Summer Longing Never Fades

About

 With the longest days ahead we’re featuring the work of four artists: Tommy Kha, Elissa Medina, Joe Nanashe, and Ruben Natal-San Miguel, who interpret these ideas through boldness, bright colors and humor. On view will be photography and ceramics.

Tommy Kha is a photographer whose unflinching self-exploration and uses it to make a sharp reflection of our cultural undercurrent. Exploring themes of immigration, sexuality, humor and humanity. Kha will be showing a collage of his images as they are literally mounted on top of one another creating a new perception of the dimensions of photography. He is a recipient of the En Foco Photography Fellowship, the Jessie and Dolph Smith Emeritus Award, and a former artist-in-residence at Center for Photography at Woodstock; Light Work; Fountainhead, and Baxter Street at the Camera Club of New York. In December 2015, Kha published his first monograph, A Real Imitation, through Aint-Bad. His next book, Soft Murders, will be released in the Fall 2019 along with his first solo exhibition at the gallery.

With her background in industrial design, combined with her innate knowledge of craft Elissa Medina works fluidly across media in a non-hierarchical manner to create objects that are functional and playful. Medina will be presenting her latest body of works: lush objects with an unusual matte, chalk-like finish, whereby the production process is unclear and appeared to be digital rendered. These objects play with the unique white characteristics of porcelain that allows for the use of very bright colors not possible with other clay; thus subverting our expectations of how porcelain should look. Medina has received several awards and grants, her work has been shown throughout America, Mexico and Europe. The TAC Project Space at Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY; Marion Friedmann Gallery in London, UK and San Ildefonso Museum, Mexico, among others.

Joe Nanashe has been fascinated with the American ethos. He questions with a dose of humor the norms that have been created and accepted within the American society. In the photograph, titled Monument, which will be part of the exhibition, the artist documents a melting Rocket Popsicle with the colors ‘Red, White and Blue’ referring to the National Flag and its notion of strength in its colors. He received his MFA from Rutgers in 2015 and shown throughout the US such as William Benton Museum of Art, CT; Islip Art Museum, NY; Western Michigan University, MI; Nexus Art, PA; Jersey City Museum, NJ; Museum of Contemporary Art, OH; Marietta College, OH; Victori + Mo, NY; Eric Firestone Gallery, NY; Garis & Hahn, NY; Catinca Tabacaru, NY; Arts+Leisure, NY and Freight & Volume, NY.