Leif Low-Beer: Missed opportunities from Richard centric behavior

Leif Low-Beer lives and works in Berlin and New York. His sculptures featured in "small moments" group exhibition, on view this November 2017 at Brilliant Champions Gallery, are part of a larger, evolving, installation in the artist's Berlin studio. Below we've included the artist's statement on the project as well as images from the studio.

LEIF LOW-BEER

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
FROM RICHARD CENTRIC BEHAVIOR

Mixed media installation un-shown work currently assembled in artist studio
Dimensions: 17’ x 26’ x10’
Berlin, 2017

‘Missed opportunities from Richard centric behavior (so and so’s penis was so sacred to him that it led him astray from the Lord).’

In the studio, my choices are governed by a feeling for narrative. I move until stories are revealed and then make decisions informed by those stories. Colors pinch one another, a group of sculptures sit together until they become lazy or lusty or envious. The subtle movement from conversation to conversation, from personality to personality, is discovered in the transition between shapes and forms.

My work bears the marks of this narrative process, but the story remains open-ended and ambiguous, shifting through multiple frames and tellings. I’m interested in the idea that an installation, sculpture, or drawing can be a form of description – a way of telling stories that are familiar to us, but that cannot be expressed in words. My work explores the mute in-between of things: between known and unknown, sayable and unsayable, flat and dimensional. The independence of a small composition pulls against the order imposed by a larger environment – not entirely of it, but not fully apart from it either.

I’ve been working with installation for a number of years. I first drew objects in space – then later used objects in space to create drawings. In a series of pieces, I laid out objects that, when viewed at a specific angle, resolved into a single coherent image. When seen from a given viewpoint, these compositions acquired the flatness of a picture, creating a relationship between drawing and sculpture. Part of the tension in these compositions lay in the conflict between the individual and the group: Can smaller works that are themselves understood to be individually complete come together to form a single piece – a larger installation that is itself also read as a fully unified whole? It is an interesting challenge to encourage this sort of doubled-attention from the viewer.

Over time, I’ve extended these ideas into larger pieces with more expansive frames, pushing at the edge of this problem. In this work I installed a series of sculptures and drawings in the studio space. While strict spatial relationships remained important, the work became looser, and more intricate narrative relationships began to develop.

A work like this often begins with a single object and moves outwards. The product and discards of my environment become incorporated into the work. Removed from their purpose and context, these objects are marks and begin to structure the kinds of stories that can be told. The sense of a given place comes to underwrite the work as a whole – from the selection (and availability) of materials, to the feeling for story itself.

Throughout the process, I try to keep my movements spontaneous, maintaining a sense of openness and improvisation while staying within a larger set of rules and structures. A finished drawing sits first at the base of one assemblage, then becomes the backdrop for a different piece. A found-object offers me a new shape to work with, and becomes part of the life of the studio. Pieces meet and marry, living happily together — unless they realize it is not for the best, and grow apart.

Photo credits: Dimitri Kireev/ Leif Low-Beer, Berlin 2017

Keepsakers Group Exhibition

We are proud to present “Keepsakers”, a broad grouping of contemporary works comprised of mono-prints on paper by Phyllis Boudreaux, oil paintings on paper by Kristin Texeira and wall sculptures by Nikita Vishnevskiy. Tension between figure or object and the surrounding dense block of bold color and texture brings the three very different artists work together in this vibrant group exhibition. 

Phyllis Boudreaux is a mixed media artist who creates blue film etching and mono-prints that are made with Plexiglas plates. The confined figures in the artist’s work are part of a larger series, which concentrate on the frailty/brokenness of the human condition. The Matisse-like figures twist in obscure postures, almost falling upwards in space and time. “It is that dance between the figure and shapes that represent the push-pull of the physical and the immaterial.” Boudreaux lives and works in Kinnelon, New Jersey. She received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design with a MFA from William Paterson University. Her mixed media work has been shown in galleries, universities and public spaces nationally.

