Open doors
online
May 10 - July 10
Laurence Grave
Open doors
with Laurence Grave, Chase Travaille, Jinie Park
May 10-July 10, 2025
The idea of art as a metaphorical window began when Leon Battista Alberti described a painting in his 1435 treatise De Pictura as, “an open window through which I see what is painted." The context of this was the revolutionary use of perspective in painting at the author’s time. While the metaphorical window in art has expanded in meaning over the last four centuries, this first notation was based in realism. The metaphorical door came later, more around the time of the Symbolists and Surrealists. This, as is expected when referencing such movements, is based more on subjectivity, whimsy, and a reliance on the viewer. It is a less bounded and literal point of view. We look past and through windows, but we move through doors. The artists in this show open doors. They subvert rather than replicate or refine, and the work is as much process and philosophy, as representation.
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Laurence Grave often starts her paintings on the floor, on the back side of earlier works which become like a mold holding color; then—through a process of painting (including the stretcher bars in some cases), then cutting, stapling, and sometimes sewing the canvas—her paintings come to be. The cutting and opening of the canvas to reveal its inside and other side is what transforms the space of the painting. Layering is done through the use of the structure of the canvas and stretcher bars as equally as it’s done with the choices of where and what color to paint. They are works that make you want to open and walk through them.
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Chase Travaille creates his works from the scraps of other artists’ pieces, inspired by the surrealist game “Exquisite Corpse.” (A game that involves additions by a succession of artists to a work of art). Travaille uses the Greek amphora shape to further subvert the meaning behind the works. Historically, in ancient Greece, the amphora was used as a grave marker. By synthesizing these two vastly different references, from ancient Grecian pottery to Surrealist games, Travaille’s work plays with traditional ideas around beauty, conservation, value, authorship, and identity. Importantly, his work invites in—the performative/assemblage quality of the work and the use of shards from different artists from diverse cultural backgrounds mirrors society’s complexities and the multifaceted nature of identity and ownership.
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Jinie Park paints on linen, Korean muslin, organza, and hand woven fibers. She prefers the translucence, flexibility, and physicality of these fabrics over canvas. Park activates space by exposing the materiality of her paintings. She fuses traditional Korean women’s patchwork, called “jo-gaak-bo,” with formalist experimentations, ultimately creating metaphysical works that aim to shift perspective. Park sews and weaves painted fabrics together and allows the stretcher to be a present part of the work, sometimes overtly and other times obliquely. The outcome is paintings that act as a threshold into a moment, a memory, a feeling.
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For more information contact info@ballonrougecollective.com
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Laurence Grave (b. 1970, France), is based in Brussels. She studied theatre in Paris VIII, and started painting in 2008 in Berlin. She was selected artist for the Berlin Art Prize 2013, and was represented by the Zweigstelle Berlin gallery between 2011 and 2016. Her works have been exhibited in the USA, Germany, France, and Belgium.
Chase Travaille (b.1993, USA) lives and works in Little Rock, Arkansas. He received his MFA from Alfred University in 2019 and received the Outstanding Student Achievement in Sculpture Award from the ISC the same year. He has attended residencies internationally and finished his long-term residency at the Archie Bray Foundation in the summer of 2021. Most recently, his solo exhibition, “Exquisite Corpse” was highlighted as one of the top 5 standout shows to see at small galleries in January 2024 by Artsy curatorial.
Jinie Park (b. 1987, South Korea) is based between Philadelphia and Seoul. Her paintings have been widely exhibited and collected throughout the US and internationally, in venues that include: Elizabeth Leach Gallery (Portland, OR); Winston Wachter Gallery (New York City, NY); Kimsechoong Museum (Seoul, South Korea); Scott Center (Westminster, MD); Jeju Biennale, (Jeju Island, South Korea);Lazy Susan Gallery (New York, NY); Steven Harvey Fine Art Project (New York, NY). Park received a BFA in painting at Seoul National University (Seoul, South Korea) and an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore, MD). Park’s paintings were featured in the New American Paintings No. 164, Northeast issue in 2023. Park was awarded an Individual Artist Award in Painting from the Maryland State Art Council, the Henry Walters Traveling Fellowship. In 2016, Park received the Perez Art Museum Miami Picks Award during PULSE Miami Beach.