KOAK, DAN GLUIBIZZI & EMMA KOHLMANN
Pleasures and Treasures

July 28 to August 21, 2016

Ampersand is pleased to present Pleasures and Treasures, an exhibition featuring works by Koak, Dan Gluibizzi and Emma Kohlmann. The show’s title is lifted from a Gluibizzi-found thrift store book published in 1963 that documents 500 years of bronze figurines which, as Dan points out, mirror the posing and posting of amateurs that we see throughout the world of social media and in many of his paintings and drawings. “I like how the title is both earnest and irreverent,” he notes, “It sounds obsessive and slightly pervy.” This could also be a generalized or an at-a-glance way of describing each artists’ work if it were not for that fact that all three engage in a practice of using gathered images, imagination and recontextuallized figures to allude to meanings and psychological states that go beyond the thing we see. Koak’s drawings are from and ongoing series called Noodies, a reference to historical portraits and North American cartoons from the 1990s. “The point was never to create attractive or titillating nudes,” she writes, “and rather than drawing a series of figures in which an emotional state is clearly defined, I tend to look at each aspect of these characters’ bodies as portraying their own emotional status; a limb may feel defeated, the breast exuberant, the foot unsure.” In a similar and altogether different way, Kohlmann emphasizes that she “wants to make an alternative world or universe where gender isn’t as defined or may not exist. It’s about movement, asexuality and the separation of self.” While Dan’s and Koak’s work can be recognized by an identifiable use of line, Emma instead employs the pooling of watercolor and the subtleties of that medium to portray an anatomy that doesn’t fall into idealized corporeal narratives. By coincidence, she describes the process as a carving out of form, almost like the sculptural figurines and artifacts that inspire her. But while the title of the show itself alludes to a book that documents an antiquated and solid medium, the three artists here represent a moment in flux, pleasures and treasures to be found.

Koak lives and works in San Francisco, CA. She received a BFA from California College of the Arts, San Francisco in 2011 and is a current MFA candidate at the same school. Recent exhibitions include Material Art Fair in Mexico City, TBD Gallery in San Francisco and Current Space in Baltimore. Upcoming shows include a solo exhibition at Alter Space in San Francisco and a group show at Four Six One Nine in Los Angeles.

Dan Gluibizzi lives and works in Portland, OR. He received his MFA from the University of Cincinnati, OH. His work has been widely publised and exhibited, including solo and group shows at Ampersand, as well as recent solo exhibitions at Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles and CULT in San Francisco. His work is also the focus of two books published by Ampersand Editions, Our Time and Folding Space/Pressing Time (with Zefrey Throwell).

Emma Kohlmann lives and works in Western Masschusetts. She graduated from Hampshire College in 2011. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Montreal, Tokyo and Berlin. A solo exhibition, Studies in Obscurity, opened at Copenhagen’s V1 Gallery in June. She also publishes her own artist’s books, ephemera, records and zines. 

View additional works or request information about this exhibition Here >

 

The Thinker, 2016
Graphite, chalk and milk casein on rag paper
19.5 x 16 in.
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KOAK

Sugar Paw, 2016
Graphite, pastel and milk casein on rag paper
12 x 9 in.
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Girl's Night, 2016
Graphite and milk casein on rag paper
19 1/2 x 16 in.
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Leda (Tale as Old as Time), 2016
Graphite and milk casein on rag paper
11 x 14 in.
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DAN GLUIBIZZI

Lime Jacket, 2016
Ink and watercolor on vintage paper
9 x 5 3/4 in.
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Saturn, 2016
Colored penicil and acrylic on paper
10 x 7 in.
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Spider and Rosie, 2016
Ink and water color on vintage paper
9 1/4 x 5 3/4 in.
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EMMA KOHLMANN

Horse Image, 2016
Watercolor and sumi ink on paper
10 x 10 in.
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Blue Seeker, 2016
Watercolor and sumi ink on paper
10 x 10 in.
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Tangle Web, 2016
Watercolor and sumi ink on paper
10 x 10 in.
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© 2016 Koak, Dan Gluibizzi, Emma Kehlmann and Ampersand. All Rights Reserved.