Treasure Island - Fall Exhibition

Treasure Island
Curated by Julie Chae
Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 1, from 6 – 8pm

Exhibition Dates: October 1 – November 9, 2014
Hours: Weekdays from 10am – 6pm, and weekends from 12 - 6pm
Free and open to the public

Lower East Side Printshop is pleased to present Treasure Island guest curated by NYC/DC-based curator and writer Julie Chae. The exhibition will be on view at the Printshop from October 1 – November 9, 2014 with a public reception on Wednesday, October 1, from 6-8pm.

Treasure Island alludes to the high seas explorations that took place during the Age of Enlightenment on through the Romantic Era, the navigating and mapping through dangerous waters to discover strange new worlds, peoples, and goods. The discoveries made during these times allowed Europe to make advances in science and technology, paving the way for industrialization and eventual modernization. These advances also involved subjugating prior inhabitants and colonizing these lands, which greatly increased the wealth and power of the European countries. Sunsets, beaches, ships and nautical apparatuses like ropes and maps appear in Treasure Island along with images reflecting what was lost due to imperialism. Treasure Island includes works by: Theresa Bloise, Amanda Church, Amy Friedberg, Esperanza Mayobre, Ali Medina, Bundith Phunsombatlert, Felix Plaza, Paul Shore, Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann, Juana Valdes, Daniel Vasquez, Liz Zanis, and Anya Zelinska.

The title for this exhibition comes from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 children’s novel of the same name and a tale of moral ambiguity. In this seafaring adventure set in the 1700s, men and boys sail on a ship mostly crewed by disguised pirates to an island in search of buried treasure, using a found map marked in red ink with three crosses and the words: Bulk of treasure here.

About the Artists
THERESA BLOISE (b.1978, Boston, MA; lives and works in New York, NY) received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Select exhibitions include Grin, Providence, RI; Governor’s Island, New York, NY; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; and Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY. She has been awarded fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts, MacDowell Colony, and Artist in the Marketplace, Bronx Museum of the Arts.

AMANDA CHURCH (b. 1960, Poughkeepsie, NY; lives and works in New York, NY) received her BA from Bennington College, VT. Select solo and group exhibitions include Land of Tomorrow, Louisville, KY; Jancar Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York, NY; Artek Contemporaries, New York, NY; Galerie de Tableau, Marseille, France; and Clifford Smith Gallery, Boston, MA. Her work is included in the collections of the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ; The Chambers Hotel, NY; and Bondardo Communications, Milan, Italy.

AMY FRIEDBERG (b. 1972, Philadelphia, PA; lives and works in Hermosa Beach, CA) received her BFA in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. Select solo and group exhibitions include Cheltenham Center for the Arts, Cheltenham, Pa; Elkins Gallery, Elkins Park, PA; Penrose Gallery, Elkins Park, PA; Temple Rome Gallery, Rome, Italy, and Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.

ESPERANZA MAYOBRE (b. 1974, Caracas, Venezuela; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) received her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Select solo and group exhibitions include Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY; Centro Cultural La Caja Chacao, Caracas, Venezuela; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; and The Elizabeth Foundation, New York, NY. She has been awarded the NYU Visiting Artist Program, and the Artist in the Marketplace Fellowship at The Bronx Museum of the Arts.

ALI MEDINA (b. 1990, Brooklyn, NY; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) received her BA from Bard College. Select exhibitions include a solo exhibition at a pop up space, Brooklyn, NY; and group exhibitions at Essie Green Galleries, Harlem, NY and Brooklyn, NY. She has worked in several printshops and has been exploring monoprinting while in residence at the Printshop.
BUNDITH PHUNSOMBATLERT (b. 1972, Bangkok, Thailand; lives and works in New York, NY) received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and his BFA from Silpakorn University, Thailand. Select solo exhibitions include Flushing Meadows Corona Park/Queens Museum, New York, NY; Location One, New York, NY; and The National Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand. He is the recipient of the New York State Council on the Arts Grant and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant; and is the Grand Prize winner of the Toshiba Brings Good Things to Life Art Competition, Thailand.

