PAST EXHIBITIONS
Bongo Bongo
By Chris Wolston
June 24 – August 28, 2016
HANJOB Gallery/Store is pleased to present Bongo Bongo by Chris Wolston - the first in a series of design-focused exhibitions that will take over our Brooklyn, NY storefront. Bongo Bongo is a solo exhibition of neon lighting works called "Fetish Lights" by contemporary artist and designer Chris Wolston.
Popular conspiracy theory claims that the similar creation times of cave paintings around the world point to alien invaders. Cave paintings are something that feels like a baseline human instinct – a hand drawing the way a hand knows, not being driven by a logical brain and ruler. Could aliens, in fast-moving spaceships be connected to this same spirit, reflexively depicting what they were seeing around them? "In creating these objects, and working between Colombia and New York I can feel a bit connected to this seeming disparity," saysWolston. "Making the Fetishes, punching my fingers into a sand box, I felt tuned in to this archetypal spirit of creation. I’m expressing the human form in a primitive way. The neon felt like it outlined our idea of the future, a high-tech creation. But in reality these lines, bent with delicate hands, following quick outlines, are not unlike a cave painting made by an alien."
For his solo exhibition at HJGS, Chris Wolston presents an installation of these seemingly raw and primitive lighting objects in a beautiful installation that will encompass the entire HJGS storefront, transforming it into an almost alien space of worship.
Chris Wolston is an artist based in New York City whose work explores the material vernacular of the modern day and the fetishization of process. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a Fulbright grant to Colombia. Inspired by manual techniques and the regional contrasts between his Brooklyn and Medellin studios, Wolston creates work that demonstrates playful adaptations of materials, often mixing high- and low-tech processes. Wolston’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of American Glass, and the Museo de Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia.
ABOUT HANDJOB GALLERY
HANDJOB Gallery was a storefront exhibition space and limited edition shop which offered creatives, who’s practice lies in-between established notions of contemporary art and design, an opportunity to explore, expand and enrich the dialogue around objects and their meaning in our daily lives. Curated by Zoe Alexander Fisher.
Joey Watson, Boli Orb, 2016. Photo by EG Schempf
HAPPYHAPPYJOYJOY
By Joey Watson
September 9 – October 30, 2016
Opening Reception Friday, September 9, 2016, 7–10pm
HANDJOB Gallery is pleased to present HAPPYHAPPYJOYJOY, a solo exhibition of ceramic works by Kansas City based artist Joey Watson.
Watson’s practice is oriented around ceremonial paraphernalia and the spaces that they inhabit. His work is utilitarian only in a ritual context and it is intended as a vehicle for transformation. “I’m interested in the supernatural force that these very specific objects contain and the sequence of operations that are necessary to harness it,” writes Watson. His ceramics blur the lines between art and design, abstraction and function.
Watson’s HAPPYHAPPYJOYJOY is the second in a series of exhibitions at curated by Zoe Alexander Fisher at HANDJOB Gallery which offer creatives, who’s practice lies in-between established notions of contemporary art and design, an opportunity and space to explore, expand and enrich the dialogue around objects and their meaning in our daily lives.
Joey Watson was born in 1991 in the Sonoran Desert. He attended the Kansas City Art Institute and graduated in 2014 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics. He has been recognized through the National Council on the Education for the Ceramics Arts as a Regina Brown Undergraduate Award recipient and has exhibited nationally. He was awarded a studio residency by the Charlotte Street Foundation for the 2014–2015 term and, currently, is the artist in residence at the KC Clay Guild.