The Eternal Present

About

Studio Associate is thrilled to present our first two-person exhibition at The Catskills Gallery in TriBeCa, featuring a dynamic pairing of work by Jason Rohlf and Nell Waters. Traversing material and energetic space from the celestial to the earthen core, a fragile, impermanent thread permeates this show ranging greatly in color and scale. Fleeting and temporal in nature, both artists collage, cut, layer, erase, and deconstruct materials in relation to what came before and what’s yet to come. Each is a letter in an ever-evolving language responding to its placement in both physical and metaphysical environments. Describing an intangible object or sound, subsuming a space unconfined by edges, having no start and no end, Rohlf and Waters capture such transient and contradictory moments in visual form; in an Eternal Present.

Jason Rohlf’s work is heavily process-driven, utilizing chance-based application methods while repurposing ubiquitous materials to convey an urban palimpsest. Inspired by weathering on his Brooklyn loft’s roof, the “Tar Beach” series weaves together elements of relief, affect, transformation, chance, and time. Recent vertical works on paper titled “Luft” convey billowing atmospheric forces through polychromatic waves pulsing across the surface by transferring wet paint from one painting onto another—indirectly imparting its patterned veils onto the next.  

Embedded within Nell Waters’ work, a mutual understanding between process and concept prevail. Working on the floor in a sea of layers of raw, unstretched canvas, Waters resonates with ancient textile & cave art as a visual language depicting time, space, and spirituality. Line, shape, and symbols emerge within the space of her paintings as origins of energy—some loud and bold, some quiet and soft. The paintings become portals or labyrinths in which mark-making and visceral vulnerability meander through vastness and back again.

Jason Rohlf  @chancyracket (b. 1970, Milwaukee, WI) is a Brooklyn-based artist working primarily in painting. His works range from his extensive Shop Rag Project to massive painted tarps up to 12 feet tall. Rohlf’s work has been reviewed in Hyperallergic, Time Out Chicago, and Milwaukee Magazine among others. Notable solo and group exhibitions have taken place at Gold Scopophilia (Montclair, NJ), Tory Folliard Gallery (Milwaukee, WI), ReInstitute (Millerton, NY), Rick Wester (New York, NY), Pentimenti Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), and Pelham Art Center (Pelham, NY), among others. He attended the Sam & Adel Golden Paint Foundation at Golden Artist Colors, New Berlin, NY, and produced a public arts project for the MTA Arts for Transit at Far Rockaway in Queens.

Nell Waters (b.1974) is a Brooklyn-based abstract painter. She studied at The New School and holds a BFA in Painting from SUNY Purchase. Waters has exhibited her work in solo and group shows in the U.S. and Europe. Her paintings are held in both private and permanent public collections including Yale-New Haven Hospital. In addition to her painting practice, Nell has been a teaching artist for 25 years with a major focus in the healing arts, working with patients and children with special needs. She is an art educator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Westport CT.

Studio Associate is an artist-focused consulting agency and resource platform based in NYC. We represent 20 contemporary artists by promoting, exhibiting, and selling their work; offer one-on-one professional development consultations for all artists; provide recruiting and logistics services; and host an artist resources list-serve of the best opportunities, spaces, and jobs. Our newsletter The Switchboard compiles select opportunities, announcements, relevant art + culture news, and inspirational insights to inspire a more transparent and efficient art world.