Opening Reception: Thursday, January 16, 2014: 6—8 p.m.
Michele Francis, Gian Garofalo, Johannes Girardoni, Mahmoud Hamadani, Charles Christopher Hill, Jeffrey Cortland
Jones, Tamiko Kawata, Aakash Nihalani, Thomas Pihl, Amanda Valdez, Kazumi Yoshida
In Made in Ratio, a group show of accomplished artists whose work is inspired by materials, geometry, structures, space,
and patterns, objects are taken out of their original context, impeded by other structures, separated from their source, or
have their history of place concealed. In the paintings, sculptures, mixed media, and photography, the ratio of past to
present hovers in flux, grasping onto some known while being infiltrated by an unknown.
An admixture of pure pigment watercolor and resin resonate within a sculpted white framework in Michele Francis’ M II
Series. The ethereal colors steep in a sensorial and visceral experience. The thick multi-colored drips of Gian Garofalo’s
paintings lay neatly side-by-side, as they pull towards the edges in suspended drips, like stalactites. At times they are on
vintage wood soda cases as support or are contained within an iconic shape, such as a map of the United States or a comic
bubble. Johannes Girardoni’s photograph series, Exposed Icons, weeds through the density and gloss of advertising by
focusing on the backside of billboards and repurposing their function in a stoic and minimal atmosphere. Digitized layers
and extracted formality are combined with oblong blankets of architected color, providing a renewed blank canvas.
Mahmoud Hamadani plays with chance, proportion, control, and materials. Equations of dripped ink, continuous lines, and
political proportions exist in his paintings and drawings. The visual language of mark making and pattern in Charles
Christopher Hill’s deep and seductive paintings is enhanced by the luscious surface and pristine care he gives each piece.
Hill references historical and geographical art and craft he saw during his travels. In House, Hill was inspired by patterns on
African textiles; the dense shapes seem layered and pieced together, resting seamlessly together atop a creamy backdrop.
A synchronistic fragmentation occurs in the wake of translucent and opaque paint layers in the enamel and mixed media
works by Jeffrey Cortland Jones. The range of whites, creams, pale colors leaching in, and crisp edges of linear shapes
combines with shadows seen through the acrylic sheets he paints on. Tamiko Kawata transforms everyday materials into
rhythmical collections of patterns and spatial divisions. Safety pins, rubber bands, and newspapers are some of the objects
that are reformed in a focused and malleable way. The discarded materials Kawata uses simultaneously reflects her interest
in environmental issues and Dadaism. Aakash Nihalani plays with perception and illusion of three dimensional space in his
geometric paintings, sculptures, and installations. Inspired by the urban architecture of New York City, Nihalani extracts
portions within larger frameworks and intercedes expectations of illusion. Color and space pull the viewer into a new realm
in Thomas Pihl’s paintings, away from over consumption and into an ethereal space. Layers of semi-transparent paint are
poured onto the canvas, creating a smooth and unaffected surface. Amanda Valdez references the body in a myriad of
ways in her mixed media paintings. The intricacies of interior and exterior, places where bodies meet, and the terrain of
bodily textures all commingle in her work. Embroidered sections collide and infiltrate the painted segments of her canvases.
The movement these various bodies create as well as her witty use of color introduces a seductive tension. Angles and
proportions are pushed, pulled, and shifted in Kazumi Yoshida’s