Juried by Christina Massey

July 11 - August 2

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 11, 5 - 7:00 p.m.

440 Gallery is proud to announce the 2024 Summer Theme Exhibition, Artistic Muscles, juried by Christina Massey, featuring 25 artists selected from a national call. This showcase of contemporary, multimedia works celebrates the artist as athlete and creator. Exercising the athleticism inherent in artmaking, this exhibit presents the physicality and discipline behind artistic creativity.

From 1912 to 1952, the Olympics awarded 151 medals for painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music, alongside those for athletic competition. Celebrating this history, we will look at art as an athletic feat, stretching creative muscles. Artistic Muscles is a fun exploration of the deep intersection of sport and art — relating the depiction of athletic feats to the physicality of artmaking. These works exemplify the emotional high of achievement, while comparing it to the sportsmanship of competition.

Massey writes:
“The concept of Artistic Muscles was inspired upon discovering that Olympics had given awards for achievements in the Arts. Despite the stereotype of artists being unathletic, many artists play sports, enjoy them or are quite athletic in their artistic process, relying on the body's ability to create their work. Selected works range from representational to abstract and showcase a wide variety of traditional sports from basketball, running and swimming to the exercises typically associated with creative types like dance and yoga. Some works focus on the muscles or bones themselves, while others show the brain as the ultimate creative flex. Throughout the show, you'll also notice several works that feature gold, silver and bronze tones as a nod to the Olympic awards.”

Artists chosen for the show:

Fred Bendheim, Jocelyn Benford, Stacey Billups, Tanner Bosma, Nell Breyer, Elizabeth Caputo, Jeffrey Chuang, Patricia Dahlman, Stephen Dinsmore, Eric Eickmann, Veronique Gambier, Stephen Gay, Tom Hecht, Isabelle Heldenfels, Jessica Lambert, Matt Logsdon, Barbara Lubliner, Katrina Majkut, Caroline McAuliffe, Shae Nadine || SubtleFlux, Jo Ophardt, Katie Petersen, Haley Pisciotta, Lola Simon, and Ward Yoshimoto

Christina Massey is an artist and independent curator with over a decade of experience in curating exhibitions that focus on and highlight underrepresented, female artists. In 2016, she founded WoArt, a platform dedicated to promoting the work of female-identifying artists through social media and curated exhibitions.

Her curatorial projects have been displayed in prestigious venues such as the Hunterdon Art Museum, Court Tree Collective, BioBAT Art Space, ISE Foundation and Cluster Gallery, among others. Her projects have been featured in notable publications, including Artnet News, Visionary Projects and ABC News.

As an artist, Massey’s work has exhibited extensively in the NYC metropolitan region. She has won multiple awards for her work that most recently include a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2023, an FST StudioProjects Fund Grant, a Brooklyn Arts Fund Grant and a SIP Fellowship at the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.