REBECCA NESS 레베카 네스: Threads 타래

AUGUST 31 - SEPTEMBER 24, 2022

레베카 네스(Rebecca Ness, 1992, Salem, Massachusetts)는 보스턴 대학교에서 회화 전공과 미술사 및 건축을 부전공으로 학사 학위를 취득하고, 예일 대학교에서 회화 및 판화로 석사 학위를 받았다. 그녀는 미국과 유럽 전역에서 활발히 전시를 진행해 왔으며, 주요 개인전으로는 2022년 뉴욕의 Morgan Presents에서 열린 'Studio Visitor', 2021년 파리의 Galerie Marguo에서 열린 'Stepping Out', 런던의 Carl Kostyal Gallery에서의 'Windows and Worlds', 로스앤젤레스의 Nino Mier Gallery에서의 'Pieces of Mind', 뉴욕의 1969 Gallery에서의 'Twice Over', 그리고 뉴헤이븐의 Yale Slifka Center for Jewish Life에서의 'Buttoned Down'이 있다.

주요 그룹 전시로는 Akron Art Museum의 'Reflections on Perception'(2022), 텔아비브의 Nassima Landau에서의 'do-mes-tic-i-ty'(2022), 뉴욕의 Alexander Berggruen Gallery에서의 'The Natural World'(2022), 샌프란시스코의 Friends Indeed에서의 'Mother and Child'(2021), 해먼튼의 Harper Books에서의 '36 Paintings'(2021), 뉴욕의 Anton Kern Gallery에서의 '11'(2021), 로스앤젤레스의 Blum & Poe에서의 'Show Me the Signs'(2020), 뉴욕의 Alexander Berggruen Gallery에서의 'Katherine Bradford, Hulda Guzman, Rebecca Ness'(2020) 등이 있다.

레베카 네스의 작품은 Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Yale University Art Gallery, 노르웨이 Jevnaker의 Kistefos Museum, 중국 상하이의 Long Museum, 상하이의 M Art Foundation, 애틀랜타의 High Museum of Art 등 여러 기관의 컬렉션에 소장되어 있다. 그녀는 뉴욕 스튜디오 스쿨의 Jane Chermayeff Scholarship, Chautauqua Institution의 Karin and Melvin Johnson Scholarship, 보스턴 대학교의 Constantin Alajalov Scholarship, 예술을 위한 Wilhelmina Denning Jackson Scholarship 및 National Multiple Sclerosis Society Scholarship 등 여러 상과 지원금을 수상했다.

EDIT Projects is pleased to present Threads, a solo exhibition featuring recent works by American artist Rebecca Ness (b. 1992, USA), in collaboration with Galerie Marguo from Paris, during the inaugural Frieze Seoul period. This pop-up exhibition will run from August 30 to September 24, marking the artist’s first exhibition in Korea.

Almost exactly one year after her first solo exhibition Stepping Out(2021) with Marguo, Ness considers her new exhibition as a kind of cheshbon hanefesh, or ‘taking inventory of the soul’, a practice that the artist relates to her Jewish upbringing. Regarding her show in Seoul as an account of the past year, the artist engages the viewer by drawing them into the intertwined fabric of her creative life.

Comprising three large-scale oils on linen and three small gouaches on paper, the exhibition is titled Threads as, in the words of the artist, each work of the show gives ‘little clues to how narratives are all connected’. By embedding discarded sketches and paintings that match other paintings in the show, Ness reveals in Summer Studio (2022) how she looks back at her works and how she ‘sees’ herself as an artist.

Ness worked simultaneously on all three oil paintings, as the ideas came to her all at once. The centerpiece of the show, Summer Studio (2022), serves as a time capsule that catalogs different aspects of Ness’ creative process in her studio, depicting her artist-self in a very upfront, almost naked, and extremely vulnerable way.  For Ness, the vulnerability and the idea of ‘regeneration of self’ is the overarching narrative that threads together all the works presented. The idea that summer is the time of rejuvenation becomes even more central in At Rest (2022), where the artist plays on the idea of ambiguity, as she paints the bird in a flux of death and sleep.

Best understood as a ‘romantic historian’, Ness excels in transcribing her imagined world and monumentalizing the mundane. Recurring elements like the bird, the self-portrait and the intimate scenes take and pull from each other like threads, which is why it’s essential for the artist to preserve the interconnectedness in her works. ‘I can’t finish one painting without the other. That’s always been how I work,’ said Ness. Sketches and other paintings for the exhibition are rendered painstakingly in Summer Studio (2022) where the artist examines her artistic philosophy and her works by cross-referencing the different tangents and narratives within narratives. The result is a dynamism that verges on cartoonish and is soaked with vitality, just like everything that Ness sets her eyes and hands on, as an artist and as a storyteller.

The duality of the concept of Threads reconciles Ness’ relationship with time and space. Behind the strata of experiences and collapsed time recorded by the space of the canvas, Ness pumps life into the narratives by going constantly in and out of different pictorial spaces and connects all the temporalities. She thinks of her works as theatrical plays that unite time, space, and characters. Her studio, as the physical and mental space where she threads together scenes and emotions, allows her to take inventory of her past relationships and experiences and to step out of herself, to paint herself in an aspirational way of what she thinks she’s working towards.

About the Artist

Rebecca Ness (b.1992, Salem, Massachusetts) holds a BFA in Painting with a minor in History of Art and Architecture from Boston University, and an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University. She has exhibited widely across the United States and in Europe. Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘Studio Visitor’, Morgan Presents (New York, 2022); ‘Stepping Out’, Galerie Marguo (Paris, 2021); ‘Windows and Worlds’, Carl Kostyal Gallery (London, 2021); ‘Pieces of Mind’, Nino Mier Gallery (Los Angeles, 2020); ‘Twice Over’, 1969 Gallery (New York, 2019); and ‘Buttoned Down’, Yale Slifka Center for Jewish Life (New Haven, 2018). Select recent group exhibitions include: ‘Reflections on Perception’ Akron Art Museum (Akron, 2022), ‘do-mes-tic-i-ty’, Nassima Landau (Tel Aviv, 2022), ‘The Natural World’, Alexander Berggruen Gallery (New York, 2022), ‘Mother and Child’, Friends Indeed (San Francisco, 2021), ‘36 Paintings’, Harper Books (The Hamptons, 2021), 11, Anton Kern Gallery (New York, 2021); ‘Show Me the Signs’, Blum & Poe (Los Angeles, 2020); and ‘Katherine Bradford, Hulda Guzman, Rebecca Ness’, Alexander Berggruen Gallery (New York, 2020). Ness’ work is included in the permanent collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, FL; the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; the Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker, Norway; the Long Museum, Shanghai, China; the M Art Foundation, Shanghai, China; and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. She is the recipient of several awards and grants such as the Jane Chermayeff Scholarship, from The New York Studio School, the Karin and Melvin Johnson Scholarship from the Chautauqua Institution, the Constantin Alajalov Scholarship from Boston University, and the Wilhelmina Denning Jackson Scholarship for the Arts and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Scholarship.