Global Warming at the Icebox
Biographies
Philadelphia
Sculptors
Cheryl Harper - Curator
Cheryl Harper has a BA in Art History from Drew University and a BFA from Temple University's Tyler School of Art, graduating summa cum laude. She holds an MFA from the University of Delaware and completed the two year Museology program at the University of Illinois. She first served as Curator for The Borowsky Gallery at The Gershman Y and then became staff curator at The Gershman Y. She has curated numerous shows, including a series of exhibitions of Israeli contemporary art which received the support of the New York and Jerusalem Israeli cultural ministries; “Not For Your Eyes Only,” a show enriching the experience of art for visually impaired audiences; and “A Happening Place”, funded by the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative. Since 2004, Harper has worked as an independent curator.
www.cherylharper.com
Leslie Kaufman - Curator
Leslie Kaufman has been active in the arts for over 30 years as a sculptor, arts administrator, professor, and writer. She is a founder of Philadelphia Sculptors, and has served as it president since 1996. She is also the Director and founder of the Burlington County College Sculpture Garden in Pemberton, NJ, which has been in existence since 1988. She has taught art appreciation and foundation courses at Burlington County College and The College of New Jersey and writes art articles and reviews for Sculpture Magazine and Inside Magazine. Leslie received her MFA in the Visual Arts from Vermont College, her M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia Univ., and her BA in English from Colgate University, graduating cum laude.
Adelina Vlas - Juror
Adelina Vlas, the Assistant Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, has an M.A. degree in Art History and a Curatorial Diploma in Visual Culture from York University in Canada, as well as an M.A. in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art in London where she co-curated the exhibition Public Smog and Various Small Fires. Previously, Adelina has worked at the National Gallery of Canada as a Curatorial Assistant in the Contemporary Art Department where she concentrated extensively on permanent collection displays and special exhibitions. She has written exhibition catalogue texts for Various Small Fires (Royal College of Art, 2007) and for Noah’s Ark (National Gallery of Canada, 2004). Her writings have also appeared in ArtAsiaPacific and art in culture. Fluent in English, French, Italian and Romanian, Adelina joined the dynamic and diverse department of Modern and Contemporary Art in October 2007 and since has already made herself known in the local arts community where she is active visiting studios and shows. http://www.philamuseum.org/
Featured Artists
Michael Alstad
Michael Alstad is a Toronto based artist and curator working in installation and digital media. He is a founding member of the Canadian artist collectives Year Zero One and Symbiosis. Michael has coordinated several site-specific projects in Toronto including The Bank of Symbiosis, The Hoarding Project, the Transmedia video billboard exhibitions, Teletaxi, Geostash and Terminal Zero One. His web/video/interactive works have been exhibited in several media arts festivals and online exhibitions.
http://www.year01.com/alstad/
Stacy Levy
Stacy Levy investigates water through installations and earthwork projects that explain the movement of rain and storm water in the landscape, often by making the patterns of watersheds visible. Her public commissions include those in Seattle, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and at the North Carolina Zoo. Most recently she completed Lotic Meander, a stream terrace at the Ontario Science Centre, Streamlines, in Toronto. Current projects are two tidal pieces: one the Hudson River, Tideflowers, in Manhattan and the other in Yonkers. Levy’s work has been featured at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, The Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, New York; The Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California: Lafayette University in Easton, Pennsylvania; and at Wave Hill in Bronx, New York.
