Jeff Bailey Gallery is pleased to present, Contrapposto & Other Stories, a group exhibition of sculpture, painting, drawing and photography, featuring the work of Christopher Hanrahan, Dean Levin, Amy Pleasant, Ruby Sky Stiler, and George Woodman, curated by Katia Rosenthal.

Contrapposto is an Italian term meaning to counterpose, suggesting an off-axis twist. Using both traditional and new techniques, each artist draws attention to ideas of contrast, weight and light. The works evince simplicity in their construction while containing a surprising amount of dynamism and edge.

Hanrahan forms drawings in space using polished metal silhouettes. The brass and steel shapes are crafted through conventional welding. Delicate bends and curvaceous slopes combine to form reductive objects, vaguely mimicking something that may exist in the real world.

Converting hand-drawn grids into a digital format, Levin’s printed stainless steel canvases have a mirror-like affect: reflecting both the viewer and the space in which they are exhibited. Levin also makes convex paintings using a minimal surface technique to create seamless rounded profiles. Two of these are combined in the diptych, Untitled (Indigo and White).

Pleasants’ drawings and paintings focus on various parts of the body: the nape of a neck, the back of a head, legs in motion. These isolated shapes float in space, evoking fragments of classical statuary.

Stiler’s reliefs pay homage to Greco-Roman architecture and sculpture while contrasting line and shape from varied historical and contemporary sources. The patina successfully replicates the look of stone, but is actually created using foam, the lightest of craft materials.

Woodman’s large format black and white photographs are made with a camera obscura and combine collage-like arrangements of the human figure, household ephemera, plants, flowers and classical sculpture. Bodies and objects shift dramatically in perspective and scale, while the images’ rough edges expand and contract.

Christopher Hanrahan was born in 1978 in Mudgee, Australia. Hanrahan was awarded the University Medal from Sydney University, SCA. He has exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas, notably at MONA, Hobart, AU; PICA, Perth, AU; Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, AU; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, AU; Art Futures – Art HK, Hong Kong and the Embassy of Australia in Washington, DC. He lives and works in Queens, NY.

Ruby Sky Stiler was born in 1979 in Portland, Maine. Stiler received her MFA from Yale University in 2006. Recent exhibitions include: Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, NY; The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR; SAKS, Geneva; Derek Eller Gallery, NY; Callicoon Fine Arts, Callicoon, NY; Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; Sandroni Rey, LA; and Sunday Gallery, NY. She is represented by Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York.

Dean Levin was born in 1988 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Levin grew up in Los Angeles and received a BARCH in 2012 from Pratt Institute School of Architecture. He has exhibited at Robert Blumenthal Gallery, NY and Roberts and Tilton, LA. His work will be included in upcoming exhibitions at Sean Kelly Gallery, NY; Rod Barton Gallery, London, and Retrospective Gallery, Hudson. He lives and works in New York.

Amy Pleasant was born in 1972 in Birmingham, Alabama. Pleasant received her MFA from Tyler School of Art in 1999. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at The Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC; The National Museum of Women in the Arts; the Art in Embassies Program; the Columbus Museum of Art, GA; The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, NC; Jeff Bailey Gallery, NY and Whitespace, Atlanta, GA. She lives and works in Birmingham.

George Woodman was born in 1932 in Concord, New Hampshire. Woodman received his M.A. in Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico in 1956. He has been a Bemis Center Artist-in-Residence and received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally. Woodman’s work is included in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX and the Denver Art Museum, CO. He lives and works in New York and Italy.