Will you be my +1?
Artists & Their Invitees
STEVEN BARIS + NELLEKE BELTJENS
KEVIN FINKLEA + MEL PREST
MARK KHAISMAN + JEFFREY STOCKBRIDGE
JOHN PREUS + ELI CRAVEN
ERIK SPEHN + SARAH GIANNOBILE
JANUARY 12 – FEBRUARY 24, 2024
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, January 12, 6 – 8 PM | Artist remarks at 7 PM.
Pentimenti Gallery inaugurates the new year with a group exhibition, titled Will you be my +1? Artists & Their Invitees, bringing together ten artists.
Will you be my +1? Artists & Their Invitees invites you to explore the complex web of community and relationships that impact our lives. This exhibition investigates the profound connections we create, the ties we nurture, and the influence of those around us.
To shape this exhibition, an artist invited another artist, granting the exhibit to grow in unexpected ways. The artwork in the space —as it converges, communicates, collides, and unites the artists, aims to open a new discourse and passionate conversations.
By highlighting friendship and community, Will you be my +1? Artists & Their Invitees hopes to inspire viewers to entertain and cherish their own relationships, cultivate curiosity, and nurture the bonds that link us all.
STEVEN BARIS + NELLEKE BELTJENS “The moment I was asked to participate in this exhibition I immediately thought of Nelleke Beltjens. Not only did her work share my own abiding obsession with the interplay of continuity and discontinuity, but she is exceptionally insightful and articulate.” – Steven Baris
For Steven and Nelleke, the processes of continuity and discontinuity are intricately interwoven at the very core of their artistic endeavors. Their works act as snapshots capturing the collisions of various shapes and figures. Steven describes his paintings as diagrammatic, emphasizing the significance of composition that maps the use of graphic shapes. In Nelleke’s work on paper, the physicality of her drawings seems boundless. Tiny fragments are exercised from prior drawings and meticulously transposed from one drawing to another, fostering an intricate interplay and enabling the full realization of each work.
Steven Baris received his MFA from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA. He studied at the Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA, and Instituto Allende, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Baris has exhibited widely in the US and internationally, in such museums and institutions as the National Museum, Lublin, Poland; Wilhelm Morgner Museum, Soest, Germany; Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Institute of Visual Arts, Kielce, Poland; Museum St. Wendel, Germany; Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Penzance, UK; The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA; Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT; Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE; Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ; Atelierhof Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany; INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL OF NON-OBJECTIVE ART, Pont de Claix, France; Kunstlerhaus Dosenfabrik, Hamburg, Germany; Carnegie Mellon University Art Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA; University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, TX; The Drawing Center, New York, NY, and more. His work is included in numerous corporate and private collections across North America, Europe, and Australia, as well as the museum collections of National Museum, Lublin, Poland, and Copelouzos Museum, Athens, Greece.
Nelleke Beltjens received an MFA from University of California, Davis, CA; an MA from Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL; and attended Academy of Visual Arts, Tilburg, Netherlands. She has shown at notable museums including Schloss Plueschow, Germany; Museum Wilhelm Morgner, Soest, Germany; Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Bangkok, Thailand; and Villa Zanders, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany. Solo and two-person exhibitions include Valerie r8m, Cologne, Germany; Kunstverein Bahnhof 25, Kleve, Germany; Galerie Getekend, Heerenveen, the Netherlands; Galerie Katwijk, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Notable residencies include Vashon Artist Residency, Vashon, WA; Ucross Foundation, Clearmont, WY; Monson Arts, Monson, ME; and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA.
For all inquiries, please contact us at mail@pentimenti.com or +1 215.625.9990.