C. Grimaldis Gallery is pleased to present Traces, a group exhibition curated by Fran Kaufman, featuring contemporary photography, drawing, and painting.
Splitting his time between New York and Italy, Frank Dituri’s imagery is often sourced from Umbria. His close attention to both the natural and man made worlds are reflected within rich, enveloping shadows, reminiscent of charcoal drawings, his photographs give way to deeply personal and poetic portrayals of landscape. Similarly focused on the relationship between humans and the natural world, Mauro Manetti works in a variety of mediums to explore this connection and the concept of identity. Having grown up in Tuscany surrounded by imagery of the Renaissance, his work holds a strong bond to the classical with references to symbols of the time seen in the work itself. Michael Morris’ vibrant photographs render the internal through the external by way of intuitively crafted moments of abstraction. Portions of foliage, peeling paint, and rusted metal form compositions that act as windows into Morris’ perspective, allowing us to consider what is seen and what is hidden.
Andreas Rentsch and Claire Seidl utilize both photographic and painting techniques in their practices. While Seidl’s black and white photographs are deeply rooted in a representational sense of place, her paintings on mylar are pure abstraction, though both bodies of work remain grounded in a sense of mystery that gently unfolds with time. Andreas Rentsch challenges traditional notions of photography in his experimental approach to the medium, using chemistry on X-Ray paper to channel influence from performance art, drawing and painting. His experience growing up on a prison compound in Switzerland where his father was the warden remains a foundational aspect to his art practice.
Drawing from various photographic and mark-making techniques to create viscerally textural imagery, this collection of artists brought together by Fran Kaufman creates a visual language that expands our way of seeing into a realm of mystery and intangibility within light, shadow and texture. As written by Kaufman, the exhibition catalogue states, “Traces, defined as a mark, object, or other indication of the existence or passing of something, connects to both the process and outcome of each of the five artists. The mutability of memory, ‘ghost images’, the passage of time, erasures and the transposition of imagery all challenge the viewer to delve deep, finding our own interpretation within these [works]…In their own ways, each searches for something essential, for an essence, a way to transfer the beauty and simplicity of the everyday into something more enigmatic and provocative. As Marcel Proust said ‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
Fran Kaufman is the Curatorial Director of the Liu Shiming Art Foundation in New York and a principal in Kaufman Vardy Projects. She was a partner in Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art for 17 years. After closing the gallery in 2006, she was Director of palmbeach3 contemporary art fair for three seasons and in 2011 she envisioned and directed the premier International Houston Fine Art Fair. Fran has curated numerous projects in the US, Italy, Germany and Latin America, notibly Liu Shiming: From the Beginning (2024) and Lucio Boschi: Una Argentina, the first solo photography exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires. Fran has worked closely with The Warhol Museum among other institutions and was a regular lecturer at venues including Sotheby’s Institute of Art, NY Graduate School and Pratt institute. Fran is the Board Vice-President of Proof: Media for Social Justice and on the Advisor Board of Creative Cities International.
Traces will be on view at C. Grimaldis Gallery from September 19 through November 2, 2024. A reception will take place on Thursday, September 19th from 5:00 to 7:00 PM. Hours for C. Grimaldis Gallery, which is free and open to the public, are Wednesday through Saturday, 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
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An exhibition catalogue will be available.
