Fisher Parrish Gallery is pleased to present a two-person exhibition of works by New York-based artists Crys Yin and Gustav Hamilton. Drawing on shared use of memory, familiarity and value in the mundane, Uncharacteristically Warm explores the exaggerated personal narratives achievable through ordinary objects and the painted image.
Using glaze on thick ceramic tiles, Gustav Hamilton's paintings exist between ceramic craftwork and fine painting. His subjects are sparse, surreal still lifes of assorted trinkets like keys, bits of paper, birds, or novelty bookends. While his arrangements seem initially random, each work contains an intricate system of references and reflections. In some cases, a work may have a direct relationship with another object: a piece is propped up with a book that features an image of itself, or a ceramic tile may depict the work with which it shares the space. More broadly, Hamilton's works depict the life (real and imaginary) of the artist through the ordinary objects that surround him; his paintings and sculptures exist as auto-fictional documents where real events merge with fabricated details or outcomes. In this space of total authorship, personal fragments and imagined encounters have equal narrative significance.
Memory in Crys Yin's work operates as a reflection on personal history. Her paintings and sculptures utilize the semiotic properties of objects to depict her experience with otherness. Using vivid color and the subtle distortion of scale and perspective, Yin explores the natural dualities and cross-cultural signifiers of inanimate objects, as well as the colloquial American phrases that are often lost in translation. These misconnections provide a powerful stable of possible meanings; rather than reinforce a feeling of alienation, Yin's deft use of humor and symbolism transcends embarrassing and awkward misunderstandings and instead finds synchronicities within her dual cultural identity.
Uncharacteristically Warm will run May 17th through June 21, 2019, with an opening reception on Friday, May 17th from 6 to 9 pm.
Crys Yin (b. 1981, San Diego, CA) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at FLAG Art Foundation, Adam Baumgold Gallery, Transmitter, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid in New York. Yin has also participated in residencies with Shandaken Paint School, The Lighthouse Works, ACRE, and Lower East Side Printshop. She is currently an art and social practice fellow with ProjectArt and an A.I.R. Fellow in 2019-2020.
Gustav Hamilton (b.1990, Everett, WA) was raised in Fargo, North Dakota and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and his BFA from the University of Montana. Prior to moving to New York City, he was a Visiting Professor at Colorado State University. He is currently a Studio Manager at BKLYN CLAY. He has exhibited most recently at The Hole, Steuben Gallery, The Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, and BKLYN CLAY in New York, as well as Springbox Gallery and Lacuna Gallery in Minnesota and David B. Smith Gallery in Colorado.
