Face Shifts
June 23 – July 30, 2017
Theodore Darst, Nick Doyle, Rina Dweck, Ja’Tovia Gary, Kevin Reuning, Jessie Stead
Opening Reception Friday June 23, 6-9pm

Installation Views

Microscope Gallery is pleased to present Face Shifts, a group exhibition of works including video, kinetic painting, analog photography, installation and mixed media by Theodore Darst, Nick Doyle, Rina Dweck, Ja’Tovia Gary, Kevin Reuning, and Jessie Stead in which the face is a focus of the work and its manifestation a reflection upon the technologies from which it is made.

While the face has become ubiquitous in recent years – aided by the development of hand-held devices of communication with screens and cameras, numerous social media platforms, and advancements in security and surveillance technologies such as facial recognition, among others – the works in Face Shifts move away from realistic representation, or the appearance thereof toward highly personal re-imaginations, deconstructions, and social commentary.

Furthermore, the works by the six artists in the exhibition use or incorporate a full range of analog and digital technologies and mediums – often in hybrid forms – from celluloid film, rare Polaroid formats, mp3 and transistors to current flat screens, 3D animation and gaming platforms often combined with more traditional practices including scratching, painting, etching, and assemblage.

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Theodore Darst is an artist living and working in New York City. His work was recently featured in “Cult Trash”, a solo exhibition at Magenta Plains, New York. Additionally his work was recently exhibited in “storefront: This Known World” at The Museum Of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, CA, “Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016” at The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York as part of Lorna Mills’ project “Ways of Something, Episode 1”, and the Artists’ Film Biennial at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, England in 2016. His first book “Cult Trash” was published by Soft City Publishing on the occasion of his exhibition at Magenta Plains.

Nick Doyle was raised in Los Angeles, CA. He received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005, and earned an MFA from Hunter College in 2013. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in the summer of 2014 and subsequently attended the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s studio residency program from 2014-2017. Doyle’s work has exhibited at Invisible Exports (New York, NY), Lucien Terras (New York, NY), Columbia University (New York, NY), Abrons Art Center (New York, NY) and Pioneer Works (Brooklyn, NY). He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Rina Dweck is a multi-media artist whose work explores themes of identity and disguise in our contemporary world. In her recent 365 piece Project Face (2011-2012), Dweck took a selfie with her iPhone and posted it on her Facebook page every day for one year. She has participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center (2013, 2014, 2016) and the Mayapple Center for Arts and Humanities (2014). Her work has been featured in the Huffington Post and other art publications. She holds a B.S. in Studio Art from NYU (1998) and is currently in the MFA Fine Arts Program at The School of Visual Arts, in New York. Dweck lives and works in New York.

Ja’Tovia Gary is a filmmaker and visual artist originally from Dallas, Texas currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Gary’s work is concerned with constructions of power and how raced and gendered beings navigate popular media. She earned her MFA in Social Documentary Filmmaking from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her work has screened at festivals, cinemas, and institutions worldwide including Edinburgh International Film Festival, The Whitney Museum, Anthology Film Archives, Atlanta Film Festival, the Schomburg Center, MoMa PS1, MOCA Los Angeles, New Orleans Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Sundance Documentary Fund Production Grant and the Jerome Foundation Film and Video Grant. Gary participated in the Terra Foundation of American Art 2016 Summer Artist Fellowship and is the 2017 Artist in Residence at the Jacob Burns Film Center.

Kevin Reuning is a Brooklyn-based artist working in moving image, installation and digital art. His work often involves visual explorations of virtual worlds and sculptures he creates using 3D elements assembled via software or collected from the web. Reuning’s work has been previously featured in group and solo shows at the gallery as well as at Boston University Art Gallery, NurtureArt, and Pratt Digital Arts Gallery among others. Reuning’s work has been featured in Artsy, ArtFCity, Artlyst (UK), and ArtObserved, among others. He released his first ebook “A Few Visuals” in September 2014. Kevin Reuning graduated in 2012 from Boston University in Film and Science.

Jessie Stead works in overlapping patterns of cinema, installation, music and other forms of cross-disciplined art. Posing as a film director in an on-going IRL performance piece, her motion-pictures have been screened internationally, including at the Greater New York Cinema exhibition at MoMA PS1. Solo exhibitions include 247365, New York, Soloway, New York, and Jan Kaps, Cologne, Germany. Collaborative events, performances, and installations have been presented at a wide variety of venues such as Performa 13, Fridericianum, Akershus Kunstsenter, Real Fine Arts, nightclubs and many other venues. Stead received an MFA from Bard College in 2007, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Face Shifts runs from June 23 through July 30, 2017. Opening Reception: Friday June 23, 6-9pm. Gallery hours: Thursday to Monday, 1-6pm.

For inquiries please contact the gallery at inquiries@microscopegallery.com or by phone at 347.925.1433.

Ja’Tovia Gary, “Sleep is the Cousin of Death”, 2017, 16mm transfer to HD video, 3 minutes 18 seconds – Image courtesy of the artist