PAFA and Mixed Greens Gallery Showcase Work by PAFA Graduates

On view July 1–18 at Mixed Greens Gallery in NYC

Reception: Wednesday, July 10, 6-8 p.m.

PHILADELPHIA (June 9, 2014) — The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and Mixed Greens gallery are pleased to announce On Being Solid, a group exhibition featuring the work of five recent PAFA MFA graduates, on view July 1-18 at Mixed Greens gallery (531 West 26th Street, 1st Floor, New York, NY).

On Being Solid features work in a range of media by Matthew Carrieri; Matthew Herzog; Augustus Hoffman; Alexandra Jo Sutton; and Tiffany Tate. The artists explore materiality, image, and the ephemerality and solidity of things remembered and found. The group exemplifies the multi-disciplinary and conceptual nature of PAFA’s MFA degree.

“The work in On Being Solid tests the ability to transmute matter,” says Clint Jukkala, Chair of Graduate Programs at PAFA. “Can a solid object feel like air? What happens when a blind becomes a window? If these artists are interested in matter and what happens to it, the processes they invoke are alchemical in nature. The logic of weights and measurements is not present here, rather it’s the attentive calibration of touch, sight and sound.”

Matthew Carrieri

A sincere honesty of intention and materials defines Carrieri’s paintings and objects. Painted on styrofoam, window blinds, aluminum cans, and other found objects, Carrieri’s pieces create a narrative weaving together his own life and fantastical reimaginings of stories he has read. The joy he finds in making art is palpable.

Matthew Herzog

Herzog’s work merges his interests in visual art, sociology, and ideas of permanence. Utilizing repetitive labor, demolished furniture, printing techniques, casts, photography, and other materials, he investigates the tension between the desire to create and acceptance of decay as well as the fluidity of a studio setting and the pristine state of a gallery. Viewers encounter remnants of his process spanning wall and floor, along with hints as to what will come next.

Augustus Hoffman

Hoffman is a disciple of Ingres’ notion that in all beauty there is strangeness. In his most recent videos, he combines footage of Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth with personal and found imagery to create a mesmerizing rhythm, full of disruption. The final, three-channel piece becomes an alchemical collage, with Fred Astaire acting as shaman.

Alexandra Jo Sutton

Through sculpture, photography, textiles, and found objects, Sutton examines her own past, as well as the brain’s ability to create memory and conscious experience. She utilizes the well-worn paths of nostalgia to reexamine family heirlooms, photographs, and fragments, acknowledging the past as an ever-evolving story we tell ourselves, full of change and loss. The artwork is thus a document of transformation in an attempt to reconcile childhood memories with current versions of truth.

Tiffany Tate

External environments and internal dialogues become one in Tate’s photography and installation. Vast space, emptiness, repetition, texture, and trompe-loeil techniques are utilized to reveal a point where physical landscapes become spiritual and even intimate. Viewers are encouraged to touch, look, discover, question assumptions, and actively utilize their senses.

A catalog with an essay by David Cohen accompanies the exhibition.

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About PAFA

Founded in 1805, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is America's first School of Fine Arts and Museum. Nearly every major American artist has taught, studied, or exhibited at PAFA. The institution's world-class collection of American art continues to grow and provides what only a few other art institutions in the world offer: the rare combination of an outstanding Museum and an extraordinary faculty known for its commitment to students and for the stature and quality of its artistic work.

About Mixed Greens

Mixed Greens represents US-based artists that specialize in conceptually driven and figurative work in a diversity of media. We currently represent seventeen artists who are at varying stages of their careers.

Mixed Greens was originally conceived during the late ‘90s to support emerging artists. By promoting them online and through other non-traditional means, such as experimental spaces in locations across the country, Mixed Greens built a reputation of approachability and inventiveness. The goal was to make contemporary artists accessible to the public and vice versa. Mixed Greens became known as a gallery where emerging artists are given their first solo shows in New York City. Now, the artists are vibrant and recognized members of the contemporary art dialogue. Due to the success of its artists and its recognition within the collecting and curating communities, Mixed Greens developed organically from its revolutionary inception into a traditional gallery. Today we continue in the same spirit as we did in 1999, and strive to show work that is not only of contemporary interest, but will be of lasting art historical significance.