http://www.stacylevy.com/
Miguel Luciano
Miguel Luciano received his BFA from the New World School of the Arts, in Miami, FL and an MFA from the University of Florida at Gainesville, FL. His work has been exhibited internationally at The Ljubljana Biennial, Slovenia; The San Juan Triennial, Puerto Rico; and Zverev Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, and nationally at The Brooklyn Museum, NY; El Museo del Barrio, NY; Bronx Museum of Art, NY; Exit Art, NY; Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., NY; The Chelsea Art Museum, NY; The Newark Museum, NJ; and the Jersey City Museum, NJ. Solo exhibitions include the CUE Art Foundation, NY; Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT; and Galería Tinta Roja, Chicago, IL. Luciano has participated in the LMCC/Workspace 120 Broadway Artist Residency, the Bronx Museum of Art Artists in the Marketplace (AIM) program, and the Kitchen’s Music Image Sound Text in Community (MISTIC) Residency. He has received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award Grant, NYFA award for painting and two Artists and Communities Grants from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF). His work is featured in the permanent collections of The Brooklyn Museum, NY; El Museo del Barrio, NY and the Newark Museum, NJ. www.miguelluciano.com
Chicory Miles
Chicory Miles received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After graduating, she was awarded an internship in the Kohler Arts/Industry residency program where she created a body of work drawing on sources ranging from mythology and early medicine to contemporary developments like cloning and genetic engineering. She moved to San Francisco and worked at the Exploratorium, a museum of science, art, and human perception. She received her MFA in Sculpture from California College of Arts. Her work has been exhibited nationally in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Berkeley, New Orleans, Atlanta, Mobile, Florida and New Jersey. She was featured in the 2007 “Florence Biennale” in Florence, Italy. She recently curated Fictional Science, an exhibition that opened in SoHo, New York and Maiden Louisiana which opened in conjunction with the International Sculpture Center’s Symposium in New Orleans. Chicory currently teaches in the School of Art at Louisiana State University.
Shai Zakai
Photographer and an ecological artist, director and founder of "The Israeli Forum for Ecological Art", Shai Zakai creates installations and multi-media to react upon ecological and environmental issues. She is involved in public art that includes reclamation and/or responses to damaged areas. Zakai works as a lecturer and curator of photography and eco-art, and she owns the Photography and Eco-art Centre. Zakai is the author and photographer of 'Faces and Facets' (1994 ), which represented Israel for its 50th anniversary in the U.S.A.; winner of the second Biennale prize for photography at the Ein Harod Museum of Art (1988); and winner of the "Artist-Teacher Prize" for 2000-01 from the ministry of Science and Culture. Her ongoing eco-art project "Concrete Creek 1999-2002" has been presented and exhibited in U.S.A., Germany, South Africa, Japan and Israel. Zakai has exhibited in some 40 group and 21 solo exhibitions.
http://www.eco-art.co.il/cv.asp?CL=ENG
Juried Artists
Ten international artists have been selected by Adelina Vlas, Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Cheryl Harper, Independent Curator, to complement the works of the featured artists.
Gerald Beaulieu was born in Welland Ontario in 1964. He studied art at the Ontario College of Art and Design including a final year of study at the New York City satellite campus, graduating in 1987. In 1988 he moved to Prince Edward Island, Canada's smallest province, where he now works and lives with his family. He is primarily a sculptor and installation artist receiving a number of national awards and grants for his work. He has had many exhibitions across Canada most recently in Fredericton, New Brunswick and Regina, Saskatchewan, and is currently completing a commission for the University of Prince Edward Island.
As well as being a practicing professional artist, Gerald has been heavily involved in arts advocacy, serving on the board of the Prince Edward Island Council of the Arts and he is currently serving as the President of CARFAC National, Canada's leading National Arts Service Organization for professional visual and media artists.
Andrew Chartier has participated in many solo and group shows in Québec and outside the province including at the Musée des beaux-arts de Sherbrooke Québec (1999), L’art qui fait boum!, Montréal Québec (2000), Articule (2000), Space Gallery, St-Johns New-Brunswick (2000), Jardin Botanique de Rouyn-Noranda/Passart Québec (2000), Espace Virtuel, Chicoutimi Québec (2001), Centre culturel Yvonne L. Bombardier, Valcourt Québec (2002), Galerie Horace, Sherbrooke Québec (2003), Grave, Victoriaville Québec (2004), CEG, Sorel Québec (2005), Musée de la nature et des sciences, Sherbrooke Québec (2005), Centre d’arts Orford, Orford Québec (2006), Arnica, Kamloops British-Columbia (2007), Artivistic/Oboro, Montréal Québec (2007), Praxis art actuel, Sainte-Thérèse Québec (2008).