FELIX PLAZA (b. 1946, Santurce, Puerto Rico; lives and works in New York, NY) received a Fine Art Certificate from New York Phoenix School of Design. Select solo and group exhibitions include Exit Art, New York, NY; 2B Gallery, Budapest, Hungary; Dieu Donne, New York, NY; Brooklyn Public Library, NY; and Donnell Library, NY. He is a former participant of Printline Exchange Residency, Belgrade, Yugoslavia and has work included in many private collections.

PAUL SHORE (b. 1955, Pittsburgh, PA; lives and works in New York, NY) received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and his BFA from Eastern Michigan University. Select solo and group exhibitions include Jason McCoy Gallery, New York, NY; Columbia University, Italian Academy, New York, NY; Arkansas Art Center, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, MA; and DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA. His work is included in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, NY; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; and the New York Public Library.

KATHERINE TZU-LAN MANN (b. 1983, Madison, WI; lives and works in New York, NY) received her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and her BA from Brown University. Select solo and group exhibitions include Grace Teshima Gallery, Paris, France; Gallery nine5, New York, NY; Kashya Hildebrand Gallerie, Zurich, Switzerland; and Project 4 Gallery, Washington, DC. She has been awarded Best in Show at the Rawls Museum, VA, and is the recipient of the Fulbright Grant: Taiwan.

JUANA VALDES (b. in Cabañas, Pinar Del Rio, Cuba) received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, and Her BFA in sculpture at Parsons School of Design. Select solo and group exhibitions include Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, NY; Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art, New York, NY; Diaspora Vibe Gallery, Miami, FL; Begane Grond Kunstcentrum, Utrecht, Netherlands; and Boricua College Art Gallery, NY. Her work is included in the collections of The Newark Museum, NJ; European Ceramic Work Center, NL; and Nohra Haime Gallery, NY. She currently teaches at Florida Atlantic University, Visual Arts Department.

DANIEL VASQUEZ (b. 1983, El Salvador; lives and works in New York, NY) received his BA from Rowan University. Select exhibitions include Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, NJ and Studio 1950, New York, NY. He is the recipient of the Gowanus Studio Space Residency.

LIZ ZANIS (b. 1980, Morristown, NJ; lives and works in New York) received her BA from Rhode Island School of Design. Group exhibitions include Camel Art Space, Brooklyn, NY; C.G. Boerner, New York, NY; International Print Center New York, NY; Islip Art Museum, NY; and Queens Museum of Art, NY. She is a recipient of Swing Space Residency, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; Geraldine R. Dodge Residency; Women's Studio Workshop Residency, the Printshop's Keyholder Residency; and is included in collections of Cleveland Institute of Art, The Center of Book Arts and more.

ANYA ZELINSKA (b. 1988, Khmelnytsky, Ukraine; lives and works in New York, NY) received her Associate in Applied Science from the Fashion Institute of Technology, NY, and her BA from The National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine. Select group exhibitions include Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, and RAW Natural Born Artists, Brooklyn Night Bazaar, NY.

About the Curator
Julie Chae is a NYC/DC-based curator and writer. A graduate of Williams College and University of Virginia School of Law, Chae has studied art history at the graduate level focusing on modern/contemporary and Asian art, and her background also includes working on free speech rights issues for artists, writers and teachers at the ACLU’s Arts Censorship Project. Recent curatorial projects by Chae include "Jacolby Satterwhite" for the Washington Project for the Arts at the art collectors Don and Mera Rubell's Capitol Skyline Hotel, "Ctrl+P: New Directions in Printmaking" at the Arlington Arts Center, "Melissa Brown: Dotto Lotto" at Winkleman Gallery's Curatorial Research Project and "Blow Me Away: Works on Paper by Brian Chippendale, Jungil Hong, Kevin Hooyman, et al." She is currently co-curating a collaboration for Washington Performing Arts between DC visual artists and Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble (forthcoming February-March 2015). For more information, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-chae/ and http://juliechaeprojects.com.

Lower East Side Printshop's programs have been supported in part by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Private supporters have included: Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ford Foundation - Good Neighbor Committee, ICAP / John Nixon, Jerome Foundation, The J. M. Kaplan Fund, Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, New York Community Trust, PECO Foundation, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

This program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

This program is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

We thank our volunteers, friends, members, and patrons for their dedication, support, and generosity.
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