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24/9/2004

John Neff and Sally-Ann Rowland

Western Exhibitions, Chicago

John Neff:
Travels Between the 1st and 3rd Dimensions

+PLUS:
Sally Ann Rowland:
New Work

Opening Reception Saturday, September 25 from 7 to 10pm


John Neff
Travels between the First and Third Dimensions at Western Exhibitions is JOHN NEFF'S first Chicago solo show since relocating to the Bay Area in 2003, and his first solo show with Western Exhibitions.

Neff will be showing reliefs, flat panels on the horizontal or the vertical axis that twist into three-dimensions. The panels are ceramic tile mosaics and/or metalworks in brass, lead, and steel. Most incorporate pre-made decorative objects like tiles, vases, and small representational sculptures. Many of the panels have a nominal function: table, fan, heater, doorbell, ashtray...decoration. These panels reflect a subtle shift from the concerns of the works on paper presented in Neff's last solo show at Chicago's Suitable Gallery in 2002. Those pieces, small-scale paper collages, dealt with private, cloistered worlds. The relief panels are more outward-looking, and refer, sometimes blatantly and sometimes obliquely, to current events and to Neff's day-to-day life, particularly his interactions with his sister, a mosaicist.

John Neff (b.1975) currently lives and works in Oakland, California. In Fall 2003, Neff's "We Are All Sinners" poster was distributed by Post-Chicago and his "We Are All Sinners" billboard was subsequently displayed by the Roof, an alternative space in Chicago. That summer Neff curated "Hysterical Pastoral" at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago. Five of his collages and one photograph from a 2002 show at Chicago's Suitable gallery were acquired by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Recent exhibitions include "Here and Now" at the Chicago Cultural Center, "Accidental Sublime" at The Bower, San Antonio, Texas, "Tasty Dog", Atelier Top 25, Krems, Austria, and at the Stray Show in Chicago in 2004 with Western Exhibitions. Neff received a MFA from the University of Illinois-Chicago in 2001.


Sally-Ann Rowland
In Western Exhibitions Plus gallery, SALLY-ANN ROWLAND in her first Chicago solo show, takes advantage of the stereotypically feminine art of cross-stitching. Depicting botanical subjects, the beautifully executed hand-sewn samplers render flora that have both healing and toxic properties. The samplers are punctuated by staccato bursts of confrontational text: "I Can't Understand" stitched beside the roots and berries of the deadly nightshade, and "Fuck everybody" beneath a representation of the Death Angel mushroom. The samplers hint at frustration, anger, and destruction lying under the cover of beauty. Amidst these wall works, the floor sculpture "A Perfect Day" - toy sailboats resting upon mirrored seas contained in a child's beach bucket -- presents a moment of tranquility.


Sally-Ann Rowland (b.1974) was born in Australia and currently lives and works in New York City. She was recently a resident at P.S. 1's International Studio Program. She will have a simultaneous solo show with ZieherSmith in New York City, her second with that gallery, and her work has been seen at PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, the NADA Art Fair in Miami, the Stray Show in Chicago, as well as numerous exhibitions in Australia. She received her MFA from Columbia University in New York in 2002.

Image: a work by John Neff


WESTERN EXHIBITIONS
1648 W Kinzie, Suite 2R
Chicago, IL

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