For Immediate Release
Contact:
Terry Ross
Phone: 630-750-6621
E-mail: Terry@RossContemporary.com
FAMED ARTISTS HANS VAN DE BOVENKAMP, ERIC ERNST, & DANNY SIMMONS HEADLINE ROSS CONTEMPORARY EXHIBIT AT HAMPTONS FINE ART FAIR
They are joined by Hamptons Colony’s Michael Cardacino & Rosalind Brenner and Chicago’s Diana Leviton Gondek & Anke Richert-Korioth
CHICAGO, Date – World-renowned artists Hans Van de Bovenkamp, Eric Ernst, and Danny Simmons will be among 15 artists from across the country exhibiting more than 40 works with Ross Contemporary in mid-July at the Hamptons Fine Art Fair in Southampton, N.Y.
From Friday, July 14 through Sunday, July 17, the Chicago-based gallery will display in Booth 301 of the Pollock Pavilion at the Southampton Fairgrounds, 605 County Rd 39. Booth 301 is located in the Pollock Pavilion’s southwest arm adjacent to the parking lot’s exit road leading out to County Road 39.
Hans Van de Bovenkamp is an internationally renowned sculptor of monumental works primarily for open-air public locales. A native Dutchman who immigrated first to Canada and then to the United States, now with residences in Las Vegas, New York City, and Sagaponack, N.Y., Van de Bovenkamp has for the last 58 years designed, fabricated, and installed more than 100 unique commissioned sculptures and fountains in collaboration with architects, cities, museums, and private individuals. Recent solo exhibitions include Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, N.J.; the Danubiana Meulensteen Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia; and Season of Sculpture, Sarasota Marine Park, Fla. He has been described as an artist-mystic whose public works bespeak power, lyricism, and grand proportions. Smaller pedestal-sized sculptures for individual acquisition will be showcased at the Ross Contemporary exhibit at the Hamptons fair.
Eric Ernst, a long-time resident of Sag Harbor, N.Y., now living in Haiku in Maui, Hawaii, is an internationally known artist whose paintings, prints, and wood and metal constructions can be viewed as small scale architectonic spaces. To form geometric abstractions, he creates interactions of forms, shapes, and colors — but with crisp linear compositional structure, as influenced by his father, Jimmy Ernst. “The overall effect is harmony and movement, as can be seen in one of my pieces, ‘Sky Factory,’” Ernst says.
Danny Simmons, a long-time resident of New York City’s Queens now living in Philadelphia, is a Neo-African abstract expressionist artist. Inspired and informed by indigenous cultures of Australia and Africa, he tries to convey the connection between the human spirit and a bigger “higher power” through motifs of dots and circles and the seamless experience between textiles and paint as “pathways to that spiritual completeness, “ Simmons explains. “That connection is where creativity is born.”
His works appear in prominent locales worldwide, including Brooklyn Museum, The Smithsonian, United Nations, Schomburg Center for Black Culture, and Deutsche Bank. He has shown in France, Amsterdam, and Ghana, and in fall 2022, will enjoy a solo show at the prominent Westwood Gallery in Manhattan’s Bowery Art District. Art collectors and renowned celebrities worldwide have obtained his work.
Reaching beyond the canvas, Simmons is a Peabody- and Tony-award winner for the series Def Poetry Jam, owner of New York and Philadelphia galleries, New York art world leader, and art philanthropist as founder of the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, which provides art exposure to disadvantaged youths, “an extension of my first career, as a social worker rather than writing a check,” Simmons says.
Other artists showcasing with Ross Contemporary include established Hamptons Colony’s Michael Cardacino, Rosalind Brenner, and Stephanie Brody-Lederman and accomplished Chicago-area artists Diana Leviton Gondek, Anke Rochert-Korioth, and Mays Mayhew. The styles and subjects include surrealistic conceptual works, landscape paintings, ceramics, mixed media abstractions, abstract sculptures, figurative drawings, and collage.
“I have proudly worked with many of these artists for 15 years. Our relationships are strong. By knowing them personally as well as professionally, I believe in their work, and in each of them – their commitment, their passion, their quality execution,” says the gallery’s founder Terry Ross, a former associate director of the Spanierman Gallery, a well-known emblem of East Hampton, N.Y., before it closed in 2010.
Ross Contemporary will join 80 select dealers from 40 cities and 6 countries at this high-end boutique Hamptons exposition of important and juried all-media contemporary and modern works for an anticipated 7,000-plus crowd of elite avid collectors and investors.
