Announcing Denver Exhibition
Opening Jan. 31, 2014, Pirate: Contemporary Art is pleased to present “Ithaca,” an exhibition of new works by Monique Crine, Leah Thomason Bromberg, and Jillian Piccirilli.
Currently based on the West Coast, the three artists were first brought together while studying painting at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Their disparate work was, and still is, bound by a commonly held preoccupation with idiocentric family histories set against broader notions of identity, home, and belonging. Each artist’s studio practice shares an interest in the intersection between painting and photography, both as a medium and an artifact. Pairing these forms with highly personal subject matter, the exhibited works are a study in the issues and implications of nostalgia.
Crine’s newest paintings are based on photographs taken of the artist’s father between 1960 - 1970. The work invites speculation into the identity of an individual, while also exploring the aesthetic constructions of formal and informal photography. Bromberg’s current work focuses on the moments of arrival and departure: between life and death, coming or leaving home, packing and unpacking. Her imagery is mined from family photographs and cell phone snapshots, and her story lines draw upon personal experience, her Southern hometown, and her Navajo heritage. And in her recently completed series “Hemland,” Piccirilli translates her maternal family’s experience of their ancestral home Sweden through travel photographs, letters, and artifacts into hand-painted cyanotypes.
Pirate: Contemporary Art is an eclectic and audacious artist-run cooperative gallery, located in downtown Denver for over thirty years. An opening reception will take place on Friday, January 31st, from 6 - 10pm. Pirate is open Friday evenings from 6 - 10pm, Saturday & Sunday 12 - 5pm, and by appointment. “Ithaca” is being shown concurrently with the work of Jason Lee Gimbel in the Associate Space through February 16th.
Pirate: Contemporary Art
3655 Navajo Street, Denver, CO 80211
303/458.6058