Heaven Gallery

Justin B Williams’ strange image landscapes are at once familiar and foreign, nostalgic and alien, like a well-worn recurrent dream or a new favorite quilt at the thrift store. Populated with unknowable situations, projected desires and the like, they seemingly unearth subconscious thoughts, deja-vu sentiments or unknown anxieties. Justin’s works function like maps, organizing and reorganizing his own inner tangential philosophies, experiences, fever dream thoughts or esoteric rants. His work calls to mind the representational work of Philip Guston, infusing cartoonish imaginative interpretations of personal narratives with a sincere sense of wonder and a mild sense of irony. On a purely formalist level, Justin has an impeccable sense of color and composition—if Matisse were alive today and knew about rock n’ roll, Freudian theories, cartoons and Raymond Pettibon, this might be what his paintings look like.

To read the Interview, go to Anthology

Our friend Scott Murray from Twenty Twenty Gallery

Jen Stark's "How to Become a Millionaire in 100 Days" at Twenty Twenty Gallery

"More thought-provoking work was found at Twenty Twenty, a scrappy gallery that opened near vacant lots where prostitutes and drug dealers ply their trade. It was started by Scott Murray, a 27-year-old with tousled hair and a sunburn who was wearing skinny jeans when he greeted me outside. Inside, scattered on the floor, was a piece called “How to Become A Millionaire in 100 Days.” The artist, a 24-year-old named Jen Stark, spent 100 days tearing a million scraps of colored paper — a not-so subtle statement about the hyper-commercialized art market.

Hoping to see more, I accidentally pushed through a white curtain and ended up in Mr. Murray’s tiny bedroom."

Read full article here -->
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/travel/03miami.html

Critic's Choice Smile

The art world has forbidden touching for so long that the idea of interactivity, however tainted by the icky proselytizers of techno-topia, can seem like a door opening from a cold, stifling box onto a golden playground. Aay Preston-Myint has merged his work in fiber and printmaking to create the installation Smile, a gleeful array of ornate masks and interchangeable backdrops that lets visitors enter elaborate fantasy vignettes. You can try on a crocheted green beard with teeth made of miniature arms harvested from soccer trophies, an “inside-out face” made of yarn and shellac, or a giant knitted headpiece reminiscent of McDonaldland’s psychedelic purple Grimace. The silk-screened fabric backdrops include one with missiles shooting through the night, another featuring eyes and hairy nipples, and one showing condos built on cute but suspicious brown clouds. Preston-Myint’s installation is a fully realized, approachable example of young Chicago artists’ fusion of fashion, craft, and participatory performance. Photographer Jennifer Brandel documented last Friday’s opening; the closing event will include a slide show of those images and a mask-making workshop. If you drop by before then, bring a friend and a camera. Through 1/19, Sat 1-5 PM and by appointment, closing event 6-10 PM, Heaven Gallery, 1550 N. Milwaukee, second floor, 312-208-9228. —Bert Stabler

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/art/080110/

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The cat likes to look at her worm holes.
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Jen Stark draws inspiration from fractals, wormholes, and MRI scans. Oh, and dead bodies. "My sister is a doctor, and she brought home these cross- sectional anatomy textbooks," says Stark, who creates paper sculptures that are coldly mathematical yet exuberantly organic. "Seeing a body displayed like a flip book was grotesque yet mesmerizing."

Stark's pieces are indeed hypnotic: Coriolis Effect (below) is named for the force that rotates natural systems like hurricanes. Piece of an Infinite Whole (left), a 4-foot-deep backlit recess, is based on the artist's fascination with space. Very Doctor Who.

We expected Stark to reveal that she uses CAD software and some kind of tricked-out handheld laser to construct her 3-D forms, on exhibit this fall at Heaven Gallery in Chicago and in December during Art Basel Miami Beach. Nope. She just sketches a design, grabs her X-Acto knife, and starts to slice.

Link to Wired dot com

Hey Look!
In the September issue of ReadyMade Magazine in the RE-View section there is an article about Jen Stark and it mentions her show here at Heaven Gallery.
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Construction paper and glue hardly evoke visions of fine art. But over the past three years, sculptor Jen Stark has transformed these elementary-school staples into intricate three-dimensional works. While the method itself is simple, the results are astoundingly complex - straightforward shapes are systematically reproduced with slight changes in size or position. It's a process Stark has labeled "evolving repetition," a way of creating hypnotic, rainbow-hued vortices that challenge the constraints of the artist's canvas.

"It's labor-intensive", says the Miami-based 23-year-old. "But I like using such simple materials in a way that they exceed what people think they can do."

Stark began working with paper during a five-month stint in France, where a study-abroad program with a two-suitcase limit and a dismal exchange rate forced her to be resourceful in her choice of materials. "Paper was all I could afford," she says. "So I bought a stack and started cutting, and the sculptures were born."

See Stark's work at Chicago's Heaven Gallery from Sept.14 - Oct.7.

- Jen Trolio (ReadyMade Magazine)