Corey Arnold
Jacob Magraw-Mickelson
Sumpter & Magraw-Mickelson
Brendan Monroe
Victoria Reynolds
Charlie Roberts
Devin Troy Strother
Rachell Sumpter
The show groups together 8 artists' works coming from Richard Heller Gallery -seven plus a group formed by two of the participants- in which, from different perspectives and employing a diverse range of techniques and languages, they speak about human condition.
curated by Richard Heller Gallery
Artists: Corey Arnold, Jacob Magraw-Mickelson,Rachell Sumpter & Jacob Magraw-Mickelson, Brendan Monroe, Victoria Reynolds, Charlie Roberts, Devin Troy Strother, Rachell Sumpter
Coinciding with APERTURA 2011, an event organized by Madrid Galleries Association Arte Madrid to celebrate the
new season beginning, Espacio Mínimo gallery opens its 2011-2012 season with a project curated by Los Angeles
gallery Richard Heller Gallery. Titled Human Nature, the show groups together 8 artists’ works coming from the
mentioned north American gallery –seven plus a group formed by two of the participants- in which, from different
perspectives and employing a diverse range of techniques and languages, they speak about human condition.
Corey Arnold (California, USA, 1976) studied from 1996-1998 in the Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, and in
1999 obtained a BFA in Photography from the Academy of Arts of the University of San Francisco. Photographer and
commercial fisherman, he gets advantage of Alaska’s fishing season and of Norwegian crab fishing ships to create his
oeuvre. He has achieved important prices and his photographs have been published in the most recognized printed
mediums of the world.
Jacob Magraw-Mickelson (California, USA, 1982) obtained a BFA in illustration from the Art Center College of
Design of Pasadena in 2004. He creates a highly personal work where an obsessive drawing technique combines with
an intense and bright colour and architectural forms. His drawings have illustrated numerous articles for The New York
Times among other publications.
Rachell Sumpter & Jacob Magraw-Mickelson combine their individual work with the one that they do together. Their
group work is not constrained by fixed rules. The prominence of one or the other it is marked by the work inner
development in each particular case. Both artists share their life in a small island of the Puget Sound, finding
inspiration in an unique natural and cultural environment.
Brendan Monroe (California, USA, 1982), lives and works in Stockholm. He is a painter and a sculptor, but he also
does works of illustration. He considers himself a maker of things with the necessity to construct and produce.
However, painting and sculpture are the media with which he better expresses and the ones that translate more
accurately his ideas.
Victoria Reynolds (Texas, USA, 1962) lives and works in Los Angeles. His paintings of raw flesh, often set in ornate,
rococo- or baroque-style frames, are unabashedly sumptuous and sensual (other media include digital imagery,
drawing, sculpture, and music). Her work refers to the Venetian art of painting flesh, Dutch vanitas, kitchen and
butcher stall scenes, divine sacrifice, and society’s use and sacrifice of animals.
Charlie Roberts (Kansas, USA, 1983) lives and works in Asker, Norway. Employing a figurative language with high
visual impact, he depicts obsessively, like in a catalogue, a variety of human specimens. His painting is raw and
exuberant, taking inspiration in different sources -internet, books and magazines, and registering the images as quick
as possible.
Devin Troy Strother (California, USA, 1986), lives and works in Los Angeles. He does and aggressive work where
each element used, each colour and each piece of cut out paper, helps building a very rich narrative that exceeds the
panel over which they are constructed. His work is highly marked by his Afro-American condition, finding his main
source of inspiration in popular culture. His narratives are built from the titles taken from songs or straight from friends
and family commentaries. Suspicious from painting bidimensonality, his work is composed by layers added one after
another. Multiple techniques that together create a work that strikes the spectator by their aggressive colours and
content.
Rachell Sumpter (California, USA, 1972), is a west coast artist that paints tiny splendors creating isolated and
communal scenes. She borrows images of religious and political tradition, specifically related to the North Pacific
Ocean culture. There is celebration and lamentation in her melancholic landscapes. With an outstanding use of colour,
her paintings offer a optimism that, if it wasn’t for the colours, could look like an elegy. With an iconography of fear and
desire she constructs mythologies of pleasure and mystery.
Image: Corey Arnold - Mathew and the Steeper. Photography - C Print, 70 x 45,7 cms, 2007, Ed.10
Private view: September 15th, 211. From 5 to 22 p.m
Galleria Espacio Minimo
Doctor Fourquet 17, Madrid
Tuesday-Friday 10.00-14.00 and 15.30-19.30
Saturday: 10.00-14.00