September 9 - October 11, 2020
Virtual Opening and Artist Talk: Saturday, September 12, 4:00 - 6:00

Work in “Event Horizon” can be viewed and purchased on ARTSY or our WEBSITE

This show’s title is an astronomy term referring to the edge of a black hole. It describes a boundary from which nothing can escape. Karen Gibbons’ artwork is an invitation to reflect on our own “Event Horizon.”

If Karen Gibbons’ recent work could be boiled down to a single theme, it might be “transformation”. In every piece many images merge and emerge, bringing up myriad associations. Color, line, and composition lend coherence and integration as the viewer is swept up in a sumptuous saga alluding to emotions, cycles, and rebirth.

The dreamlike abstractions she creates are crafted out of collage, paint, and drawing materials mounted on boards and found objects. The works are made up of grouped components that offer the potential for re-arrangement. In a “choose your own adventure” manner, Gibbons’ art gracefully navigates the concept of change. With optimism and spirit, the work suggests that the viewer might also look at things from many different perspectives.

Karen Gibbons is a mixed media artist, she lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Gibbons is also a mother, author, yogi and therapist. She has an MFA from Hunter College and has shown her work consistently in New York City and beyond.

440 Gallery will re-open open Wednesday, September 9th at 4pm.
New gallery hours are:
Wednesday - Friday, 4-7pm
Saturday - Sunday 11-7pm.

Virtual Opening & Artist Talk via Zoom: Saturday, September 12, 4-6pm.

Project Space: “Color Connection”

Work in “Color Connection” can be viewed and purchased on ARTSY or our WEBSITE

Imaginative, almost other-worldly shapes and juxtapositions are explored through a variety of media in the Project Space. Color adds a further layer of expression...bold and unabashed. The ‘signs of our times’ have fueled each of these artists in different ways, and the results show how they make meaning—connection— through their art, as expressed in their statements below:

Ellen Chuse: “Over the past few years my work has focused on dark orbs on grounds of saturated color in a series called Dark Matter. In time, these images evolved from a sense of foreboding to a place of meditation. In these three paintings from 2019 I experimented with possibilities of color and composition using similar forms but with a different focus. The paintings are acrylic on paper and I am showing them unframed to highlight the texture of the materials. As always, I’m engaged with the emotional resonance of color and certain timeless forms that allow each viewer to bring their own experience to the work.”

Fred Bendheim: “For the past few years I have been making relief sculptures out of wood, PVC board and found objects with figurative elements. This current use of figures is counter to the arc of my development as an abstract artist. Early on in my work, I made figurative paintings and sculpture. The work has slowly evolved to pure abstractions over the past twenty years. I view the recent figures as different from the early figures: now they are a progression on abstraction, or to put it in another way, the works are abstractions, but with figures. This seemingly paradoxical statement is only so if one views abstraction as a ‘closed’ concept. I prefer to view abstraction as ‘open,’ and hopefully it is still in the realm of the new and challenging of orthodoxies. The figures are either from trophies, referring to sports and actions, or they are from classical sculptures or religious icons referring to stillness and meditation. Circles are a recurring form, similar to the circularity in my work from figuration to abstraction and back again. Circles are also referring to the cycles of nature, seasons, orbits of the planets and life cycles.”

Richard Barnet: “My recent works on paper are energetic statements that are an outcome of my strong emotional responses to the complexities of the world today. In the three drawings and watercolors I’m allowing my attitude toward global ecological destruction, the current state of politics in our country, the blatant cruelty of racism, to come across in my work that is constructed out of sadness and outrage.”