Following are thumbnails of the 12 additional artists keeping company with Van de Bovenkamp, Ernst, and Simmons in the Ross Contemporary exhibit (for more details and photos, see www.rosscontemporary.com):
**Michael Cardacino, of East Hampton, is a sculptor who creates human figures, animals, and mythological objects in metals such as copper, nickel, and brass through a variety of hi-tech methods, including 3D printing, metallization forming, and laser cutting. While the sculptures are appealing to the eyes and senses with their beauty and technique, they also simultaneously “expand the mind” through the incorporation of words and ideas, Cardacino says. At first glance, some of the sculptural forms convey the exciting physical attributes of the phenomena being depicted. Upon closer observation, words form the object’s “skin” are synchronous to the movement, meaning, story, and energy emanating from the sculpture. “The words are a nexus of ideas from philosophy, science, and technology and point individual viewers to different levels of personal interpretation based on their own understanding of the ideas,” Cardacino explains. Cardacino is a member of The National Sculpture Society and The International Sculpture Center. His works have been purchased and commissioned by a wide variety of collectors and aficionados. He has shown in numerous solo exhibits and art shows in the Hamptons, New York City, and throughout Long Island. He was a two-time finalist in the Blake Prize that exhibited throughout Australia.
**Rosalind Brenner, of East Hampton, is an artist whose work spans many mediums, among them prize-winning poetry, painting, collage, monotypes, and stained glass. Although she loves to explore new techniques, she works mostly in the tradition of figurative abstraction and abstract expressionism. Inspired by a concern for humanity, her travels, and the world around her, she plumbs her imagination and deep consciousness to express her emotion, thoughts, memory of place, and reaction to events to create illusion landscapes and rich textural and intriguing forms. Brenner has been called an “energy painter” because she uses color passionately and weaves the ins and outs of line, space, and color honed during her long career creating stained glass for homes, offices, and ecclesiastic setting. The result: vibrant, uplifting work. Brenner showcases at her home and studio at Art House Bed & Breakfast. She has also enjoyed numerous solo exhibits and art shows in the Hamptons, New York City, and throughout Long Island. Her visual artworks are part of the collections of the Gund family, actor Alec Baldwin, and television producer Marci Klein, among many others.
**Stephanie Brody-Lederman is a well-known conceptual surrealist artist with studios in Paris, Manhattan, and East Hampton. Her paintings have been seen on the cover of The Paris Review #160 and L’Oeil Magazines and have been shown at the Cooper Hewitt Museum and Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, San Francisco Airport, and Musée Bourdelle in Paris. She has enjoyed solo shows at the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton; Centre Artistique de Verderonne, France; the OK Harris Gallery in New York City; and Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Conn. The late famed playwright Edward Albee acquired several of her works.
**Mago Enrique Martinez, known as MAGO, is a Latin X installation artist with a studio in Southampton. With his roots in street art and graffiti, MAGO uses his art for activism, working on campaigns with such organizations as the Edie Windsor Healthcare Center of the Southampton Hospital, the Human Rights Campaign in Washington D.C., and the Retreat in East Hampton. “I work to create a public expression and awareness and give attention to our community,” MAGO says. His most recent work is LOVE + LOVE = LOVE, a street art-inspired installation commissioned by the Guild Hall Education Department for its participation in the Hamptons first Gay Pride Parade last June. A walking live banner, it utilized stencils and multimedia on white cotton T-shirts and white cotton bandanas that read “LOVE + LOVE = LOVE” and were worn by marching members of the Guild Hall. Another key piece is a campaign promotion graphic design for New York Governor Kathy Hochul that proudly shows the governor flexing her bicep muscle; the graphic was plastered on bags for items distributed at the New York State Democratic Convention last February and was featured in a POLITICO article.
**Sharon Van Liempt Brown, of Sag Harbor, is a multimedia artist who has worked in watercolors, photography, design, oil paintings – and, most recently, ink paintings on canvas or paper. These most current creations have been described as “bursting with energy,” “very Zen,” and inspired by a “deep spiritual experience while visiting Bhutan,” as capsulized by Patch.com for her 2018 exhibition at Havens, a boutique gallery in Sag Harbor. “I became aware that I am a part of everything, every blade of grass, every grain of sand, we are all one. . .energy is our common denominator,” Van Liempt Brown commented in the Patch article. Executed with confident and charged brush strokes, the paintings balance whimsical, figurative expression and abstract impressionism. Tight groupings of smaller paintings can tell stories, as each piece evokes a unique interpretation. Van Liempt Brown’s studies include art and photography at Howard University in Washington D.C., cinematography in New York City, video arts at New York University in Manhattan, painting with Dutch artist Lux Buurman in The Hague, Netherlands, and design at Asutoria School of Design in Milan.
**Curtis Grayson, III, of Union City, N.J., is a contemporary abstract expressionist. His paintings and collages are like dances showing continuous movement and flowing energy. His approach is organic rather than planned and utilizes bright and brilliant colors, expressive line, negative/positive space, shapes, polka dotted and striped patterns, and fabrics, especially African designs. He has shown in the Art Center Highland Park in Illinois, among other venues.
**Diana Leviton Gondek, of Naperville, Ill., is well established and regarded in the Chicago art scene for her oil paintings of real and imagined images characterized by kinetic energy, transparent effects, and vibrant colors, many of which have been fashioned as an artist-in residence at the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago. She has created commissioned work for national and international use by the Special Olympics (now owned by Timothy Shriver) and for former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other Chicago politicos. She has shown in art fair exhibitions at Aqua Art Miami, New York City, and London.