Kristin Texeira, an oil painter working on paper, depict places from writer Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities. In the book, Calvino poetically explains how personal experiences influence the way we recall places and moments in time. These works provides proof—for herself and others—of existing in certain moments in time. “I paint to capture, document, and preserve memories. I translate the essence of moments through color by mixing up the poetics of people and places. I retell stories through painting and writing to preserve memories as tangible maps." Texeira has exhibited on both coasts and in Europe as well as participated in numerous artist residency programs across the country. Shecurrently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Nikita Vishnevskiy’s wall sculptures are resin tablets emphasized by hand-sewn frames. Embedded within the tablets are tokens of the artists past, including flowers, hair and stone. The tokens encapsulated in the timeless tombs of resin communicate passion, mourning, grief and loss. “A cut and woven lock of hair or a carefully chosen flower could publicly represent the most intimate human emotions.” In these works of art, Vishnevskiy poses the materials as a questioning, a calling for a sensual consciousness. Vishnevskiy is an artist and curator born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He received his BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007 and his MFA from Parsons in New York City in 2009. As an artist Vishnevskiy has exhibited in galleries across the U.S. and abroad at the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow, Russia.

Brilliant Champions Gallery celebrates “Keepsakers” with an opening reception on May 19, 2017 from 6 - 9pm and is open to the public. The exhibition runs through June 17, 2017 with open hours Tuesday through Saturday from 11am to 5pm and by appointment or chance.

CANTICLE: Description of Pan & Hermaphrodites

In this collection of new works, artist Peter Depelchin draws from his expansive personal library of art history, inspired by the of several Roman and Greek classical sculptures which portray Salmacis & Hermaphrodites from the in the Greek mythology of Metamorphoses, and a old hellenistic quote which in one sentence refers to the encounter of Pan and Hermaphrodites.

The formation of the works began after viewing the marble sculpture “Satyr Struggling with a Hermaphrodite” during his residency in New York City. Depelchin became intrigued by the story of Hermaphroditus. The offspring of two Olympians, Hermaphroditus is rarely mentioned in literature, however is well-represented by statues. Hermaphroditus, is often portrayed in Greco-Roman art as a female figure with male genitals and depicts scenes complex gender roles.

Unknown sculptor
“Satyr Struggling with a Hermaphrodite” 
c.150 B.C.
Marble

Peter Depelchin
"Pan & Hermaphrodites III"
Chinese ink & acrylic paint on paper

Depelchin began researching other representations of the encounter of Pan and Hermaphroditus. He read through his own huge art library and expanded his research online which resulted in the discovery of ten other sculptures. Depelchin then recreated the postures of those historic sculptures with three modern dance models and asked them to improvises movement from one posture to another. This session resulted in hundreds of pictures which Depelchin selected four to base his works from.

Once back in Belgium, Depelchin began to create studies for his large 8ft drawings by collaging samples of several historical references. He scanned images from his art history books onto the photos using an old copy machine and the primitive technique of cut and paste. After having done so, he then added ink and ballpoint details to make the images look comprehensive. While creating the collages, Depelchin focused on adding intrinsic layers of meaning with the presence of several cultures, artists work and historical imagery, creating a universal language in the narrative of Pan and Hermaphrodites.

In the first collage, Depelchin introduces the role of flora that plays a major role throughout the series. A marguerite flower is offered in the first encounter of the mythological characters and is a symbol of love and innocence. This image is all about the flirtation, the courting of Hermaphrodites. Pan offers the flowers, but also turns to hide the enormous growth that sprout from his groin. Hermaphrodites is delighted by the gift. Pan wears a fluffy feather hat with gentle eyes that look adoringly on the goddess. Hermaphrodites wears a crown of vulture heads, which reveals her as prey. The abstraction of Hermaphrodites' face in the first and the last images of the series reference to the Indonesian puppet-shadow plays, called 'Wayang'. 

