The Clear and the Obscure at Lulu

Artists: Michael Berryhill, Ryan Nord Kitchen, Victoria Roth, Patricia Treib

Exhibition title: The Clear and the Obscure

Curated by: Chris Sharp

Venue: Lulu, Mexico City

Date: April 9 – June 5, 2016

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Lulu, Mexico City

The Clear and the Obscure is a group exhibition that brings together the work of four painters whose very different ways of working nevertheless possess salient affinities. From a preference for a bright, at times pastel and high-contrast palette, whose common debt to early European and American modernism is notable, to a proclivity for subject matter which sits comfortably on the threshold between figuration and abstraction, these four artists create works whose contours and intentions are at once clear and obscure. Methods and techniques among the group vary. For instance, where Michael Berryhill and Victoria Roth wield a much more intuitive, labored and vigorous approach toward generating their rich and evocative imagery, discovering it as they proceed, Patricia Treib’s quasi-calligraphic picture making is much more methodical, referring to a specific, repeated source, while Ryan Nord Kitchen essentially depicts landscapes which all but blaze into ideographic abstractions. But, in accordance with a common faith in painting as painting, these heterogeneous and highly sophisticated practices are deeply engaged in the cultivation of their own pictorial vocabularies, which are hard won and fueled by a commitment to color, facture and mark making. They create work in which intention is not the opposite but the very preserve of mystery, collectively gesturing toward the happy and ongoing co-existence of the two in contemporary painting.

Michael Berryhill (b. 1972, El Paso, Texas. Lives and works in Brooklyn). A selection of recent solo exhibitions includes: (2016) Kanas gallery, New York (2015) Shrine Time, Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, NY; Art Los Angeles Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA; (2016) and group: (2016) Strange Abstraction, Fredericks & Freiser Gallery, New York, NY; Around Flat, Knockdown Center, Maspeth, NY; (2015) Intimacy in Discourse: Unreasonable Sized Paintings, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY; The Negative Hand, Anonymous Gallery, Mexico City, MX

Ryan Nord Kitchen (b. 1988, Minnesota. Lives and works in Baltimore). A selection of recent solo exhibitions includes: (2016) Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York, NY (forthcoming); (2015) Summer Paintings, Terrault Contemporary, Baltimore, MD; Paintings, Galleri Jacob Bjørn, Aarhus, Denmark, and group: (2016) Mother Popcorn, Big Medium, Austin, TX; Jon Pilkington, Ryan Nord Kitchen, Stefanie Heinze, Rod Barton, London, UK

Victoria Roth (b. 1986 Paris, France; lives and works in Brooklyn). A selection of recent group exhibitions includes: (2016) In the Mix, Hometown Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Vivid Bra, New York, NY; SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York, NY; (2015) Figuration Inside/Out, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY; (2014) Leaning Steeples, Show Room Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY

Patricia Treib (b. 1979, Saginaw, MI. Lives and works in Brooklyn) A selection of recent solo exhibitions includes: (2016) Galería Marta Cervera, Madrid (forthcoming); (2015) Patricia Treib, Kate MacGarry, London, UK; (2014) Solo project, Wallspace, Liste Art Basel, Basel, CH; (2013) Patricia Treib, Wallspace, NY and group: (2016) Nice Weather, curated by David Salle, Skarsted Gallery, NY; (2015) Fictions, Derek Eller, New York, NY

Lulu is an independent, Mexico City-based project space founded and run by the artist Martin Soto Climent and the independent curator Chris Sharp.