“The first ten minutes at this show were better than most openings I’ve been to”
-M. Fisher, Writer at Japanco NY
For Immediate Release!
empty room: an art exhibition
Saturday, January 30, 2016 | 7 – 11pm
Rabbithole: 33 Washington Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 852-1500
emptyroomexhibition@gmail.com
empty room: an art exhibition is a minimalistic show featuring new work by Kelley Brannon. On exhibit will be her new time-lapse jazz song video, Empty Chair (2016) and the first four smoke drawings from her third series, The Digital Age (2015). empty room: an art exhibition celebrating the less, directly reflects Brannon’s themes of isolation, technology, and economic class.
In Empty Chair, Brannon uses time-lapse, contrast, and empty space to support the emotive qualities of a jazz song sung and recorded in a capella, serving as the video’s sound track. Empty Chair draws from Brannon’s previous work in abstract documentary, video art, and improvised jazz singing, in addition to her tendency to use moving images to create moments of stillness. In her third smoke drawings series, Brannon expands her artistic process by using oil paint over the smoke to intensify her minimalistic forms and create content that both mirrors and questions our relationship to technology and the urban environments that perpetuate the speed and intensity of its progress. Brannon created this series while being the first artist-in-residence at The Rectory in her hometown last October and November; inspired by her involvement with the squatter community in Detroit, she wanted to create an opportunity for artists in an underserved area by turning an unused colonial building in her hometown of Charlestown, New Hampshire into artist studios. This project is still in development and Brannon hopes to partner with a gallery/residency in NYC to create a bridge between rural and urban environments for working artists. Duality is also a theme implemented in much of Brannon’s work.
Kelley Brannon is an artist, writer and filmmaker originally from rural New Hampshire. She moved to Brooklyn in 2010 after graduating with a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, where she studied in the Studio for Interrelated Media program. In 2015, she earned a MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College with a concentration in Screenwriting. Her first feature narrative screenplay, Empty Spaces, has been in production for the last year. She has worked in theater, photography, video, writing, and mixed media since 2001. In early 2011, she began creating her one-of-a-kind smoke drawings, a form of visual art, using left over drawing paper from art school and regular stick candles. In 2012, she partnered with Indiewalls NYC and today, her smoke drawings are in public and private collections in cities around the world.
https://kelleybrannonprojects.wordpress.com/ kelleybrannonprojects@gmail.com /
Curated by Kala Jerzy
Kala Jerzy graduated from University College London (UCL) in 2009 with a first class honors, after which she pursued a legal career, also in London. She completed law school in 2011 and moved to New York in 2012, where she has been living and working ever since. Kala is a contributor writer to a variety of local publications, ranging from news to art. An avid fiction writer, she is also enthusiastic about post-modern and contemporary art, particularly minimalism, which she likes to explore in paintings, literature, and film. Kala’s penchant for minimalist expression has been reflected in her Brooklyn apartment, which inspired the show, following Hans Ulrich Obrist, whose first exhibit was curated in his kitchen. Kala speaks English, Hebrew, Polish, German and Russian.
http://kalajerzy.com/ Instagram: @kalishlifestyle Twitter / Facebook: @KalaJerzy
kelleybrannonprojects 