Figureworks Inc. 
168 North 6th Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11211
718-486-7021
hours: Friday, Saturday, Sunday 1-6pm
or by appointment

2007 - 2008 CALENDAR

WEEKLY
LIFE DRAWING SESSIONS
Life drawing from experienced models
Short poses
Saturday from 10AM - 1PM
each session - 3 hours for $7.00

January 5 - February 4, 2007
New York Academy of Art Alumni Exhibition

Figureworks, through juried selection with the New York Academy of Art Alumni Association, is pleased to present this premier exhibition focusing on eleven alumni.   Graduates range from 1991 through 2006.

Located in the heart of TriBeCa, the New York Academy of Art, a not-for-profit educational and cultural institution, is dedicated to the advancement of figurative painting, sculpture and drawing. The only graduate school in the United States devoted exclusively to the study of the human figure, the Academy fosters values and skills intrinsic to the creation of significant contemporary art. With this focus, Figureworks is honored to support and host exhibits with their alumni.

Work in this exhibit include drawings by Jorge Alvarez , oils by Chris Bilton, Thomas John Carlson, Greg Decker, Lisa Lebofsky, Joachim Marx, Alyssa Monks, Michael Ponce, Daehyuk Sim, Michael Wayne Smith , and sculpture by Isabelle Garbani .

To see additional images from the exhibit click here.

February 9 - March 25, 2007
Joshua Katcher
New sculpture and video work

Joshua Katcher is a video artist, filmmaker, and sculptor living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He graduated from the BFA program in Art Video at Syracuse University, New York in 2003. His video work has been exhibited internationally in festivals such as The Rotterdam International Film Festival, Cannes, and The New York Underground Film Festival. His music videos have been nominated for awards, and are in circulation on networks such as MTV and Much Music. Joshua is equally prolific with his sculpture and exhibits regularly through Figureworks.

This upcoming exhibition at Figureworks will be the first to combine his sculpture and video. Joshua's work often addresses the interaction between humans and nature. This exhibit develops this concept with free-standing ceramic animals, such as rabbits, birds, and deer, that are positioned in elaborately detailed cloaks. Their clothing expose a complex story-line involving nature's struggle and survival in a world where human intervention has created chaos. Wall work will include two related videos and an installation of small ceramic faces that, when massed, will again relay this message of humanity crowding into nature.

March 30 - May 27, 2007
Meridith McNeal
Keeping Room

Keeping Room will be a full gallery, site-specific installation at Figureworks gallery, which occupies an entire floor of a late 19th century brick row-house in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The rooms of the gallery will be transformed back in time into a small Victorian parlor, a room which was sometimes referred to as a keeping room.

A few key pieces of furniture will be placed in the room, a settee, a few chairs, an ottoman and side tables. Chandeliers will hang in the gallery rooms and ornate period lamps will provide warm ambient lighting. This will allow the viewer upon walking through the draped entry arch, to feel as if s/he has stepped back in time. Silhouettes of women’s and children’s dresses cut from vintage wall papers and images of ornate period chandeliers on vintage maps will be hung salon style in a variety of period frames. In the windows and between rooms, richly colored drapes held back with tassels will reveal delicate muslin sheers. The sheers will be embroidered with the thin lines astrological maps which like the work on the wall are contemporary pieces exploring the idea of time and personal history.

In the center of the larger Gallery will be a Victorian style doll house. The rooms of the gallery will be recreated in the dollhouse. Rather than dolls, the house will be populated by miniature late 19th century dresses made of paper ephemera. Two life-sized dresses (a mother and child size garments) made from contemporary Brooklyn maps will inhabit the gallery rooms. On surfaces throughout the rooms will be additional miniature paper dress sculptures under bell jars.

June 1 - July 29, 2007
Audrey Rhoda
Recent Works

From the onset of her career, Audrey Rhoda has defined her paintings as personal, metaphorical narratives. Her subject matter is completely autobiographical and, with her unique way of painting with the layering of beeswax and oils, a metaphor of her life - the complex accumulation of experiences producing unusual, varied results.

This recent work is a continuation to her Childhood Solitudes series, which was exhibited at Figureworks in 2005. Her imagery references the recurrence of childhood in adulthood - vignettes filled with personas big and little, human and animal, scary and friendly, playful and serious. All are in curious encounters with other strange creatures that are born of her childhood fantasies. She states, "In the tranquil reverie of my art making I find myself returning again and again to my childhood solitudes. And through this dreaming I marvel at how the long forgotten imaginings of these solitudes resurface in my adult-infused imagery. My painting is a narrative of the growth of my identity as a single, divorced woman with an awakened sense of persona and all I have learnt from getting out there on my own".

Born into Apartheid's Johannesburg in 1949, Audrey Rhoda immigrated to Australia in 1983. In Sydney , she achieved her Fine Arts Degree and Masters of Art.   Rhoda has exhibited extensively in Sydney as well as in Melbourne, New York, Paris and Los Angeles, She is represented by the Charles Hewitt Gallery (Sydney), Gallery 10ll (Melbourne) and Figureworks, (New York).