Peter Depelchin
Pan & Hermaphrodites I, study
2016
Scanned photos, collaged cut out of historical art references, pen & ink drawing on paper

The second collage is a dance, it is the extreme seduction of Hermaphrodites. Pan's hat transforms into a large horn of a goat. He holds a pen in his hand that symbolizes the splattering of ink and an imminent penetration. Hermaphrodites turns her head away, refusing to look him in the eyes, now realizing Pan's real intentions. In this collage, Depelchin sketches the hands of “Saint Lucy”, by Francesco del Cossa where the saint holds a stem of two eyes and a feather in the other.

Cossa, Francesco del
“Saint Lucy”
c. 1473/1474
tempera on poplar panel

In the third image Depelchin shows us a violent fight between both figures. Pan now having a third leg (a formal reference to the German Artist Hans Bellmer) and horn that protrudes from his belly which keeps Hermaphrodites firmly in place. The horn pierces her body (announced by the pen in the second image) and comes out of her mouth as a branch with leaves. Hermaphrodites on the other hand, hides her face, an innocent face. The face seen here is is from a Rogier van der Weyden painting, one of the most famous flemish primitives. Leaves grow all over both characters, as they slowly become prey of their most basic instincts. 

Rogier van der Weyden
“Portrait of a Lady”
c. 1460
oil on panel

Hans Bellmer
“La Poupée”
c.1938
photo-gelatin silver

Peter Depelchin
"Pan & Hermaphrodites III", study
2016
Scanned photos, collaged cut out of historical art references, pen & ink drawing on paper

Finally in the fourth image we can see Pan transformed in a huge minotaur. Still there is some gentleness in his eyes as he knows now that Hermaphrodites has submitted: his dominance is complete. The bull head paying homage to Pablo Picasso's 'Vollard Suite' where he exploits the Minotauromachy, is a theme that often seen throughout Depelchin's work. Pay attention to the flames the minotaur’s hands, they are the written dutch word 'vlammen' in the original collage (translated as flame or fire in english), but changed into a mystical Persian scripture in the drawing. Depelchin is fascinated by Eastern and Iranian miniatures. The motive of a flame being held in the hand or as an aura around a figure is very common in these old medieval paintings on paper. 

Pablo Picasso
“Scene Bachique au Minotaure”
c. 1933
etching

Sultan Muhammad
“The Ascent of Muhammad to Heaven”
c. 1539-43
opaque watercolor and ink on paper

The collages then are interpreted into drawings, laboriously rendered on large reams of paper with Chinese ink and acrylic paint. The process of cross hatch and pointillism combined with intense blocks of pattern and detail are typical of Delepchin’s work. This combination justly evokes visionary images with both Oriental and Occidental cultural influences. Likewise does his grip on several ancient printmaking techniques such as woodcut and intaglio.

Studio Visit with Kristin Texeira

It’s easy to get swept away by the colors in Kristin Texeira's paintings. The bold blocks of abstract shapes and flattened textures of oil paints (that can only truly be appreciated in person) spread across thick white paper forming what the artist calls “Memory Maps”. We recently visited the artist’s work space in Brooklyn, nestled in the back of an old print shop. We discussed the process of her work, the recent projects she’s been working on and the concept of paintings of memories.

“I paint to capture, document, and preserve memories. I translate the essence of moments through color by mixing up the poetics of people and places. I retell stories through various methods of mark-making using paint, collage, sketching and writing. This process preserves memories as tangible “maps.” I often juxtapose these memory maps with short captions that form the foundation for the colors I mix.”

— Kristin Texeira

In October 2016 Kristin was invited to the Varda Artists Residency Program where she lived and created new art works on the historic SS Vallejo. The pieces she created there were memories from where she’d recently left behind, and had been exhibited this past week at Art On Paper in NYC. She’d also been interpreting other people's memories at Canal Street Market, where she held open hours for patrons to come visit, tell their story and then have those memories transformed into paintings. 

