Breaking Patterns
curated by Ginna Triplett

Breaking Patterns is an exhibition curated by Ginna Triplett, bringing together the work of ten artists who explore visual patterns in their work. Featuring artists Diyan Achjadi, Daniel Berens, Brigida Caramagna, Chris Lowery, Amartya Schmidt, China Faith Star, Richard Tinkler, Suzie Treinen, Ginna Triplett, and Julie Wolf, the exhibition includes paintings, works on paper, and three-dimensional work. The work shares a common characteristic of exploring repetitive, predictable patterns while simultaneously playing with, breaking, interrupting and altering those patterns.

This exhibition is an inquiry into how and why artists are compelled to explore patterns, with a specific interest in the personal and emotional connection to patterns. Common threads that connect the work include the meditative nature of creating and viewing patterns, the protected time and intimacy with the materials that creating patterns offers the artist, the personal symbolism of patterns, and how personal and cultural associations with patterns evoke other times, places and experiences.

About the Artists
Diyan Achjadi’s practice considers surface ornamentation, historical prints, and illustrations as pictorial archives, and the potential of these forms as sites for knowledge transmission. Her formative years were spent negotiating different educational, political, and cultural systems, leading to an ongoing interest in how our understanding of ideologies is influenced and informed by the visual popular culture that surrounds us. Much of her work examines the (mis)representations, (mis)translations, and imaginings of Indonesia, her country of birth. Diyan received a BFA from the Cooper Union (New York, NY) and an MFA from Concordia University (Montreal, QC). She has exhibited widely at galleries and film festivals across Canada and beyond, most recently at the Burnaby Art Gallery, (Burnaby, BC, 2019); Evergreen Cultural Centre (Coquitlam, BC, 2019); Dalhousie Art Gallery (Halifax, NS, 2019); Two Rivers Gallery (Prince George, BC, 2019) and Roedde House Museum (Vancouver, BC, 2018). She has been an artist-in-residence at Malaspina Printmakers (Vancouver, BC); Fanoon: Centre for Print Research (Doha, Qatar); the Frans Masereel Centrum (Kasterlee, Belgium); The Banff Centre (Banff, AB): and the Vermont Studio Centre (Johnson, VT). Current projects include Coming Soon!,a year-long commission for the City of Vancouver Public Art Program that takes place on the fences that surround construction sites, and NonSerie (In Commute), part of How far do you travel?, a year-long exhibition on the exterior of public buses, commissioned by the Contemporary Art Gallery (CAG) in partnership with Translink BC.

For more about Diyan, visit her online at https://diyanachjadi.com/home.html or follow her on Instagram.

Daniel Berens approaches materials as found objects, reconfiguring them to create meaning from their physical properties. He received a BFA from Cooper Union and a Master’s of Architecture from Columbia University. His work has been shown at Spencer Brownstone Gallery. He lives and works in Upstate New York.

For more about Daniel, follow him on Instagram.

Brigida Caramagna was born in Ridgewood, NJ, in 1974. She attended The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art from 1992 – 1996 and Yale University School of Art from 1996 – 1998. Her work as a painter centers around the perception of light and the interaction of emotional and spiritual perception thru the filter of the human eye. She has shown internationally, and around the United States. She continues her practice in the Hudson Valley of New York.

For more about Brigida, follow her on Instagram.

Chris Lowery has been making art during stolen moments at his day job for many years. His Lunch Break Paintings, started four years ago, are made from discarded wall paint and paper. The paintings accumulate over time, using repeating patterns and forms to notate time lost in the workplace. Chris received a BA from Grinnell College and an MFA from University of Iowa. He is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Grant and a NYFA Grant. His work has been shown at ABC No Rio, Art in General, and EFA Gallery. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

For more about Chris, follow him on Instagram.

Amartya Schmidt‘s work is inspired by Indian textile designs. The nature, colors, motifs, and patterns of her surroundings in India all inform her work. For her, painting patterns is a meditation and allows and intimacy and relationship to form between herself and the paint and paper. She received a BFA from Cooper Union and currently lives and works in India.

For more about Amartya, follow her on Instagram.

China Faith Star is an auto-didactical, overly practical, visual trickster, sound/word mixer. Born in Los Angeles to Punk Flower Children and raised in a world of diverse interactions, she fled to the woods to bathe with trees. She writes poetry, occasionally. Mostly she conjures ideas, transmuting socio/political/emotional concepts into aesthetically visceral maps/translations: popping color, repetitious pattern, dimensional texture, expressionistic, meditative. Her medium-diverse visual artwork, animation, theatrical, wordsmithing and musical performances have been exhibited in 25 cities nationally/internationally and her work has been added to public and private collections. In addition to a full-time studio practice and regular performing, China’s band GRRRLSXXX facilitates a free monthly event called Rage Salon, a femme facilitated space for free improvisation through sound and movement. She occasionally teaches. She received her B.A. in Fine Art at The Evergreen State College and currently lives in Olympia, WA.

For more about China, visit her online at http://www.chinafaithstar.com/ or follow her on Instagram.

Richard Tinkler was born in Westminster, MD in 1975 and received a BFA from the University of North Texas and an MFA from Hunter College. His recent paintings almost always start out with simple geometric shapes and colors which radiate from the center and are built up through brushstrokes of different colors, which mix on the the surface of the painting, wet into wet. He has had solo shows at 56 Henry and Team Gallery in NYC, Albert Merola Gallery in Provincetown MA and Halsey Mckay Gallery in East Hampton, NY. His work has been included in group shows at the Maramotti Collection in Reggio Emilia, Italy as well as Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, Anton Kern and Cheim and Read Gallery in NYC, and Regen Projects in LA.

For more about Richard, follow him on Instagram.

Suzie Treinen is an artist and educator whose practice includes drawing, painting, paper cut-outs, printmaking and fiber art. Her recent work explores patterns and motifs reminiscent of her childhood. She received a BA from Grinnell College and an MFA from University of Nebraska. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

For more about Suzie, follow her on Instagram.

Ginna Triplett‘s practice includes painting, drawing, fiber art, and papier-mâché. Her work explores ideas about femininity, motherhood, domesticity, and negotiating the schism between reality and imposed expectations. She has exhibited her work throughout the United States and internationally. Her work has been exhibited at Sarah Lawrence College, Changing Role Gallery in Naples, Italy, Dabora Gallery in Brooklyn, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Ely Center for Contemporary Art in New Haven, and Roebling Hall in NYC. She is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Grant, the Sylvia Appelman Award for excellence in painting from Cooper Union, a Barbara White Fellowship to attend to the Vermont Studio Center, and participated in the Artist in the Marketplace program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. She received a BFA from Cooper Union and a Masters of Art Education from Brooklyn College. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

For more about Ginna, visit her online at http://www.ginnatriplett.com/ or follow her on Instagram.

Julie Wolf‘s latest series of work, titled 33 Bones, explores the tension and fine line between fragility and stability. Having undergone a series of physical transformations due to necessary surgeries, Julie has had to re-examine her physical strengths and limitations. Painted paper weavings encompass a parallel representation of these strengths and limitations. 33 Bones represents 33 variations on a spine – 33 represents the amount of bones that make up our spine. Julie received a BFA from Pratt Institute and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

For more about Julie, visit her online at https://julieredwolf.com/