curated by Ana Wolovick & Brian Wondergem
Press Release:
Black Ball Projects is pleased to present a two person show of works by New York artists Colby Bird and Becky Kinder. Though working in different mediums, both artists share a kinship, using their practice as a device for ‘preparing and resolving dissonance’. Their works come from a playful yet nuanced stance on intuition; while flirting with what art can mean in today’s divisive climate.
Colby Bird’s photographic and sculptural work offer facsimiles of artworks, at the same time creating original constructions. Images are codified through reproduction, addition and subtraction. Latent imagery becomes ghost-like and builds a source of power and unease. Sculptural elements play with and against the photography.
Becky Kinder’s large oil paintings are process-oriented and physical, relating in scale to the body in general and her body specifically. There is a speed to the action of the work. The paintings are self-portraits of moments in time simultaneously existing as hungry ghosts; images in search of something outside themselves.
Of all possible worlds, Bird and Kinder aim to authentically relate to their own times through idiosyncratic formulas, means and specific vocabularies. In Dissonant Accords their works are set against and beside one another creating a difficult yet coherent conversation regarding the many shades of process, form and content at stake in their individual practices. Dissonance finds resolve and allows for a type of healing to occur.
“That is the specific character of dissonant accords, the accord here consists in preparing and resolving dissonance, as in the double operation of Baroque music. The preparation of dissonance means integrating the half pains that have been accompanying pleasure, in such ways that the next pain will not occur “contrary to all expectations”’.
Gilles Deleuze, “The Fold”
Colby Bird received an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2004. Since then he has exhibited his work widely, and is currently represented by Halsey Mckay in East Hampton, New York, and Lora Reynolds Gallery in Austin, TX. Bird has been included in group shows at the Aspen Art Museum, the University Galleries at Texas State University, The Contemporary in Austin, and the Hagedorn Foundation in Atlanta. His work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art and he has been reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, Art in America, Art Review, The New Yorker and Artforum. Bird currently lives and works between New York and Texas.
Becky Kinder was born in Nebraska, raised in Texas and works in Brooklyn. She has an MFA from Hunter College and has attended residencies at Skowhegan, The Wassaic Project, and Culture Vultures Fez/Sefrou in Morocco. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Albert Merola Gallery in Provincetown, GridSpace in Crown Heights, and Regina Rex and Tracy Williams Ltd. in New York.