September 14 - October 21, 2007
Arlene Morris
Interiors: Paper Assemblages

Morris' new series combines portraits and text using handmade paper, kozo fiber, paint, and linen. The hanging pieces are quilted into expressive portrait reliefs while the pedestal pieces are bound into striking books. Heavily layered paper, minimal in color and often scribed, is overlapped and torn to expose the grouped portraits. This repetition engages the viewer from every vantage point.

For ten years, Morris was the director of Spindleworks, an arts studio in Brunswick, Maine for developmentally disabled adults. Her witness to artistic expression without boundaries allowed her own work to break from traditional training. She has achieved numerous exhibitions and awards. This is Morris' fourth exhibition in New York with Figureworks and in Maine she has exhibited at the June Fitzpatrick Gallery in Portland, Icon Gallery in Brunswick, Elements Gallery and the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. Her work is in many private and public collections.

October 26 - November 25, 2007
Reception - October 26th, 6-9PM
Edward Monovich
Eyewash @ Figureworks

Figureworks is pleased to welcome back eyewash for their second exhibition at the gallery. eyewash was founded in 1998 on the third floor of a residential building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In the fall of 2000 eyewash lost their permanent space and began operating as a migratory gallery in collaborations through out NYC. In January of 2002 eyewash actively returned to the Williamsburg art community with an exhibition at Figureworks and is now returning with new work by eyewash artist Edward Monovich.

January 11, 2008 - February 17, 2008
Jorge Alvarez
(1953 - 2007)
A Retropective

Jorge Alvarez was an accomplished artist and respected professor.

Born in Medellin, Colombia in 1953, he moved with his family to New York City as a teenager. He received his Bachelor's of Fine Art in Painting and Drawing from the School of Visual Arts, NYC in 1976 and his Master's of Fine Art in Painting from the New York Academy of Art, NYC in 1995. He went on to become the Studio Manager of Evergreene Painting Studios from 1996 - 1999 executing large scale wall, ceiling, and alter pieces for numerous hotels, churches, and residences throughout the country.

In 2002, Jorge became a full time professor of painting and mural studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design. With his students, he created numerous murals around the Savannah area. In acknowledgement of Jorge's outstanding work, the college purchased three of his major oils for their permanent collection in 2006.

Jorge was a dedicated studio artist throughout his career. His commissioned portrait work was in constant demand and he was regularly preparing for solo and group exhibitions, including this last year at Figureworks and at the Red Gallery in Savannah, GA.

Jorge was a friend, artist, colleague and mentor to many and is greatly missed.

February 22, 2008 - April 6, 2008
Michael Massen
Jacquelyn Schiffman

Michael Massen exhibited his bronze sculptures at Figureworks in 2002. Recently completing his MFA in Painting at the New York Academy of Art, he is now showcasing his latest oils on canvas entitled "Quiet Paintings". With this formal training and established sculptural sensibility, each canvas presents a draped figure in an isolated state reflective of his three-dimensional works. Within each piece, richly layered grounds showcase his mastery of this medium.

Jacquelyn Schiffman has completed a new series of wall hangings and free-floating encaustic figures on spun-web polyester, the notable translucent industrial fabric she showcased in her former exhibition at Figureworks in 2003. These compositions grew out of this series as they had begun to reach beyond their two-dimensional format. The images are based on portions of this previous work, reassembled into a combination of painting and wall relief sculpture. These fanciful images are reminiscent of cartoon characters, costumed dancers and stage performers of the 1920's.

April 11 - June 1, 2008
McWillie Chambers
painting from the male form

Ingrid Capozzoli Flinn
painting from the female form

Figureworks is pleased to welcome McWillie Chambers and Ingrid Capozzoli Flinn for their first formal exhibitions in the gallery. Many of you are familiar with their works from the Figureworks "Back Room" collection. Both these established NYC based artists are exploring gender related issues. Chambers focuses on the male form in narrative settings and Capozzoli Flinn isolates the female form in stark studio settings. In common, both sensitively personalize their subjects through body language, composition and attentive brushwork.

This series by McWillie Chambers showcase men at the beach or pool-side. Painted from photographs collected over time, he affirms the uninhibited pleasure of men lounging, conversing and frolicking in a sun drenched atmosphere. Loosely painted with a vibrant palette, this cheerful series reflect the joyous days of summer. Chambers was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1951. He received his BFA from Kansas City Art Institute in 1973 and then moved to New York City to pursue his career. He has had numerous one-person exhibitions including Tricia Collins Grand Salon (1995/1997), Barbara Levy Gallery (1998,2002), Fischbach Gallery (2002), and John Davis Gallery (2007). 

Ingrid Cappozzoli Flinn 's paintings handle light in a different way. Working directly from models in her naturally lit studio, she articulates the subtle contours of the female form. Poses are often symmetrical, yet the gradient light to shadow provides a richly challenged composition that evokes thoughtful introspection into each subject.Capozzoli Flinn grew up in an Italian and Polish Catholic family in the suburbs of Detroit in the 1960's. She moved to NYC five years ago and has been working passionately and privately on this particular series, rarely exhibiting them until now.

June 6 - August 31, 2008
Reception Friday, June 13th 6-9PM
Bob Stanley
1932 - 1997

Figureworks · 168 North 6th St. · Brooklyn, NY 11211 · 718-486-7021