Andrew Chartier holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Bishop’s University (1996) and a Maîtrise en arts visuels et médiatiques from UQAM (2006). He has received grants from CIAM (Centre Interuniversitaire en Arts Médiatiques) in 2004, The Canada Council for the Arts in collaboration with le Centre d’arts Orford (2006), the city of Sherbrooke/Cultural division in 2006, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec in 2007 and other corporate financial support.
Yi-Chuan Chen was born in 1976 in Taiwan. Her work focuses on the transformation of the ordinary objects by endowing them with distinctive meanings through sculpture, installation and mixed media. In 1999, she earned a BFA in Painting and Art Education from National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan. In her BFA education, she received academic training in drawing, painting and traditional Chinese painting. After six years of teaching visual art and design to art-gifted junior high school students in Taiwan, she came to the U.S. to engage in post-graduate studies. Currently she is pursuing her MFA degree at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania.
Irish Artist James Hayes was born in 1974, and studied at Limerick School of Art & Design, Ireland, The University of Vigo in North Spain, De Montfort University and The University of London in the UK. From 1997 to 2003 he kept his studio in London’s East End. From 2003 to 2005 he taught fine art practices at a number of universities and art schools in the UK and Ireland.
His artwork is regularly exhibited in the UK, Ireland and USA. Most recently his installation sculptural works have been selected for international contemporary art exhibitions at ‘Tiny Iron’ ‘Downtown Aurora Visual Arts’(DAVART), Denver, USA (2008)- ‘Ev+a 2008’ –‘too early for Vacation..’ Ireland- curated by Hou Hanru from the San Francisco Arts Institute, ‘The 8th International USUK Sculpture Symposia, New York (2007)’, and ‘Iron Tribe’ Burris Hill Gallery, New Mexico, (2007).
He currently lives in Ireland and lectures in sculpture at the Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork, Ireland.
Michael Hernandez was born Oct. 5, 1980 in Emporia, KS. He attended Emporia High School where his interest in art developed from an introduction to ceramics and glass. Michael began to experiment with socially driven sculpture while a student at Emporia State University, where he earned a BFA in Glass. Interested in pursuing the craft of glassblowing, Hernandez moved to Seattle where he kept a studio, pursuing sculpture in his off time. Driven to spend more time and energy toward making artwork, Michael accepted a residency at Appalachian Center for Craft in Tennessee, where he has lived and worked for the past two years. Hernandez will begin graduate studies in glass at Ohio State University in the fall of 2008.
An interdisciplinary artist for more than 25 years, Guy Laramee’s work embraces a large disciplinary territory : stage directing, musical composition and new instrument building, singing, dance, video, scenography, sculpture and installation, painting, writing. He has received more than 25 important grants ; in 1989 he received the Joseph S. Stauffer prize awarded by Canada Council. His work has been seen and heard in Canada, United Sates, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan and Latin America.
As a collaborator and designer, he has worked with some of the great names of the artistic landscape (Robert Lepage, Rachel Rosenthal, Larry Tremblay, Jean-Frédérique Messier, Volker Hesse, Martine Beaulne, etc.). Also organizator and producer, he founded and directed many companies with an artistic or cultural vocation (TUYO, microtonal and gestural music ensemble on invented instruments ; Pluramuses, interdisciplinary theatre ; CIBL-FM). He initiated as well some key events in Canada (L’Espace traversé, first pancanadian conference on interdisciplinary practices ; Forums CIRCA, etc).
A self taught composer, he holds a Master’s degree in anthropology and in visual art. Among his recent works is BIBLIOS, a meditation on our cult of knowledge-as-accumulation, that took the form of miniature landscapes carved in books, and a story soon to be published. Parts of this project were exhibited more than 20 times in Canada and four times in the eastern United States, including the Center for Book Arts, New York and the Art Institute of Boston. Guy Laramee is represented by Galerie Lacerte in Quebec City and Galerie Orange in Montreal.
