The Beach in Winter
Karen Philippi
Wendyll Brown
January 28th – April 12th, 2019 Extended until May 10th!!!
Opening Thursday February 7th, 2019 / 5:30-8pm
Curated by Kirstin Lamb
The Yard, Williamsburg
33 Nassau Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11222
Kirstin Lamb Curatorial and The Yard, Williamsburg are pleased to present a two person show featuring Rhode Island artists Wendyll Brown and Karen Philippi, both artists who take the ocean as their subject.
In a place where the coastline dominates, it is no surprise that many artists, and specifically painters, from the Luminists to present, seek out the particular light and shores of the smallest state, Rhode Island. Both artists in this show take the bay, the ocean, the coast, and our relationship to the shore as a focus of their works, making abstracted, meditative, and lush images that have as much to say about the experience of viewing them as they do of the beach.
We bring Karen Philippi’s photographs and Wendyll Brown’s paintings of the Rhode Island coast and ocean to Brooklyn this winter, to both bring landscape inside for winter, but also to keep the quiet and meditative blues and grays of the season alive inside The Yard, Williamsburg. In the indoor months, one can still contend with the sea, but better to do it from the safety of your desk or gallery wall.
Karen Philippi works directly in the water, mostly in the warmer months, chasing the abstractions of crashing waves with her camera. She is literally in the surf, making each image, a new position from which to contemplate the sublimity of the ocean. Frequently the waves melt into the film and fuzz of a foggy morning or the loss of focus of the movement of the water at the churning point of the surf. Philippi cultivates these moments, making sure she pulls the abstraction of the water out of the subject, much like a painter.
Wendyll Brown takes the expanse of the bay, the flood plain, or hurricane barrier and arranges the structures and visual spaces as pattern. For Wendyll the space of a canvas is a place to be diagrammed, dissected and re-partitioned, until the space itself speaks and makes visual sense. Wendyll is devoted to layering, a special care placed in surface, and an almost constant editing and re-finishing. Finish and complete are always to be negotiated in her studio, so it follows that a subject like the relentless pull of the ocean would suit her painting practice. Wendyll also rows RI bays and waterways almost every morning in season, so the paintings come from a particular knowledge of the coastline and its vagaries. It is a coastline constantly in revision, one that Wendyll follows with her own edits and painterly adjustments.
Curator Statement / Press Release PDF
Hours for the Yard, Williamsburg
Monday-Friday 9:30am – 4:30pm (please call the curator ahead of time to ensure the front desk knows you will be coming to view the artwork)
And by appointment with:
Kirstin Lamb Curatorial
Kirstin.Lamb@gmail.com
617-270-8357
