Controlled Chaos

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Controlled Chaos
Strauss Bourque-LaFrance
Andrea Marie Breiling
Liam Everett
Joseph Hart
Reginald Madison
Uman

May 19 - June 18, 2022
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 19, 6-8 pm

Rachel Uffner Gallery is pleased to present Controlled Chaos, a group exhibition featuring a selection of works by six contemporary artists working in abstract painting: Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, Andrea Marie Breiling, Liam Everett, Joseph Hart, Reginald Madison, and Uman. While all art-making requires degrees of preparation and deliberation, these artists pursue deeply intuitive processes in which feeling and improvisation are not stymied but rather embraced. Employing gesture, color, movement, and references to poetry, music, and cultural heritage, these artists fashion a feast for the senses, pushing the storied lineage of abstract painting in exciting and inventive new directions.

Using the techniques of a collagist, Strauss Bourque-LaFrance often layers canvas with paint, adhesives, and other materials to emphasize the tactile nature and sculptural capacities of painting. Scraps rescued from past experiments—what the artist calls “failed paintings”—are recontextualized in new pieces, adding further nuance to his compositions. Materials and images embedded in Bourque-LaFrance’s paintings originate from an array of sources—such as books, found fabrics, and studio debris—acting as keys, clues, and footnotes to the artist’s process. He often uses poetic wordplay in his paintings’ titles, inserting cultural references, psychological idiosyncrasies, and off-kilter humor alongside visual abstraction.

In each monumental painting by Andrea Marie Breiling, the viewer witnesses the artist conducting experiments in relation to her own physicality. These forms are primarily constructed using spray paint, a brush-free approach to painting which has allowed her to render large forms while maintaining the frenetic energy for which she is known. Using spray paint she builds multiple cross-hatched layers that coax new and deeper palettes and textures from this material. 

Liam Everett’s abstract mixed-media paintings result from a process of steadfast and repetitious application and erasure, employing non-
traditional methods to apply and remove painstakingly developed layers of paint and composition. Inspired by the dynamic alchemy of the natural environment in California, this method makes plain the interactive properties of the substances on the canvas: how they counteract, preserve, or react to one another. In this way, Everett’s investigative procedure—laser-focused on the subtle behavior of his materials—becomes akin to the scientific assaying of chemical and mineral substances in order to determine purity or the limits of stability.

Joseph Hart uses paper as an initial surface that is worked and layered with graphite, collage elements and acrylic paint, then mounted to linen and stretched over the armature of a stretcher frame. The works capture an aggregated harmony that sways between dueling sensations: measured but loose, raging and generous, awkward yet bizarrely graceful—becoming visual allegories for the complexities of life.
Infusing abstraction with more recognizable forms of representation, Reginald Madison’s paintings tempt the viewer’s will to identify forms—perhaps narratives—while scattering into improvisational mark-making. Deeply influenced by jazz and his upbringing in Chicago, Madison is moved by process and driven by instinct.

The bold gestural work of Uman is shaped by her varied migrations and encounters with cultural heritage. Exuberant, seemingly freestyle markings are influenced by the Arabic calligraphy she studied as a child. Similarly, her distorted self-portraits, and silhouette images of camels, birds and vessels merge abstraction with figuration while reflecting her East African background. Widely traveled and self-trained, Uman’s practice explores gender and cultural fluidity while remaining spiritually engaged and instinctive.

Thank you to all the contributing galleries for their efforts in facilitating Controlled Chaos: Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA for Andrea Marie Breilling, Altman Siegel, CA San Francisco for Liam Everett, Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY for Joseph Hart, September Gallery, Kinderhook, NY for Reginald Madison, and Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York, NY for Uman. 

Strauss Bourque-LaFrance (b. 1983, Poland Spring, ME) earned a BA from Hampshire College, Amherst, MA; an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA; and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME. Bourque-LaFrance has staged solo exhibitions across the US and internationally, at venues including T29, Rome, Italy and the Northampton Center for the Arts, Northampton, MA. He has been included in exhibitions at The Kitchen, New York, NY; The Clifford Gallery at Colgate University, Hamilton, NY; ICA Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA; The Contemporary Austin, Austin, TX; Abrons Art Center, New York, NY; The Judson Memorial Church, New York, NY; and Sculpture Center, New York,
NY; among many others. The artist was a recipient of the Northampton Arts Council Grant, Northampton, MA; an Artist in Residence at Dance and Process, The Kitchen, New York, NY; and an Artist in Residence at Movement Research, New York, NY. Bourque-LaFrance lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. 

