Art Basel Miami Beach | Booth D7: Tessa Boffin, Jordan Ann Craig, Martyn Cross, Anthony Cudahy, Sarah Faux, Andrea Geyer, Sunil Gupta, Haroun Hayward, Virginia Jaramillo, Tuli Mekondjo, Shelley Niro, Kay WalkingStick

Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami Beach, FL 

VIP preview: Wednesday, December 4 - Thursday, December 5, 2024, 11am to 7pm

Public days: Friday, December 6 - Sunday, December 8, 11am to 6pm

 

For the 2024 edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, Hales is delighted to present a selection of works by artists Tessa Boffin, Jordan Ann Craig, Martyn Cross, Anthony Cudahy, Sarah Faux, Andrea Geyer, Sunil Gupta, Haroun Hayward, Virginia Jaramillo, Tuli Mekondjo, Shelley Niro and Kay WalkingStick. The presentation features a selection of historic and contemporary works, reflecting the programming and vision of the gallery.

 

Tessa Boffin (b.1960 - d. 1993 London, UK) was a pioneering artist and a key organising figure in the UK's photography scene, working between the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Boffin gained a BA (Hons) Degree in Photographic Arts (Theory and Practice) from Polytechnic of Central London (now University of Westminster) in 1986 and an MA in Critical Theory from University of Sussex, UK. Despite a brief oeuvre, Boffin developed a complex body of photographic work which explored gender, sex positivity and societal and political issues. In staged scenes Boffin championed lesbian visibility and the actualization of queer identity through explorations of fantasy. Boffin had a bold, ground-breaking practice at a time of little visual representation and acknowledgement of queer desire. Boffin's work is currently on view in blockbuster touring exhibition Women in Revolt, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and The 80s: Photographing Britain, Tate Britain, UK.

 

Jordan Ann Craig (b. 1992 San Jose, CA, USA) lives and works in Pojoaque Valley, New Mexico. Craig is a Northern Cheyenne artist known for vibrant and often densely composed paintings which are characterized by a dynamic exploration and interpretation of Northern Cheyenne and Cheyenne visual 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. Craig's work is currently on view in American Sunrise: Indigenous Art at Crystal Bridges, at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR. Craig's solo exhibition at the Block Museum of Art, her largest institutional show to date, opens January 2025.

 

Martyn Cross (b. 1975, Yate, 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 artefacts. 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. His first institutional solo show took place earlier this year at Flatland Projects, Bexhill on Sea, UK, the same year in which he was shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize. His solo show, Of Oil and Earth, in on view at Hales London, through January 18th, 2025.

 

Anthony Cudahy (b. 1989 Ft. Myers, FL, 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. Earlier this fall, Cudahy's parallel solo shows, Fool's gold and Fool's errand were on view at both Hales and GRIMM New York galleries. Cudahy's solo show, Like Night Needs Morning, was on view at the CAP Centre d'arte de Saint-Fons, Saint-Fons, France earlier this year. His first museum show in the US, Spinneret, opened in April 2024 at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, ME, and is on view at the Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas, TX through January 26, 2025.

 

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. Her paintings call forth the real and imagined, navigating shifts in narrative perspective. In disorientating configurations, Faux mirrors and inverts bodily forms - this fragmentation is a compositional and psychological tool. Faux is a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grantee for 2023-2024.

 

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 work 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. Her large-scale installation, Manifest, is currently on view at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA and her solo show of the same title is on view at Hales New York through December 20th. Geyer's solo exhibition, andrea geyer / a promise of lightning, is on view at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, NY, through January 12, 2025. 

 

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. He has remained dedicated to advocating the visibility of queer identity, born from a desire to see himself and others like him represented in art history. Gupta's works are currently featured in institutional shows The 80s: Photographing Britain, Tate Britain, UK; Fragile Beauty, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998, Barbican Centre, London, UK; and The '70s Lens: Reimagining Documentary Photography, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA.

 

Haroun Hayward (b. 1983, London, UK) received a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Painting from University of Brighton and an MA in Fine Art Practice from Goldsmiths University, London. Hayward's paintings are a celebration of hybridity, harmoniously converging art historical and musical references with distinct modes of making. The paintings honor what informs Hayward's personal and artistic narrative - rave culture, abstract expressionism, post war British landscape painting and his mother's textile collection. Repetition and remixing, to borrow from music terminology, are key to the artist's painting process. Hayward's debut solo exhibition at Hales London opened in 2023. His work is included in the collections of the Gujral Foundation, India; Kiran Nadar Collection, India and Arun Nayar Collection, UK among others. Hayward's first US solo show, Landscape of the Vernal Equinox opened in May, at Hales New York. His work is currently included in Unreal City, a group exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, London and was recently featured in TERRA, Burgundy, France.

 

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, Virginia Jaramillo: Principle of Equivalence is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, having toured from the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, USA (2023).

 

Tuli Mekondjo (b. 1982, Angola) is a Namibian artist, whose richly multifaceted practice considers the sociohistorical context of Namibia as a site to re-evaluate and consider ideas around ancestry and identity. Mekondjo lives and works in Windhoek, Namibia. Known for her mixed media and embroidered paintings, Mekondjo's rigorous practice is a pursuit to connect with and honor her heritage. Her practice navigates feelings of displacement, having spent her childhood in refugee camps. Sensitive explorations of history and ancestry allow Mekondjo to address, question, and heal parts of this past, deftly weaving personal and collective trauma with beauty, nature and optimism. Mekondjo was a finalist for The Norval Sovereign African Art Prize 2023, and recipient of the prestigious DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program in 2022. She is currently featured in Dak'Art, Biennale de l'Art Africain Contemporain, Dakar, Senegal.

 

Shelley Niro (b. 1954, Niagara Falls, New York) is a multi-disciplinary artist and a member of the Turtle Clan of the Kanyen'kehà:ka (Mohawk) Nation, from the Six Nations of the Grand River territory. She lives and works in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. In an oeuvre spanning four decades, Niro has developed an influential and visionary practice that foregrounds the representation of indigenous people, their history, and present-day experience, often centering the stories of women. Her practice delves into the timeless cultural knowledge and generational histories of her Haudenosaunee community - the preservation of tradition manifests in her work in material, aesthetic and conceptual ways. Niro's first major retrospective Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch was first presented at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, New York, NY, USA in 2024 and is currently on view at Vancouver Art Gallery, BC, Canada.

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. Five major paintings by WalkingStick were included in the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2024. Her solo show Kay WalkingStick / Hudson River organized by The New York Historical, is now on view at The Addison Gallery of American Art, in Andover, MA.