We are pleased to present Side By Side, an exhibition of new paintings by American artist Josephine Halvorson. This is her first solo show at the gallery.
Side By Side refers to Halvorson’s paintings as well as her practice. Nearly flat, upright sides of objects, such as window shutters, chalkboards, murals, and gravestones are realized in Halvorson’s use of highly specific color. She seeks a synthesis between her materials and a found object, “when the laying on of paint becomes the surface of the object represented, and conversely when the object recognizes itself in the painting” as the artist says.
Halvorson works on site, in a single session, and often at no more than an arm’s length away from her subject.“This closeness and intensity create camaraderie” she says. The shared experiences in an environment – winds, overheard conversations, thwarted expectations – are sometimes collaborative, sometimes antagonistic. The painting becomes a record of this, a form of proof that the artist and object acknowledge one another. They are the physical manifestation of accrued time.
In this new body of work, Halvorson has returned on multiple occasions to the same object or site. Through repeated and extended visits, these paintings scratch the surface of embedded histories, which are revealed and imagined through attention with the object and engagement with the community. Halvorson’s paintings become literal mediums between the artist and the past, drawing out the effects of human activity, weather, growth, and decay into the present. Like the objects they represent, these paintings continue to open up experience with a viewer, side by side.
Josephine Halvorson was born in Brewster Massachussets. She holds a BFA from The Cooper Union, 2003, and an MFA from Columbia University, 2007. She spent yearlong residencies in Vienna as a Fulbright Fellow, 2003, and in Paris at The Fondation des États Unis, 2008. Halvorson’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico. She had solo exhibitions in New York at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. “What Looks Back,” 2011, and at Monya Rowe Gallery, ”Clockwise From Window,” 2010. Group exhibitions include “Still” at Frith Street Gallery, London, 2012, and “Americanana” at Hunter College, New York, 2010. Halvorson lives and works out of Brooklyn New York, she teaches painting at Princeton University and in the MFA program at Yale University.
Side By Side refers to Halvorson’s paintings as well as her practice. Nearly flat, upright sides of objects, such as window shutters, chalkboards, murals, and gravestones are realized in Halvorson’s use of highly specific color. She seeks a synthesis between her materials and a found object, “when the laying on of paint becomes the surface of the object represented, and conversely when the object recognizes itself in the painting” as the artist says.
Halvorson works on site, in a single session, and often at no more than an arm’s length away from her subject.“This closeness and intensity create camaraderie” she says. The shared experiences in an environment – winds, overheard conversations, thwarted expectations – are sometimes collaborative, sometimes antagonistic. The painting becomes a record of this, a form of proof that the artist and object acknowledge one another. They are the physical manifestation of accrued time.
In this new body of work, Halvorson has returned on multiple occasions to the same object or site. Through repeated and extended visits, these paintings scratch the surface of embedded histories, which are revealed and imagined through attention with the object and engagement with the community. Halvorson’s paintings become literal mediums between the artist and the past, drawing out the effects of human activity, weather, growth, and decay into the present. Like the objects they represent, these paintings continue to open up experience with a viewer, side by side.
Josephine Halvorson was born in Brewster Massachussets. She holds a BFA from The Cooper Union, 2003, and an MFA from Columbia University, 2007. She spent yearlong residencies in Vienna as a Fulbright Fellow, 2003, and in Paris at The Fondation des États Unis, 2008. Halvorson’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico. She had solo exhibitions in New York at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. “What Looks Back,” 2011, and at Monya Rowe Gallery, ”Clockwise From Window,” 2010. Group exhibitions include “Still” at Frith Street Gallery, London, 2012, and “Americanana” at Hunter College, New York, 2010. Halvorson lives and works out of Brooklyn New York, she teaches painting at Princeton University and in the MFA program at Yale University.