Andrea Marie Breiling (b. Phoenix, AZ) received her BFA in Studio Art and Gender Studies from UC Irvine in 2008 and her MFA in Studio Art from Claremont Graduate University in 2014. She has had solo exhibitions at Broadway Gallery, New York, NY; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Achenbach Hagemeier, Düsseldorf, DE; Galleri Urbane, Dallas, TX; Sonce Alexander Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and Peggy Phelps Gallery, Claremont, CA. Breiling has also participated in several group exhibitions, including but not limited to Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI; Various Small Fires, Seoul, KR; The Mass, Tokyo, JP; Carl Kostyál Gallery, Stockholm, SE; SUNNY NY, New York, NY; Almine Rech, Brussels, BE; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA; Achenbach Hagemeier, Berlin, DE; Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and Skibum MacArthur, Los Angeles, CA. In June 2018, Breiling presented her first solo exhibition at Night Gallery, Have you loved me for the last time (Laid Bare). Her second solo exhibition at the gallery, Big Mood, opened in September 2020. Her work has been featured in GQ Style, Whitewall, Artforum, LA Weekly, The Nation, Abstract, Cultured, the Los Angeles Times, and LALA Magazine, among others. She lives and works in Brooklyn.
Liam Everett (b. 1973, Rochester, NY) lives and works in Northern California. His work has been included in exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Biennale of Painting, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium; U.C. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco. Everett is the recipient of the SECA Art Award at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2017), the Richard Diebenkorn Teaching Fellowship at the San Francisco Art Institute (2013) and the San Francisco Artadia Award (2013). Everett’s work is included in significant international public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes, France; Fondation Carmignac, Paris; Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker, Norway, and U.C. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Joseph Hart (b. 1976, New Hampshire) is New York-based visual artist. Hart received a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1999. He has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, Penland School of Craft and The City College of New York. His work can be found in the public collection of RISD Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Davis Museum at Wellesley College and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has had solo exhibitions at Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY; Halsey McKay Gallery, Chicago, IL; Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; David Krut Gallery, New York, NY; Federico Luger, Milan Italy; Galerie Vidal Saint-Phalle, Paris, France; Wild Project, New York, NY; and Galleri Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden. Concurrent with his studio practice, Hart is the founder and producer of Deep ColorTM –an independent
oral history project amd podcast that features artists and arts professionals discussing their work, ideas and lives. Deep ColorTM has participated in public programming at On Air Fest, The Armory Show and New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA).

Reginald Madison (b. 1941, Chicago, IL) is a painter and sculptor. Madison’s work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, Historic Hudson Hall, the Ace Hotel Chicago, Phyllis Kind Gallery, Port Washington Public Library, SEPTEMBER Gallery, Montserrat College of Art, CR10 Arts, among others. In 2020 Madison curated Art & Soul, an exhibition at Historic Hudson Hall that included the work of David Hammons and Tschabalala Self, among others. He is the co-organizer of Melodius Thunk, a Jazz Music Festival in Hudson, NY. Madison is the 2021 recipient of the NEA Artist Residency at Basilica Hudson. His work has been featured in Art & Antiques, Chronogram, The Rogovoy Report, Times Union, among others. Madison’s work is in the collection of UC Santa Barbara, and has recently been acquired by the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection. Madison currently lives and works in Hudson, NY.

Uman (b. 1980, Somalia) is a multidisciplinary artist known for intuitive painting, drawing and sculpture. She resides and works in Albany, New York. She has had solo exhibitions at Fierman New York, NY; Anne De Villepoix Paris, France; Louis B. James, New York, NY. Her work has been included in group exhibitions including Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York, NY; Anne De Villepoix, Paris, France; Rochester Art Center, Rochester, NY; Karma, New York, NY; Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada, Fierman New York, NY; Hair and Nails, Minneapolis, MN; White Columns, New York, NY; Christian Berst Gallery, New York, NY; and Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England.