Morgan Cohen

Kanishka Raja

Joseph Wardwell

December 17 - January 29, 2000
Reception: Friday, January 14, 8 pm
Note: Gallery Closed Dec. 22 - Jan 4.

The Gallery @ Green Street presents new work by three Jamaica Plain Artists: Morgan Cohen, Kanishka Raja and Joseph Wardwell. The Gallery will premiere a new series of photographs by Morgan Cohen, new paintings by Kanishka Raja, some from the " Embrace the Schmaltz" exhibit at the Rose Museum and new paintings by Joseph Wardwell, many from this year's residency at The Vermont Studio Center.

Morgan Cohen, recently awarded the Kahlil Gibran prize from the Copley Society, presents a new series of photographs, taken in his apartment, that isolate and transform quiet corners into poetic, chiaroscurro relationships that create spatial ambiguity. Cohen's words put it best:
"I am interested in retrieving space, grasping it out of the world, isolating it, and letting it achieve a life of its own. I have chosen these corners to photograph because they transform for the viewer an innocuous, "dead", unused space into an area pure and free of distraction. Their removal and isolation provide a clear space for light to wrap around and define. The images' contextual ambiguity encourages the reading of volume and shape to be flexible and elastic. These corners could be any spaces -- receding, protruding, moving in all directions."

Kanishka Raja blends and layers the abundant iconography of his native Calcutta with the consumerism of the U.S., bouncing semi transparent images and labels off of walls that defy perspective creating a dizzying banter of imagery. Circus posters and medical drawings seem to illegibly complete pictograms describing the curiosities and experiences at the intersection of two worlds. Humor tempers these stereoclastic compositions and intricate patterns invigorate areas of subtle coloration in a quirky negotiation of pictorial space.

Joseph Wardwell moves the structural power of his tightly knit still lifes and self portraits to the outdoors in a series of work produced on a recent residency. The surfaces of these jagged compositions bristle with electricity, as each emphatic form forces its way to the surface of the canvas. Thick paint application and stacatto brush work give a vibrating rhythm to a cool wooded landscape. Drawing on expressionistic and cubist roots, Wardwell uses heavy outlines to move a viewers eye around the canvas creating restless, faceted surfaces that breathe with energy. -James Hull

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