Past Residents
Past Resident2012: The New York Community Trust’s Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund
Abigail DeVille
Through bricolage, painting, and sculpture, Abigail DeVille cobbles together a visual mass that speaks to the material culture of the present moment. She experiments using found and inherited domestic objects in order to make a connection to the universe. W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of double-consciousness is the conceptual frame DeVille uses to deconstruct two spatial relationships: the claustrophobic space of the urban environment violently clashing with the infinite expanse of the universe. Black holes are an integral metaphor. DeVille warps the time of physical objects. Her objects speak to the physical infinite expanse of universal time and societal ills of the present moment. DeVille’s work is interested in making the visible representation of the invisible.
Abigail DeVille (born 1981, New York City) received her BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2007. She received the Camille Hanks Cosby fellowship to participate in the Skowhegan Residency Program in 2007. DeVille was a participant in the art world’s first reality television show, Artstar, which aired on Gallery HD from June 2006 – January 2009 and culminated with an exhibition at Deitch Projects (NY). She has exhibited at El Museo Del Barrio, Vogt Gallery, project spaces Recess Activities Inc., The Bronx River Art Center and Marginal Utility in Philadelphia, PA. DeVille is a 2011 MFA graduate in painting at The Yale School of Art.
Abigail DeVille, Mirror, Mirror..., 2011, Empty Alexi vodka bottles and broken mirror, Dimensions variable.
Abigail DeVille, Untitled (Boots), 2011, Three Timberland boots, tar, trash bags, and chicken wire, Dimensions variable.
Abigail DeVille, New York at Dawn, 2010, Tyvek, enamel and latex paint, dirt, American flags, graphite, lamp shade, synthetic hair, polyurethane varnish, chicken wire, plastic sheeting, plaster, garbage bags, pâpier-maché, fake eyelashes, duct tape, wood chips, wire, canvas, cigarette butt, acrylic yarn, metal, salt dough, and hardware, 102 × 114 × 96 in. (259.08 × 289.56 × 243.84 cm).
Abigail DeVille, Dark Star, 2010, Trash bags, wood, paper, paint, paper pulp, fabric, colored lights, and plastic drop cloths, 342 × 15413/16 in. (868.68 × 393.19 cm).
Abigail DeVille, Black Hole Pit, 2010, Trash bags, chicken wire, and accumulated signifiers, 72 × 36 × 72 in. (182.88 × 91.44 × 182.88 cm).
Residents from United States
Past Resident2012: Paradise Row
Eloise Fornieles
Eloise Fornieles’ practice is predominantly performance-based. Focusing on one-to-one interventions within installations and soundscapes, she invites audiences to question simple interactions and gestures – from the intimate and profound to the prosaic and banal. This investigation into personal human connections is framed within a broader overview of the relationship between body and environment, and the individual’s place as part of a much larger system. Fornieles’ installations create a space for contemplation, whilst her own emphasis on physical endurance provides a backdrop for a more visceral understanding of the body as material, with its limitations and its capabilities. Engaging with strands of mythology, ritual and storytelling, and often depicting animals, she teases out the symbolic resonances that hold meaning within our everyday interactions.
Eloise Fornieles (born 1980, Winchester, UK) has worked and lived in London since 2004. After a BA in Fine Art at Kingston University, London, Fornieles graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2006 with an MFA in Fine Art Media. Selected exhibitions include Their Wonderlands, Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham; On and On, La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Natural Wonders: New Art from London, Babakov Art Projects, Moscow; Fashion in Film Festival, Tate Modern, London; Carrion, Haunch of Venison, Berlin; and The Body is an Ocean, Paradise Row, London, 2011.
Eloise Fornieles, Celestial Body, 2010, Installation performance. Courtesy of the artist.
Eloise Fornieles, Carrion, 2008, Installation performance. Courtesy of the artist.
Eloise Fornieles, Wanderlust I, 2009, Performance. Courtesy of the artist.
Eloise Fornieles, The Body is an Ocean, 2011, C-type print, 8 × 51/2 in. (20.32 × 13.97 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Eloise Fornieles, Conchita I, 2011, Cotton rag paper, 8 × 12 in. (20.32 × 30.48 cm). e.g. Courtesy of the artist.
Eloise Fornieles, The Message, 2012, Performance Installation. Courtesy of the artist.
Past Resident2012: Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
Jean-Michel Ross
Jean-Michel Ross’s curatorial practice questions the spatial relationship and interaction between objects and subjects. He creates different contexts through fiction and narration to build dialogue with artists and interact with their works. His projects often reflect upon hierarchy, freedom, universality, neutrality, equivalence and value. He believes that both conceptual esthetics and formal esthetics are equally fundamental to curatorial research. For him curating is and will always be a collaborative effort. Recently he has started to question the issues and empirical impossibilities raised by the democratic ideal, linking this political theory to the art field and to his curatorial and editorial practice.
Jean-Michel Ross is a Montreal based curator, critic, writer and collector. He completed an art history degree at Université du Québec à Montreal in 2004. He was assistant editor of Espace Sculpture Magazine for six years where he directed several thematic issues. His writings on contemporary art have been published regularly in Espace and C Magazine. In 2010 he curated the exhibition and residency project La Colonie, Deschambault-Grondine, Canada. In recent years he has also acted as co-curator for projects such as The Waterpod Project in 2009, New York; Québec Gold in 2008, Reims, France; and Jumelages in 2007, Montreal, Canada. He is the founder of Free Pass and has been on the board of Optica Gallery in Montreal since 2004.
Events & Exhibitions
Salon: Kakyoung Lee and Jean-Michel Ross
January 24, 2012
Jean-Michel Ross, Press Pass Maquette, 2011.