**Anke Richert-Korioth, of West Chicago, Ill., will be showing works from her environmental series “Nature-Fractured.” She describes her work as “journals of vistas to which only I am privy.” Drawing upon her vast collection of personal photographs, she then uses her imagination and intuitive expression to reflect a moment in time, tell a story, or provoke contemplation. She emphasizes color, form, and texture via modeling paste, foil, paper, acrylic paint, and canvas overlays. The effects are optical illusions on many different levels. Richert-Korioth has shown in several galleries in the Midwest and Germany as well as at the fairs Red Dot Miami and Art Market Hamptons 2021. Her work can be found in many private and corporate collections in the United States and abroad.
**Mays Mayhew creates figurative drawings that often reflect stories of peaceful nostalgia and overcoming struggle through strength. From her studio in Aurora, Ill., she uses graphite pencils to fashion hauntingly dark-light. gray-scaled silver monochromatic environments featuring dual images that viewers find enigmatic and universally reflective of their own emotional experiences. Mayhew studied fine arts at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; art history of the Italian Renaissance in Florence, Italy; and figure painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. She has exhibited in more than a dozen group and solo shows in art centers, galleries, and museums throughout the Chicago area, including the Elmhurst Art Museum and the Zhou B Art Center.
**Kasia Szczesniewski, of Glen Ellyn, Ill., creates mixed media works inspired by nature’s mysterious beauty and the belief that all elements of the universe are intricately connected. She notably invented and refined a uniquely special technique that combines properties of acrylic paints and paper. A native of Poland, she studied architecture at the Wroclaw University of Technology, and after moving to the United States in 1989, she continued her art training at workshops and via self-education. She has received many awards and exhibited her works in the United States and abroad, including Zhou Brothers Art Center, Chicago; Amsterdam-Whitney Gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea district; Art Expo Carousel du Louvre in Paris; Biennale d’Arte at Caserma dell’Artigliera of Peschiera del Garda, Italy; Segnalati in Berlin; Museum of Modern European Art in Barcelona; and Zywiec Castle, Poland.
**Zachary Weber, of Chicago, is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in ceramics. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he explores the metaphor of vessels, which are “ancient and integral to understanding who we are.” His artistic process are personal investigations as he attempts to integrate symbolic representation via play and improvisation of cylinders, orbs, cones, planes, inscriptions, patterns, and geometric motifs. He has exhibited at the Art Center Highland Park in Illinois, the Bridgeport Art Center in Chicago, and the Alma Art and Interiors exhibition presented by Oliva Gallery and Architectural Anarchy in Chicago. His work is in prestigious collections such as Frank Stella’s personal collection in Manhattan, the historic Laura Gayle House in Oak Park, Ill., and the lobby of Chicago’s Willis Tower.
**Jacqueline Savaiano, a Chicago-area native now residing in Carlsbad, Calif., is a painter and mixed media artist of Southwestern landscapes, cave art, abstractions, and the human figure. Through the use of vivid rich colors, texture, light-and-dark contrasts, and strong composition, she strives to tell a story or provoke conversations, sometimes with humor, via natural settings, ancient motifs, and animal narratives. Having studied at the Otis School of Design in Los Angeles and the Florence Academy of Art in Italy, she has shown at the Zhou B Art Center; Water Street Studios in Batavia, Ill., the Art Center Sarasota in Florida, and the Fallbrook Art Center in California. She has sold to private collectors in California, Texas, Illinois, and New Jersey.
For more details on the artists and their artworks, see www.rosscontemporary.com, e-mail Terry@RossContemporary.com, or phone Terry Ross at 630-750-6621.
###
ABOUT ROSS CONTEMPORARY
Ross Contemporary was founded in 2010 by Terry Ross, upon the closing of the prestigious and emblematic Spanierman Gallery in East Hampton, N.Y., where he served as an associate director for several years. Although based in Chicago, it represents and places artists worldwide for collectors around the globe.
Ross Contemporary artists live and work in a wide range of contemporary styles, subjects, and mediums and have been shown in prominent galleries, museums, and art fairs the world over as well as through local galleries and non-profits supporting their communities. The artists are carefully chosen for commitment to their work, passion that pulsates from their work, and the quality of their execution.
As a dealer and curator as well as artist representative, Ross strives to educate collectors about the fine art of appreciating, collecting, and displaying contemporary art in a wide range of settings for both pleasure and investment value. He collaborates with collectors — young and old, private and corporate, new and seasoned — guiding each client towards the appropriate works that fit within their lifestyle, budget, and décor.
Ross has a passion, understanding, and vision for representing and selling contemporary art that is informed by his art education, experience, and travels. Having lived in Chicago, Philadelphia, Manhattan, and the Hamptons in New York’s Long Island, Ross has studied art at the Museum of Modern Art and New York University in Manhattan and has worked at the Art Institute of Chicago. During his extensive travels, he has frequented museums and art shows worldwide such as Miami Basal and ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Mich. In addition to his directorial background at Spanierman, he has been a gallery sales representative at several prominent international art fairs for his various clients.
