Catherine Czacki and April Street

The iron grip of an object’s meaning or utility is loosened through continuous aesthetic dialogue. This could not be more true than for California-based artistsCatherine Czacki and April Street, whose respective practices force vaguely familiar articles into unusual mediums and motions.

Czacki’s practice centers around the production of sculptural objects, subject to and supported by the inquisition of text. Motorcycle clutches, fabrics, pillowcases and vinyl tablecloths are married to artist’s tools such as PVA glue, papier-mâché and wooden extremities creating curious, often fraught relationships between an object and its perceivable purpose or presence in real time and space.

Street’s body serves as the starting point for her works, physically interacting with materials including hosiery and paint-covered canvases in order to mimic the subconscious dynamics of sleep. She then alters the objects to disguise the original movements, treated with gold leaf, ropes or bonding restraints hung on the gallery walls. The final effect is a fractured mise-en-scéne, where the players are obscured by twisted swathes of color.

Catherine Czacki is a PhD student in the Art History, Theory and Criticism program at the University of California, San Diego with a concentration in Art Practice. She holds a Masters of Fine Art from Columbia University and Bachelors of Fine Art in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute. Recent solo exhibitions include The one beneath is mysterious, falling below the line of sight at the Discursive and Curatorial Productions Initiative of the University of California, San Diego. Selected group exhibitions include S-N-W-O at DREI Raum für Gegenwartskunst (Köln, Germany), Walking Forward – Running Past at Art in General (New York), Lightness of Being at Present Company (Brooklyn).

April Street lives and works in Los Angeles. She studied painting at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and bronze casting in central Italy. Selected solo exhibitions have been Portraits and Ropes shown at Carter & Citizen (Los Angeles), and Who Threw the Sunset at Me shown at Rosamund Felsen Gallery (Santa Monica). Selected group shows include Bakers Dozen The Torrance Museum (Torrance CA), Anniversary, Actual Size (Los Angeles), and recently Object implied, Emerson Dorsch (Miami). She was the recipient of an NEA Project Grant for her video collaboration, Imaging Appalachia.