Jason Lee is currently an Assistant Professor of Sculpture and Foundations Coordinator in the Division of Art and Design at West Virginia University in Morgantown. Lee received his BFA from Kent State University in 1993 and his MFA from University of Wisconsin Madison in 1998.
Lee, a multi media sculptor and installation artist, incorporates a wide variety of materials and techniques into his oddly humorous constructions and presentations. In some of Lee's most recent work he utilizes custom fabricated light boxes as well as cast plastic ducks and extruded foam fences to create his vision of the ideal landscape. Writer Dan Tranberg describes Lee’s work as “Colorful and visually engaging, Lee’s tightly conceived and impeccably executed installation offers a view of nature that’s bound to make you think twice about what constitutes a perfect summer day-and why.”
Lee has exhibited at 16 Beaver Space in New York, Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, The Contemporary Arts Collective in Las Vegas, The Soap Factory in Minneapolis, Western Exhibitions in Chicago, The Wisconsin Triennial and the Cleveland Museum of Art as well as having a solo show of his work in the Museum Of Contemporary Art Cleveland’s Curve series in 2004. Lee’s work was featured in the 2007 “Beyond/In New York” exhibition in Buffalo. Lee is also the recipient of the 2008 SECAC Individual Artists Fellowship.
Elizabeth Mackie has exhibited her work nationally and internationally in invited, juried, solo and group exhibits. Exhibitions include the Ann Street Gallery, Newburgh, NY., two book art exhibitions “Telling the Story, Artists’ Books,” Noyes Museum of Art, Oceanville, NJ and “Meraviglia: Innovations in the Book Arts,” Williams Center for the Arts Gallery, Lafayette College, Myhelan Gallery, Long Valley, NJ., andArlington Art Center, Arlington, VA. Other accomplishments include the 15th Annual McNeese National Works on Paper Exhibition, McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana; SPIN Gallery, Toronto, Canada; Alder Art Gallery, Coburg, Oregon; WOMENMADE Gallery, Chicago, IL;Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; eklektikos gallery, Washington, DC; Banana Factory, Bethlehem, PA; and Boston Cyberarts Festival, Cohasset MA.
Her video productions have received numerous awards, including a purchase award from WHYY TV and awards from juried competitions including International Film and TV Festival of NY TV Programs, NY, NY; Women in the Directors Chair, Film and Video Festival, Chicago, IL; The 10th Annual Philadelphia International Film and Video Festival, Philadelphia, PA; Dance on Camera, NY, NY ; and The Video Medium: An Overview, Geoffrey Taber Gallery, Columbus, Ohio.
Grants and fellowships include a Mid-Atlantic Regional Media Arts Fellowship; Visiting Artist Fellowship, Center for New Media, Frankfurt, Germany; Artist Fellowship, New Jersey State Council on the Arts; Research Fellowship, Center for Technology Studies, NJ Institute of Technology; and Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Residency, Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY; and six year Creative Research Grant and MUSE Grant from The College of New Jersey.
Ben was born in 1981 and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received his BFA from the University of Delaware and his MFA from the Pratt Institute. http://benpinder.info/
A native of Berlin, Ralf Sander sailed around the world on a small sailing boat from 1988-1990. Directly after the trip he finished his studies and began to work as a free-lance sculptor. In 1994 he visited China and Japan with a research grant from the German Academic Exchange Service for six months. He was appointed to a lectureship in sculpture at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin in 1996 and from 1997 to 2001 at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. In 2005 he became Reader in Fine Arts at the University of Ulster, Belfast, UK.
He was a visiting Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, 2003/04. From 1999 to 2005 he was art advisor for the local government of Brandenburg (Germany). He was involved in several Jury Boards for Public Art projects and served as a curator in the Organisation of International Exhibitions. In 2008 he became a Professor at the Seoul National University.