“I attempt to create something familiar, and—at the same time—something entirely elusive and intangible, like a forgotten word on the tip of one’s tongue. My colors blend and bounce off of each other. They tell of a person or place’s ambiguous history. This vagueness is complemented by specifics in my writing, which—while focusing on a moment’s singular identity and tender details—leaves much to the viewers’ interpretation.”

— Kristin Texeira

Film by Nick Noyes & Michelle Garcia
Music by Eddie Byun

In the studio with Noah Becker

“I was much older then…” he explains, referring to a solemn photo of himself from a few years back. “I’m growing younger and younger with every year that goes by” he laughs. And such was the nature of our entire studio visit with artist Noah Becker: generously candid and subtly dynamic.

The Collector's Ranch, 2017
acrylic on canvas
40" x 30"

Becker operates on a multidisciplinary level: he is a painter, a jazz musician, and the founding editor of Whitehot Magazine. Our time together was spent immersed in Becker’s work as an artist, and ultimately, his discussion of painting acted as a conduit for explaining his other diversified pursuits. With an abundance of paintings on-hand and the even greater number on-file, he took us on a tour of his ever-evolving trajectory as an image maker.

Noah Becker's art studio

Becker’s work might be looked at in phases. Most current (in fact, still in progress) is a moody model-based portraiture project. Go back to the 2016 election, and Becker has a number of hybrid collage/paintings that deal with media over-saturation. These pseudo pop political works simultaneously reference art history while interacting with the present cultural moment. Displayed on the wall is yet another chapter of work, a group of populated surreal landscapes. They are built up with collected images— from eBay tchotchkes to the Unabomber shack. Becker shows us archives of playful portraits painted of British hair models. There are also a number textual paintings, words spelled out in balloon font. Self-portraiture too, reoccurs in the artist’s repertoire. A pattern of diversification again begins to emerge: Becker explores an idea, works through it, and then switches gears. Until, within the broader context of Becker’s career, the trends of his idiosyncratic image selection begin to reveal themselves. 

Cookie, 2013
oil on canvas
30” x 30"

Yipes, 2016
oil on panel
16" x 20"

Sort of, 2016
oil and acrylic on canvas
20" x 24"

Noah Becker's art studio 

Written by Janna Alfred

Mark Warren Jacques and the vices of man.

In Mark Warren Jacques' upcoming exhibition opening this January 2017, the artist explores a new narrative, calling it Man's Ruin. While maintaining the complex, geometric abstractions that are representative of his signature style, the new series of paintings depict sex, drugs and power, the vices tempting to man.

Mark Warren Jacques
"Power"
acrylic on canvas

As our pal Howard Hurst wrote, "It is easy to see their relationship to the occult geometries of Charmion Von Wygond, or the tumultuous, semi textual abstractions of American Modernist Stuart Davis. Panes of iridescent color collide, warp into explosions of delicate line, and trapes across fields of color. Anthropomorphic shapes seem to convey a helter skelter optimism that allows one to feel the sublime in little idiosyncratic bursts. It is easy to recognize this same potent strand of whimsy one finds while staring at the humbling scale of a desert landscape. Jacques’ great strength is his ability to shift that gaze into a knowing wink. His paintings become like personal talismans. Similar to the symbols painted so commonly on Amish barns in his native Ohio they convey a homegrown kind of magic."

Mark Warren Jacques
“Two Beautiful Booties”
acrylic on canvas

Mark Warren Jacques
“All Night Every Day” installation

Artist Interview: Michelle Blade

For Michelle Blade’s solo exhibition, 'Gentle Existential', our lovely gallery assistant, Janna Alfred, asked a few questions about the artist’s personal mythology, her feminine voice within the artists’ painting practice, and overall inspirations in creating this newest body of work.

Janna Alfred: Where does the quote that you begin the exhibition statement come from? Was that your dream? 

