1250.................................................................pg 38 La Gorgóna (The Gorgon), 2020, pastels on paper, 20.25 x 28.25 inches (unframed), $1250.............................................................pg 39 Works by 2020 Edge Award Finalists: Larkin Ford,The Apostles, 2020, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches, $1400...............................................................................................pg 44 Michael Jones, Disinfected History, 2020, mixed media, 35.5 x 51 inches (framed), $8000...............................................................pg 46 Dianna Settles, Infinity Doesn’t Interest Me, 2020, acrylic on panel, 30 x 40 inches, $3000...............................................................pg 48 Jason Sweet, Boulevard Almost Finished, 2020, welded steel, enamel paint, cement, concrete stains (two panels), 46 x 46 x 3 inches, $3400..............................................................................................................................................pg 50
Acknowledgements This exhibition is sponsored by Betty and Bob Edge Catalog designed by Michelle Laxalt, Manager, Swan Coach House Gallery Photo credit: David Naugle and Michelle Laxalt Installation assistance provided by Michael Fitzgerald and Maria Bruckman, Assistant Manager, Swan Coach House Gallery Audio and visual assistance for screening A Cow in the Backyard in the Gallery back space provided by Eddie Farr
OCTOBER 10 - NOVEMBER 19
GALLERY OPEN BY APPOINTMENT To reserve a time, visit www.swangallery.org or email gallery@swancoachhouse.com