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Ruiz-Healy Art is delighted to present CON (TEXT) at our New York City gallery featuring works by Richard Armendariz, Cecilia Biagini, Nate Cassie, Andrés Ferrandis, Leon Ferrari, Cecilia Paredes, Katie Pell and Ethel Shipton.
The themes found in the works of CON (TEXT) range from an appreciation of the visual, graphic forms of text itself and the action of writing in Cecilia Biagini’s work to the fleeting moments of clarity formed by it in Ethel Shipton’s. Text has the power to birth both transient and lasting images in the minds of those who view it; its presence in visual works of art pulls viewers in and asks them to consider the relationship between the image and the bits of language simultaneously. The use of text in the artworks ranges from subversive social commentary to rapturous meditation. The intentional use of text can serve to disrupt our passive consumption of media, both digital and analog. The eight artists in this exhibition, with their diverse approaches to artmaking and conceptual themes, are unified by their use of this element.
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Richard Armendariz
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“I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, which borders Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Juarez, Mexico. There, I was saturated by a mix of romanticism for the American landscape and the hybridization of Mexican, American and Indigenous cultures. Images that have cultural, biographical and historical lineage are carved and burned into the surface of the paintings, drawings and prints. I couple traditional painting techniques with non-traditional methods of drawing to achieve my aesthetic. Themes involving power dynamics, sentimental love, as well as passionate love and explosive love are the conceptual backbone of my artwork. At times, I draw on our collective memory of myth and legend. These most recent works are inspired by new original song lyrics or hooks touching on love and loss. Some of the works self-deprecating humor pays homage to the life lessons and friends, mentors and loved ones we all have lost.”
-Richard Armendariz
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Nate Cassie
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"The new work I have been doing in ceramics is inspired by early American ceramic forms and hand applied labels as well as Marcel Duchamp’s piece 50 cc of Paris Air. It also happens to be timely in its relationship to our current moment of fear of airborne illness, although the pieces started before the COVID-19 scare.I have been creating bottle forms based on early American functional ware to collect breath, conversation and song. The bottles are sealed at the moment of collection with a cork and sealing wax. They range from individual portraits to air collected at specific times or places."
-Nate Cassie
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Cecilia Biagini
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Andrés Ferrandis
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"My intention is to create a language that allows me to work, not from experience or a particular subject itself, but with the emotions that those diverse subjects provoke.
Devoting oneself to abstract painting means to choose a reality where one immerses oneself in the discovery of aesthetic truths, truths that are used to elaborate a language with which to morally express oneself. Artistic awareness can open pathways that lead to the interpretation of moments, memory and essence."
-Andrés Ferrandis
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"Art is not beauty or novelty, art is effectiveness and disruption."
-Leon Ferrari
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Ethel Shipton
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"To enter Shipton's artistic vision, you need language. And to understand her language, you need images. The two in a recursive dance shape meaning, shape life—give meaning to her art, her world."
-Norma Elia Cantú
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Katie Pell
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"I am inspired by the boardwalk, and congregating teenagers in general; operatic and dramatic music, like early Bruce Springsteen, and Polyphonic Spree, David Bowie... I want to know where genuine living and role-playing intersect. Some of us build our own mythology out of our environment, our desires and our own furious defiance at our genetic mediocrity. I hope my work can ignite or describe the excitement of our pointless and forgettable lives, and reaffirm the value of our gorgeous desperation."
-Katie Pell
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"Seldom we do think of the phenomenal forces of the sun, moon and stars, and there they are, every day of our lives."
–Cecilia Paredes
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Artists
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Richard 'Ricky' Armendariz
1967Ricky Armendariz’s conceptual aesthetic is heavily influenced by growing up in the U.S./Mexico border. Armendarizis known for his hand-carved paintings, text-based imagery and his large color-saturated woodblock prints that weave anthropomorphic narratives with tales of turmoil. Spanglish, as well as contemporary and folk song lyrics, appear frequently in his compositions.
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Cecilia Biagini
1967Inspired by traditions of Latin American abstraction, Cecilia Biagini makes paintings, mobiles, photograms and reliefs that flow seamlessly from medium to medium. Utilizing a bold sense of color, line, depth and abstraction, the varied works find commonalities in their composition and playfulness. Evoking ideas of physics, the geometric shapes in her work are arranged in a manner suggesting movement and animation. “Conjuring the ludic with pure geometry in space, my work at times refers and alludes to musical and rhythmic waves, pseudo-scientific models/diagrams and is always anchored in the purity of the medium itself.” – Cecilia Biagini
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Nate Cassie
1970Nate Cassie’s work includes drawing, painting, sculpture, video and digital media. His thematic practice centers on what he terms, “spaces in between,” the gaps that distance surface from volume, skin, and structure, formal and intuitive systems. Cassie’s text works employ the written word as an implied value that reveals figurative forms and shapes.
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Andrés Ferrandis
1965Andrés Ferrandis uses both intricate collage and sultry text in his signature style. His pieces are void of English and Spanish interplay, as he was born in Valencia, Spain and academically trained at the University of Seville. Ferrandis writes of his use of various media and text in his work, “My intention is to create a language that allows me to work, not from experience or a particular subject itself, but with the emotions that those diverse subjects provoke.”
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LEON FERRARI
1920 - 2013Leon Ferrari’s conceptual works touch on themes surrounding the barbarism of the West, religious institutions, and the Argentinian government. His two-dimensional works are characterized by text motifs and a signature “scratchy” mark-making style, which he uses to explore the intersection between art and the written word. Presenting text in visual art allowed him to broach political topics in the public sphere in a time when the Argentinian media was controlled by an authoritarian government.
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Cecilia Paredes
1950Cecilia Paredes explores the theme of identity through ethereal “photo performances” where she camouflages her body against beautifully patterned backdrops and disappears amongst the ornamentation. By presenting herself as part of the landscape, Paredes is building her own identity in relation to the part of the world where she lives and raises the question of how our environment influences who we are.
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Katie Pell
1965 - 2019Katie Pell worked with media of all sorts, however, her true love was drawing. She used combinations of media and tools like text to expand the boundaries of what her drawings could relay to the viewer, often using text to reveal complicated thoughts and emotions. “I want to know where genuine living and role-playing intersect. Some of us build our own mythology out of our environment, desires and furious defiance at our genetic mediocrity. I hope my work can ignite the excitement of our pointless and forgettable lives, and reaffirm the value of our gorgeous desperation.”
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Ethel Shipton
1963Ethel Shipton’s practice is informed by a strong conceptual base that encompasses text in a playful manner. Through painting, installation, photography, and text, Shipton spotlights instants of clarity that flit by in the comings and goings of daily life. Her recent works are visual displays processing her recent artist residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany through Blue Star Contemporary.
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"They are paintings that continue outside of itself. Made out of two elements, a mobile-curtain and a painting. As emerging from the painting into space the mobile builds up on another level of expression that relates and counterpoint the painting. It is a dialogue, a reflection and its shadow. A rhetoric painting."
–Cecilia Biagini
CON (TEXT): New York City
Past viewing_room
