Art Basel Miami Beach | Booth C26: Frank Bowling OBE RA, Jordan Ann Craig, Martyn Cross, Anthony Cudahy, Sarah Faux, Andrea Geyer, Sunil Gupta, Haroun Hayward, Virginia Jaramillo, Hew Locke RA, Maja Ruznic, Kay WalkingStick

Sir Frank Bowling OBE RA (b. Guyana, 1934) moved to London in 1953, where his artistic career began shortly after his arrival at the Royal College of Art (1959-62). Bowling is widely considered to be Britain’s leading abstract painter. Over a career spanning six decades he has remained committed to expanding the possibilities of paint through constant experimentation. In every painting he discovers something new, exploring the pictorial space, searching for an essential truth. The Royal College of Art recently announced a new Frank Bowling Scholarship to support UK students of Black African and Caribbean diaspora heritage. This year his work has been included in group shows at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; MCA Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL; The Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, GA and the Barbican Centre, London, UK.

 

Jordan Ann Craig (b. 1992 San Jose, CA, USA) received her BA in Studio Art and Psychology from Dartmouth College in 2015. She lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Known for her large-scale paintings and prints, Craig’s abstract compositions are characterized by a dynamic exploration and interpretation of Northern Cheyenne material culture. Incorporating vivid colors, recurring patterns, and interwoven forms situated in grids, Craig’s work explores and celebrates her Native ancestry, posing questions about the languages of modern abstract painting and the relationship to both historic and contemporary indigenous culture. In 2020, Craig's first solo museum exhibition, Your Favorite Color is Yellow, was held at Roswell Museum of Art, NM, USA. Jordan Ann Craig's first solo show with the gallery opens at Hales New York in Fall 2023.

 

Martyn Cross (b. 1975 UK) lives and works in Bristol, UK. Cross is primarily a painter, creating works that speak to ancient and mythic lands. Applying thin layers of dry-brush pigment, the paintings are reminiscent of unearthed artifacts. Drawing on a myriad of concepts from mythology and the medieval, Cross' works personify the landscape. Figures, eyes and solitary limbs emerge from clouds and rivers, speaking to an alternate fiction. Ambiguous narratives are formed in reoccurring scenes and motifs, creating an immersive world. In 2021, Cross had a solo exhibition at Ratio 3, San Francisco, CA. His artworks were also included in  A Thought Sublime, a group exhibition at Marianne Boesky Gallery, NY (2021) and Ratio 3's Summer Sessions group exhibition in Los Angeles, CA (2021). Cross debut solo show with the gallery is currently on view at Hales London through December 2022.

 

Anthony Cudahy (b.1989 Florida, USA) received a BFA from Pratt Institute, NY in 2011 and completed an MFA at Hunter College, NY in 2020. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Cudahy is a painter whose tender scenes reveal the nuanced complexities of life. In masterful compositions he creates a world for unspoken stories, intimate moments and romantic gesture. Personal and poetic, Cudahy’s figures coalesce with the atmosphere of their environments in fluid brushstrokes. Cudahy’s first solo museum exhibition opens in 2023 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Dole, France.

 

Sarah Faux (b. 1986 Boston, MA, USA) received her MFA in Painting from Yale University in 2015. She gained a joint BA and BFA from Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design in 2009. Faux lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Faux is a painter whose somatic work lies at the threshold of figuration and abstraction. Her paintings embrace unabashed sensuality, autonomy and pleasure. Faux’s fluid compositions teeter on the edge of reality, revealing how much of our emotional and sensory lives take place beneath the surface. Sarah Faux’s first solo show with the gallery opens at Hales New York in Spring 2023.

 

Andrea Geyer (b. 1971, Freiburg, Germany) studied photography and film design at the Fachhochschule Bielefeld and Fine Art at the Braunschweig University of Art, both in Germany. She is a 2000 graduate of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. Geyer lives and works in New York. Geyer’s practice ranges across multiple media, incorporating text, photography, painting, sculpture, video and performance. It explores the complex politics of time, in the context of specific social and political situations, cultural institutions and historical events. Geyer’s work is in many prestigious public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA; Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico; and the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria.

 

Sunil Gupta (b.1953 New Delhi, India) has, over a career spanning five decades, maintained a visionary approach to photography, producing a rich body of work that has pioneered a unique social and political commentary. The artist's diasporic experience of multiple cultures informs a practice dedicated to themes of race, migration and queer identity. The series, Towards an Indian Gay Image was created when Gupta returned to India for the first time as an adult. During this trip he discovered that although homosexuality was still illegal, gay men had a presence, living and existing in plain sight. However, still hidden from mainstream society and unrepresented in the media, Gupta wanted to document displays of queer affection. Work from this series was recently acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA. In 2020 he the subject of a major touring retrospective, From Here to Eternity - a collaboration between The Photographers' Gallery, London, UK; and the Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto, Canada.

 

Virginia Jaramillo (b. 1939, El Paso, Texas) studied at Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, from 1958–61. Jaramillo lives and works in New York. Born in El Paso, Texas, Jaramillo spent her formative years in California before moving to Europe and settling in New York City in late 1960s. Central to a career spanning nearly six decades is Jaramillo’s drive to express materially our sensory perceptions of space and time in what she describes as ‘an aesthetic investigation which seeks to translate into visual terms the mental structural patterns we all superimpose on our world.’ Whether creating bold abstract paintings, sculptural mixed media compositions or meticulously formed handmade paper works, Jaramillo has forged a unique voice, experimenting with material and process to pursue her ongoing explorations of human perception of reality. Jaramillo’s first museum retrospective will be presented at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, MO in 2023.

 

Hew Locke RA (b. Edinburgh, UK, 1959) spent his formative years (1966-80) in Guyana before returning to the UK to complete an MA in sculpture at the Royal College of Art (1994) and was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2022. Locke explores the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, how different cultures fashion their identities through visual symbols of authority, and how these representations are altered by the passage of time. These explorations have led Locke to a wide range of subject matters, imagery and media, assembling sources across time and space in his deeply layered artworks. Locke’s work was recently included in the renowned group exhibition In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery in London; and his breath taking Duveen Galleries commission The Procession is on view in the Tate Britain, London. The artist has also been selected for the Met Museum Façade Commission which is now on view through May 2023 in New York.

 

Maja Ruznic (b. 1983 Bosnia & Hercegovina) immigrated to the United States in 1995 due to the Bosnian war. Ruznic went on to study at the University of California, Berkley (2005), later receiving an MFA from the California College of Arts (2009). Ruznic currently lives and works in New Mexico, USA. Ruznic is predominantly a painter, drawing on personal and collective memories to create works that deeply connect with human psyche. She deftly weaves themes of trauma and suffering with mythology and healing, softening the darker subject matter in her work.

 

Kay WalkingStick (b. 1935 Syracuse, NY) is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, she has Cherokee/Anglo heritage. She received a BFA from Beaver College (now Arcadia University) Glenside, PA in 1959 and an MFA from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY in 1975. She lives and works in Pennsylvania. Over a career spanning six decades, WalkingStick’s practice has focused on the American Landscape and its metaphorical significances to Native Americans and people across the world. WalkingStick draws on formal modernist painterly traditions as well as the Native American experience to create works that connect the immediacy of the physical world with the spiritual. The Museum of Modern Art, NY and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR have recently acquired works by WalkingStick.