Michelle Blade: The quote is a text I wrote about a dream I had. I usually hesitate over putting words to my work and I wait to the last minute when writing statements, but when I had the dream I describe in the quote it was the literal piece I needed that pull everything together. The concept of gestalt, that parts do not make the whole, reminded me that being human is not a summary of our experiences but something else all together.

Why Can’t I Touch it? / Mirroring, 2016
Ceramic

JA: Your work seems to be openly feminine. Do you find this to be an essential element to your practice, or is it more a side effect of your particular methods of creating?

MB: Openly portraying a feminine voice within my painting practice has been something I’ve grown into, it hasn’t always been present. Within this show it was a conscious decision to bring a more personal, symbolic narrative to the work. For years I’ve made paintings inspired by the Romantic era. Artists like Caspar David Friedrich who were notorious for impressing their psychological state onto the landscapes they were depicting, created a heightened and very masculine atmosphere. For the work within Gentle Existential I wanted to take a different approach and create a body of work inspired by the empath, a person who soaks up the emotional environment around them and internalizes it.

At this point in my practice it feels natural and necessary to weave in personal symbolic elements after I have been working with themes of the communal for so long. Making paintings has always been the framework for how I interpret the world around me and so it’s essential to follow where it leads me if I want to sustain a curious, evolving and sustainable practice over the course of my life.  

Big Creatures, 2016
Acrylic ink on canvas
4x5'

JA: When exploring your work, one can find ideas from psychology, philosophy, astrology, personal mythology and tarotology, amongst other schools of thought. How often do you come across other creatives and thinkers who are using similar and overlapping vernaculars? Do you feel like you have a community of people who think and work in ways cousin to your own?

MB: I do have a lovely community of curious thinkers and makers in my life. We overlap with some shared interests, but each person has their unique wheelhouse they bring to the table. Obsessions are shared, exchanged and adapted at times, which is one of the best perks of having a nourishing community. I think our mutual ambition and dedication to having a creative life is what ties us together most. Friendship between artists can be like an amazing support group for people that have chosen a hard road. We champion and remind each other of the magic in what we have chosen, which is a great thing to see embodied in a friend.

Drifting, 2016
Acrylic ink on canvas
4x5'

JA: How much is spirituality a part of your art practice? Has it always been that way?

MB: I’ve always been drawn to spirituality and learning about its numerous forms. I think it’s amazing the multitude of stories that have been created by humans to attempt to define the mysteries of existence and essentially marginalize our consciousness. It’s bittersweet. Within my work I try my best to present an image that does not claim facts but constantly skirts these spiritual territories, essentially depicting a space that is frozen at the apex of all those worlds; a world that is meaningless and also one chock full of mystery and absurdities.

The Los Angeles Coyote, 2016
Ceramic

JA: You have included Joan Brown’s name in the title of one of your paintings. Has she been particularly influential to you as an artist? If so, how?

MB: Recently her work and her life story has made an impression on me. Joan Brown and I in the Sun Room at Night, the painting you are referencing, is about trying to identify with some of the roles she played in her life as a mother, a spiritual being, a partner and a devote figurative artist. It’s challenging being a woman and a mother working in this field and I’m constantly searching for role models, especially female figurative painters, to help guide me.  Joan Brown did it with grace and dedication and I wanted to pay homage to that.

Joan Brown and I in the Sun Room at Night, 2016
Acrylic ink on canvas
6x5’

Video - Ice Capades by Randy Colosky

Ice Capades Press in NYAQ

August 19, Brilliant Champions Gallery opens Ice Capades, an exhibition to conclude interdisciplinary artist Randy Colosky’s month-long residency with the gallery. Colosky has created a site-specific installation using isolated elements of refrigeration systems as materials. Compressors and evaporators extract water from the humid summer air, freezing it into cooling lines arranged around the gallery. The exhibition takes its name from the traveling ice skating show that ran from 1940 to 1995. Colosky, who grew up on the tail end of the Cold War, draws attention to the relationship between war and spectacles of entertainment, writing “the battle for No Nukes was being chanted by Jackson Brown in Central Park and a potential holocaust was still just a red button away the Kremlin. As kids, to get though the weight of it all, we just watched a lot of TV.” - NYAQ

