From October 3rd to the 6th we'll be presenting Kate Barbee, Jimi Dams, and Kris Pierce at the International Drawing Fair / art on paper Brussels.
These three artists explore the act of drawing inspired by visual influences from pointillism (Jimi Dams), 1930's pattern design and modernism (Kate Barbee), to the American Modern man (Kirs Pierce). Building a contemporary narrative on these pillars gives a sense of recognition while a new viewpoint is presented.
Kate Barbee received her BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin, TX in 2017. Barbee’s practice is an interdisciplinary one, ranging across handembroidered mixed media painting, collage, drawing, and sculpture. The inherent tension in her work is born from a flurried relationship to her body and her visceral power within it. Barbee’s densely populated paintings pulse with an energetic sexuality. Her subjects push and pull through a fractured composition— intimately spaced and dynamically posed, creating an energy and rhythm which forces the eye on a nonlinear journey throughout the canvas. Barbee’s figures reveal themselves slowly as they engage in activity, and emerge from the tactile, multi-hued, collaged, and textile-laden canvases which they populate. Her work harnesses an exceptional degree of emotional and sexual directness and figural distortion which abstracts the figures beyond recognition and distances them from the activities in which they are engaged. Every painting is a snapshot of the self, taken from an angle removed from the moment as if floating above or next to it— raw, naked, and dominant.
Jimi Dams graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, but eventually moved to Higher Pedagogical Institute of the Empire in Brussels, under tutelage of the minimalist Luc Claus and achieved his teaching degree in 1984. His first shows explored the punk movement and the underground, which allowed him to work with such figures as Michael Clark (British post-punk ballet), Tom Lanoye, Peter Verhelst, Dennis Cooper, and Amanda Lear. His work was exhibited by Torch Gallery, Gracie Mansion Gallery, Allston Skirt, Aeroplastics, and S&H De Buck and such institutes as Neue Galerie Am Landesmuseum, Graz; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Fransisco; the Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield; Beaver College Art Gallery, Glenside; Aktionsforum Praterinsel, Munich; Contemporary Museum of Baltimore, Baltimore; Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Sint-Martens-Latem; and the New Museum, NY.
Kris Pierce interest has always extended to the expression of individualism, from the alpha male to the influencer. These figures have become merits and pillars within the American identity. Pierce has exhibited internationally and nationally in museums, galleries, and public spaces, having had recent solo and group exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art; RL Window, Ryan/Lee, New York City; the Akron Art Museum, Ohio; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art / The Momentary, Bentonville, Arkansas; Hiroshima Art Center, Japan; CICA Museum, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea; Galveston Arts Center; Gallerie Se Konst, Falun, Sweden; Reunion, Zurich, Switzerland; Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio; and the Old Jail Art Center, Albany, Texas. Pierce received a BFA in Studio Art from the University of North Texas, Denton. His work is included in multiple public and private collections.
