Frieze New York: Online Viewing Room: Strauss Bourque-LaFrance & Sally Saul

May 5 - 14, 2021 
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Frieze New York: Online Viewing Room, Strauss Bourque-LaFrance & Sally Saul
VIP Access: May 5 - 6, 2021 Public Access: May 7 - 14, 2021
Rachel Uffner Gallery is pleased to present a curated selection of works by Strauss Bourque-LaFrance and Sally Saul. In addition to the virtual presentation, we have installed a selection of works by both artists at our physical gallery location and invite you to stop by for in person viewing.
 
In a series of new paintings, Bourque-LaFrance continues his exploration of ‘-scapes’, or difficult to define spaces that are part landscape, part mindscape, and part stage. Intimate in both scale and content, each piece is a composite of energetic and abstract marks of color, and various collaged materials. The works are meant to be read like poems, replete with emotion, personal symbolism, and purposefully cryptic. They reflect Bourque-LaFrance’s natural gravitation towards disparate aesthetic relationships, strange details, absurdities, and intense color in his everyday environments. 
 
Informed by memory and observation, Saul’s ceramic sculptures demonstrate the artist’s ongoing interest in the monumental themes of innocence, mortality, and our relationship to the natural world. The works presented here, created over the past 20 years, pull inspiration from plants and animals observed from the artist’s home, public and political figures, and art historical references. Saul’s works are direct, inclusive, and full of humor — and carry subtle social commentary balanced with levity and nuance.
 
Strauss Bourque-LaFrance (b. 1983 Poland Springs, ME) approaches painting through a physical, collage process. His works begin with swaths of canvas and parts of past paintings that have been cut up, layered, painted, and arranged together to create a new “painting object.” The optical and material potential of collage engages with painterly gestures, forming unique constructions that call to mind craft practices, cartoon forms, and analog graphic design. He plays on stylistic tropes within the canon of abstraction, dismantling formal associations with histories, nostalgia, and memory. As a queer painter, Bourque-LaFrance evades a defining style and instead pushes disparate techniques and ideas together, creating an image that is familiar but difficult to define.
 
Bourque-LaFrance 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.
 
Sally Saul (b. 1946, Albany, NY) earned a BA from the University of Colorado in Boulder, CO and an MA in American Literature from the San Francisco State University, where she graduated in1973. During her time in California, she became acquainted with the Bay Area visual arts movement, characterized by a penchant for bright colors and an interest in drawing subject matter from day-to- day life. In the early 1980s Saul relocated to Austin where she enrolled in ceramics courses at the University of Texas, and began to formalize her process. Informed by memory, her sculptures came to explore complexities of the human condition.
 
In recent years Saul has achieved significant milestones in her career. Her first survey exhibition Blue Hills, Yellow Tree, opened in May 2019 at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, NY. The exhibition brought together works from over three decades, representing her years spent in San Francisco, Austin, TX, and beyond. Saul presented a solo show at Almine Rech, Paris in January 2020, and a solo show at Rachel Uffner Gallery in November 2020. She has also participated in exhibition sat venues including Jeffrey Deitch, New York, NY; the Art Museum of West Virginia, Morgantown,WV; the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; White Columns, New York, NY; and Lumber Room, Portland, OR; among many others. Saul lives and works in Germantown, New York.

  • Press Release

    Rachel Uffner Gallery at Frieze New York Online 2021
     
    Strauss Bourque-LaFrance and Sally Saul
     
    VIP Access: May 5 - 6
    Public Access: May 7 - 14
     
    Rachel Uffner Gallery is pleased to present a curated selection of works by Strauss Bourque-LaFrance and Sally Saul. In addition to the virtual presentation, we have installed a selection of works by both artists at our physical gallery location and invite you to stop by for in person viewing.
     
    In a series of new paintings, Bourque-LaFrance continues his exploration of ‘-scapes’, or difficult to define spaces that are part landscape, part mindscape, and part stage. Intimate in both scale and content, each piece is a composite of energetic and abstract marks of color, and various collaged materials. The works are meant to be read like poems, replete with emotion, personal symbolism, and purposefully cryptic. They reflect Bourque-LaFrance’s natural gravitation towards disparate aesthetic relationships, strange details, absurdities, and intense color in his everyday environments. 
     
    Informed by memory and observation, Saul’s ceramic sculptures demonstrate the artist’s ongoing interest in the monumental themes of innocence, mortality, and our relationship to the natural world. The works presented here, created over the past 20 years, pull inspiration from plants and animals observed from the artist’s home, public and political figures, and art historical references. Saul’s works are direct, inclusive, and full of humor — and carry subtle social commentary balanced with levity and nuance.
     
    Strauss Bourque-LaFrance (b. 1983 Poland Springs, ME) approaches painting through a physical, collage process. His works begin with swaths of canvas and parts of past paintings that have been cut up, layered, painted, and arranged together to create a new “painting object.” The optical and material potential of collage engages with painterly gestures, forming unique constructions that call to mind craft practices, cartoon forms, and analog graphic design. He plays on stylistic tropes within the canon of abstraction, dismantling formal associations with histories, nostalgia, and memory. As a queer painter, Bourque-LaFrance evades a defining style and instead pushes disparate techniques and ideas together, creating an image that is familiar but difficult to define.

     

    Bourque-LaFrance 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.
     
    Sally Saul (b. 1946, Albany, NY) earned a BA from the University of Colorado in Boulder, CO and an MA in American Literature from the San Francisco State University, where she graduated in1973. During her time in California, she became acquainted with the Bay Area visual arts movement, characterized by a penchant for bright colors and an interest in drawing subject matter from day-to- day life. In the early 1980s Saul relocated to Austin where she enrolled in ceramics courses at the University of Texas, and began to formalize her process. Informed by memory, her sculptures came to explore complexities of the human condition.
     
    In recent years Saul has achieved significant milestones in her career. Her first survey exhibition Blue Hills, Yellow Tree, opened in May 2019 at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, NY. The exhibition brought together works from over three decades, representing her years spent in San Francisco, Austin, TX, and beyond. Saul presented a solo show at Almine Rech, Paris in January 2020, and a solo show at Rachel Uffner Gallery in November 2020. She has also participated in exhibition sat venues including Jeffrey Deitch, New York, NY; the Art Museum of West Virginia, Morgantown,WV; the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; White Columns, New York, NY; and Lumber Room, Portland, OR; among many others. Saul lives and works in Germantown, New York.

  • Selected Works

Back to art fairs