Video - "18/BI/F/MA" by Erin M Riley at Brilliant Champions Gallery

Press on Erin M. Riley's solo exhibition

We're so stoked on all the press we've received on Erin M. Riley's solo exhibition "18/f/bi/ma". Here are a few from the past month:

• The Creators Project "Weaving Sexts: Tapestry Artist Threads an Honest Portrait of Female Sexuality"
• W Magazine "Meet Erin M. Riley, the Artist Turning Sexts into Epic Tapestries"
• Huffington Post "From Sexting To Self-Care, These NSFW Tapestries Explore Femininity Today"
• The Jealous Curator "comfortable in my skin " 
• Quiet Lunch "18/f/bi/ma" 
•  Folks "The Textile Artist Who Weaves Tapestries With Trichotillomania"
• Mass Appeal "ARTIST ERIN M. RILEY INTERWEAVES ISSUES OF SEX AND FEMINISM IN TAPESTRY"
• Arrested Motion "Erin M. Riley Upcoming"
• Juxtapoz Magazine "Erin M. Riley "18/bi/f/ma"

Image by QuietLunch

Selfish Press in Fjords Review

Extremely thoughtful review by Heather Zises in today's Fjord Review. 

““With this show, I very much wanted to inspire introspection in other people. SELFISH is really about the existential significance of self-portraiture. This show is not meant to be a spectacle. At its core, it is more of an exercise piece where the viewer looks at the art on the walls and then starts to look within themselves.” - Akeem Duncan, SELFISH Curator

Currently on view at Brilliant Champions is “SELFISH”, a group show featuring a collection of self-portraits. Organized by guest curator Akeem Duncan of Quiet Lunch, the exhibition explores the existential significance of self-portraiture and the role it plays in an artist’s practice. By focusing upon the intimate and inward process of the self-portrait, the exhibition extends far beyond the superficial realms of the selfie.”

— http://www.fjordsreview.com/reviews/selfish-art.html

Read the full article here.

Artist Interview: Nick Jaskey

We interviewed Nick Jaskey, artist living and working in Detroit. His work is motivated by a decade of writing graffiti and photography. We first came across his paintings in one of our collectors homes in Manhattan. The clean, process driven paintings led to many conversations with the artist about his new collection. We are delighted to have some of those works in STICKS & STONES on exhibit this month at Brilliant Champions Gallery, opening Friday, Feb 19th. 

What are your biggest challenges to creating art and how do you deal with them? 
Time is the biggest challenge, I'm still working a job and that takes up most of my days so I have nights and weekends to paint. 

Do you have an art studio? If so, what does having a physical space to make art in mean for your process, and how do you make your space work for you?
I've had several different spaces over the years. For me I like a space close to home but not in the house. When I want to start working it’s something I want to do immediately and having a long commute to a studio can stunt the creative process. Fortunately I live in a new place with a garage I'm currently working on turning into a studio so I can walk out my back door and have everything I need right there. 

Do you see your work as relating to any current movement or direction in visual art or culture? 
I want the paintings to look current but also have a timeless feel, I'm taking inspiration from a unique place and time so I would hope it's its own thing.

How would you describe your subject matter or the content of your work?
I strive to create abstractions that bring the viewer into a visually pleasing environment open to interpretation. The paintings I make are hard-edge color studies that focus on balance and composition. 

What mediums do you work with? 
House paint and film. 

How does your personal history work its way into your practice?
I grew up writing graffiti and skateboarding, so always being in the street really plays into my work. Spending years continuing to search for new areas of the city really developed my eye for detail and I think that reads in my current work with fine art. 

What are you presently inspired by— are there particular things you are reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
I'm inspired by color and natural abstraction that I see around Detroit. I'm also listening to a lot of early electronic music out of the city, so there is a futuristic mad scientist vibe creeping in there too. 

