PAINT IT BLACK

November 9, 2013 through January 4, 2014

Vincent Como, Ryan R Compton, Adam Farcus, Terence Hannum, Jason Lazarus, Jen Schwarting, Michael Sirianni

Paint it Black looks at seven artists’ work relating to the concept of black. Contained, yet expansive, black suggests that it is not finite, but exists beyond our understanding of a shifting spectrum. Black  is an idea that is closely linked to the limitations of our collective cultural understanding and perception over time. Black has been retrofitted as a contemporary mode; as a bookend for its own branding. The selected pieces negotiate the genre of minimal art influences and the social/political aspects of the artists’ work, with a regard to black as a recontextualisation of the post-minimalist language.

Vincent Como (b. 1975, lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) has exhibited his work throughout the United States and abroad. The focus of Como’s work is black, in both subject and material, which is used to explore ideas and relations within modernity, astrophysics, psychology and nihilism. His work has been discussed in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, ArtSlant, Art Press, Progress Report, and Bite Magazine among others. He holds a BFA in Drawing from the Cleveland Institute of Art and is represented by MINUS SPACE in Brooklyn, NY, where he recently presented the solo exhibitionParadise Lost.

Ryan Compton (b. 1980, Turnersville NJ), graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2003.  He mixes cultural experiments with drawing, installation, and new media tools to explore context and conditioning within contemporary society. Public Collection, Getty Museum Research Institute. He has exhibited in group shows and projects at the Tate Modern (London), X Initiative, John Connelly Presents, White Box, and Foxy Production, and has been published in Charley Independent, K48, and Time Out New York. He is currently based in New York.

Adam Farcus has been the gallery director at Hood College since the spring of 2013. He also co-directs the artist-run space, Lease Agreement, in Baltimore. His artwork has been exhibited nationally and he has lectured on his work at numerous venues, including The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Performance Studies International 16 conference.  Adam received his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, BFA from Illinois State University, and AA from Joliet Junior College.  More information on Adam Farcus, and samples of his artwork, can be found on his website, www.adamfarcus.com.

Terence Hannum (b. 1979, USA) is an artist and musician based in Baltimore, MD. He earned his BFA from Florida Southern College and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His solo exhibitions include those at Stevenson University, Western Exhibitions, the Chicago Cultural Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and he has also participated in group exhibitions at Locatie Z, The Hague (Netherlands), telephonebooth (Kansas City), and San Francisco Cinamatheque. Hannum has performed music solo and with Locrian, and in collaboration with Nicolas Lobo at De La Cruz Collection (Miami) and Scott Treleaven at Kavi Gupta Gallery (Chicago).

Jason Lazarus (b. 1975) is a Chicago-based artist who received his MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2003. His work has been exhibited internationally and is in major collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Bank of America LaSalle Photography Collection, and the Milwaukee Museum of Art among others. Major exhibitions include Black Is,Black Ain’t at the Renaissance Society, On the Scene at the Art Institute of Chicago, Not the Way You Remembered at the Queens Museum of Art, “Image Search” at PPOW Gallery in NYC, Michael Jackson Doesn’t Quit, Part 3 at the Future Gallery, Berlin, Self Portrait as an Artist at Kaune Sudendorf in Cologne, Germany, and Tiny Vices at Studio Bee in Tokyo, Japan. Major solo exhibitions include Your Time is Gonna Come at Illinois State University, Jason Lazarus: Chicago Works at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Live Archive at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco (opens November, 2013). Jason is the Co-Director of Chicago Artist Writers, a new art criticism platform and is currently touring a new experimental feature length film (a collaboration with Eric Fleischauer) called twohundredfiftysixcolors.

Jen Schwarting is a Brooklyn-based writer and artist working in collage and sculpture. She holds an MFA from CalArts and a BFA from Cornell University. Her work has been included in exhibitions at HalBromm Gallery, Smack Mellon, the Bronx Museum of the Arts and Islip Art Museum in New York, David Patton Los Angeles and Newspace Gallery in LA, and her most recent series of collages will be shown in Miami in December. Her work has been featured in Art21, The L Magazine, and The New York Times. In addition, Schwarting writes art criticism and reviews for The Brooklyn Rail.

Born in upstate New York,  Michael Sirianni received his MFA from the University of Illinois, Chicago in 2010. Working in video, photography and sculpture, Sirianni explores queer history and internet social space. Recent exhibitions include Mechanical Turk at the Rhode Island School of Design and How Do I Look? at Roots and Culture in Chicago. A 2010 recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant, Siriannilives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His work can next be seen in a solo exhibition at Lease Agreement, Baltimore, opening March of 2014.