Underdonk

press release

Spirit Rift curated by Disturb the Neighbors
Friday, May 10th at Underdonk
Opening Reception: 6-9pm

Polish the Jewel Box curated by Underdonk
Saturday, May 11th at Disturb the Neighbors
Opening Reception: 6-9pm

Curated by Underdonk collectively, Polishing the Jewel Box brings together eight artists at Disturb the Neighbors. This show presents artists who lend a jewel-like quality to their work, whether embodied in scale, delicacy, opulence, compression, or simply aesthetic beauty.  These qualities may emerge through a slow process of distillation, through a faceted, planar geometry, or through glowing, luscious layers of paint. The title for the show also makes reference to the gallery’s location, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, suggesting the confluence of a fledgling contemporary art gallery with a historic neighborhood.

Gem-like qualities emerge in each artist’s work.  Lisha Bai casts sand to create sculptures made of colorful mists; these works are intricately detailed as they allude to their original source. Elisa D’Arrigo’s pieces go through multiple firings as she methodically adds drops of glaze, fusing together the surface and form. Zachary Keeting guides our eyes around the painted plane with bold colors and painterly moves that appear both accidental and precise.  Laurel Sparks compresses cosmic patterns into textured paintings, finding materiality in mathematical abstractions. Martha Tuttle weaves intimate assemblages from hand-spun wool, natural-dyed linen, and silk. Richard Tinkler’s disciplined daily drawing practice layers lines of color with tight precision, producing exquisite geometries. Many of these artists are particularly interested in process, such as Rachel Ostrow, who layers transparent pigments over highly polished surfaces, and Georgia Elrod, who cultivates her goache and mixed media paintings like pearls.  Jesse Greenberg combines, repurposes and embellishes non-art materials with dime store gems, prismatic pigments and resins. Throughout, the work suggests the craftsmanship and selective mastery of a gem setter. 

Lisha Bai graduated from Yale with an MFA and received her BFA from Washington University. In 2018 she had a solo show at Fortnight Institute in New York, and has participated in recent group shows at Carol/Fisher in London and Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery.

Elisa D’Arrigo has made sculpture and works on paper over the years using various materials. Since 2010, ceramics have been her primary medium. She has had 20 solo exhibitions including at the High Museum of Art, David Beitzel Gallery, PanAmerican Art projects, Luise Ross Gallery , Sandler Hudson Gallery, Lehman College Art Gallery, and Bannister Gallery at Rhode Island College.  She has had 10 solo exhibitions at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery.

Georgia Elrod is a New York City based artist and painter. Her work has been exhibited in New York and abroad, in solo exhibitions at Novella Gallery and John Davis Gallery, as well as in group exhibitions at spaces including Momenta Art, Trestle Projects, and RH+ Gallery in Istanbul. Georgia is currently a member of the artist-run gallery Underdonk, and is co-creator of the art podcast Around About. She was a founding member of the feminist art collective tART, and co-curated at Heliopolis Gallery from 2012-2015. She received her MFA in Painting from Hunter College, and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Jesse Greenberg (born 1982, Morristown, NJ) lives and works in New York. He received his MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts, NY in 2011 and received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI in 2004. The biological forms evoked by Greenberg’s wall works and small sculptures are composed of urethane resin and colored pigment with a painterly quality complimented by a palette that is alternately seductive and repulsive. His work reflects back to the post-minimalism and forward to the post-human future. Greenberg has had solo exhibitions at Derek Eller, New York; LOYAL Gallery, Stockholm; ltd Los Angeles; White Flag Projects, St. Louis; and Kansas, New York. Group exhibitions include Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York; Josh Lilley Gallery, London, Queens Museum of Art, New York. Greenberg was awarded the Shandanken residency at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY.

Born in Germany (1973), Zachary Keeting lives and works in Connecticut. He received his BFA from Alfred University in 1995, and his MFA from Boston University in 1998. He has shown his work nationally and internationally, and has participated in numerous residency programs including Yaddo, The Millay Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and The Santa Fe Art Institute. He is represented by Giampietro Gallery. He co-founded Gorky’s Granddaughter (an interview project) in 2010 with Christopher Joy. He co-founded Improvised Showboat (a curatorial endeavour) in 2014 with Loren Britton. He currently teaches painting at The Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven.

Rachel Ostrow (b. 1977)  is a Brooklyn-based painter and printmaker. She earned a B.A. in fine arts from Wesleyan University, a post-baccalaureate degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and an M.F.A in painting from Hunter College. She has had solo exhibitions at 42 Social Club (Lyme, CT), Sunday Takeout (Brooklyn, NY), The Kenan Center (Lockport, NY),  John Davis Gallery, (Hudson, NY), Saffron (Brooklyn, NY), Todojunto Gallery (Barcelona, Spain), and The Plant (Buffalo, NY). She has participated in group exhibitions in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Montreal, Dublin, Joshua Tree, CA and Great Barrington, MA.

Laurel Sparks is a Brooklyn-based painter with an MFA from Bard College and a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University in Boston, MA. Her exhibitions include solo shows at Kate Werble Gallery, NYC and group shows at Cheim and Read Gallery, NYC; LX, NYC; Franklin Street Works, Stamford, CT; Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, NYC; Barbara Walters Gallery at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY; Berman Museum at Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA; Elizabeth Foundation Gallery, NYC; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; and Art In General, NYC. Recent reviews include the New Yorker, New York Magazine and Brooklyn Rail. She is a 2019 MacDowell Colony Fellow.

Martha Tuttle was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1989. She graduated from Bard College in 2011 and received her MFA from The Yale School of Art in 2015. She is currently in residence at the Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva, FL, and has held residencies at the Sharpe- Walentas Studio Program in Brooklyn, NY, The Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, WY, and A-Z West in Joshua Tree, CA.  Recent solo shows include I long and seek after (Tilton Gallery, NYC), Oracles (Luce Gallery, Turin, Italy), and As it resembled a bird it was as if she could fly (Geukens & DeVil, Antwerp, Belgium).  She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.