Artist Interview: Damien Hoar de Galvan

This week we interviewed artist, Damien Hoar de Galvan, as we prepare for the STICKS & STONES exhibition opening this Friday, Feb. 19th at Brilliant Champions Gallery. Damien lives and works in Boston, MA and makes wonderfully crafted sculptures. We met up with him in Brooklyn and had the pleasure of getting to know him and his work a little better. 

How would you describe your subject matter or the content of your work?

- I make smallish in scale abstract wooden sculptures.  I work in a very process based, intuitive way. Often as I’m making them I think I am weighing formal concerns over concepts or messages. Humor is important to the pieces, I want them to be funny along with happy and slightly off kilter. I guess they are emotionally informed, maybe a bit perverse or awkward too.

For the folks unfamiliar with your work, what mediums do you work with?

- I mainly work with wood. As often as it can be it is recycled or “found”, I do my best not to buy materials (besides paint, glue, screws etc.). These days most of the materials I use are building materials. I recently renovated my house so most of the sculptures are built from a combination of stuff from the demolition and then scraps from the rebuilding.

How does your personal history work its way into your practice?

- Both my parents are artistic, creative people which I think was influential. My father worked in the world of labor/building and so I grew up seeing tools, materials and how they are used. I was always attracted to the arts but didn’t really figure out I could do something in them until sometime in college. When I found painting I realized I really didn’t have a plan to do anything with my life and that I would try and be an artist. It’s been at least 15 years since then and I’m still trying...

What are you presently inspired by— are there particular things you are reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?

- I listen to a lot of podcast’s while I’m working. Mostly comedy one’s, I guess I love listening to people engaged in conversation. I think hearing people talk about things they are interested in is very….helpful? I don’t talk to many people during the day so maybe I’m making up for that too? My teenage self would also be very disappointed in the fact that I’ve also been listening to a lot of Grateful Dead.  I think it may have something to do with the length of the songs and the kind of consistent tone or feeling I get from that type of music, it helps on long days alone. And then of course there’s social media. I look at my phone a lot, Instagram is great for art in a lot of ways I think. Sometimes I look at my work which is generally made up of little bits of material glued together as physical manifestations of a Facebook or Twitter feed, but just as often I think that’s a rather stupid idea...

Does your work plays with functionality or form? Can you tell us more about how you integrate either into your work?

- Not so much functionality right now. In some of my earlier sculptures there was the question of what is this thing and what does it do? I’m not too concerned with that anymore. I suppose form is still very important, I make “art” objects now.

Do you have an art studio? If so, what does having a physical space to make art in mean for your process, and how do you make your space work for you?

- Currently I don’t really. I had studios in Boston for over 10 years but moved to the suburbs in 2014 so since then I work from home. I haven’t really set up a proper work space, I usually do the cutting in the basement or garage and then the rest of the work in the kitchen or living room. I think my wife will soon force me into a proper studio….

Do you see your work as relating to any current movement or direction in visual art or culture?

- Not really. I think that’s maybe more a question for the viewer?

Besides your art practice, are you involved in any other kind of work?

- I have an almost 6 yr. old daughter which is one of my jobs.  Sometimes I do art handling at museums or galleries or for my wife who is an interior designer.

Do you have a motto?

- “I don’t know” is probably as close to a motto as I have, it’s my answer for most of life.

"TOMORROW'S TODAY" feature on Juxtapoz

Very happy to have received such a stellar review of our very first exhibition at Brilliant Champions Gallery by Juxtapoz. Read the entire write up on Juxtapoz here.

We're open!

Brilliant Champions, will officially open its new location at 5 Central Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11206 on December 10th, 2015, with an inaugural exhibition of new works from Brooklyn based artists Kimia Ferdowsi Kline, Derek Weisberg, and Matthew Craven. “Tomorrow’s Today” is a multi-dimensional exhibition of sculpture, mixed media, and paintings inspired by the maker’s unique connection and abstraction of history.