Sarah Pettitt
Sarah Pettit, Untitled, 2019, painted stick
Brandon Collwes, Untitled, 2019, Acrylic with sand on canvas
Sarah Pettit: ‘Out to Sea’
also on view:
paintings by Brandon Collwes
Sept 28-Nov 3, 2019
Opening reception: Sat, Sept 28, 6-9pm
Closing Party: Sat, Nov 2, 4-6pm
Hours: Weekends 12-6pm | by appointment
Directions: Norte Maar, 88 Pine Street, Cypress Hills, Brooklyn
J/Z Train to Brooklyn, Crescent Street Stop
Sarah Pettitt is an artist based in Queens and London. Evolving from a place between painting and sculpture, installation and performance, her work interrogates painting’s history, materiality and presentation, embracing process-orientated methods. She constructs surfaces which seek to evoke empathy—a found sliver of driftwood, a remnant of fabric, two disparate objects that when brought together form a new context. Her research includes examining pre-modern artistic modalities, and the notion of the absent body, to explore non-visual representations of pain. Recent works attempt to fuse the environment and body as sites of silent anguish. Sarah was an Artist in Residence at Norte Maar in July of 2018.
Sarah Pettitt's work takes us to a place of subtle permanence. A place that escapes definitions of sculpture or painting, performance or installation. A place so personal we experience an emotive quality through her often found and mended works. — Jason Andrew, Founding Director, Norte Maar
Brandon Collwes makes his exhibiting debut with a selection of three new paintings that capture his interest in body, guesture, and the subconscious generation of the brush stroke. As a professional dancer, Brandon joined the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in January 2006 where he danced up until the close of the Company in 2011 in the finale Legacy World Tour. He is currently a member of the Liz Gerring Dance Company, Sally Slivers and Dancers and continues to teach dance across the globe while developing and performing his own work. Based in Brooklyn, Brandon is also an abstract painter inspired by fleeting movements working mostly with paint, canvas and salt. Brandon's choreography and artwork was featured in Norte Maar's Brooklyn Performance Combine in June 2018. This exhibition marks the first time Brandon has publicly exhibited his paintings.
When I paint, I am chasing the feeling of dancing at my finest, relinquishing control and moving with abandon. My mind stops interfering, the paint strokes fall, are layered into place, and I only listen. Painting gives me the freedom to use what is around me, instead of my body. Unlike dance, no one ever taught me how to do this. My paintings are my personal time stamp on the world, preserving a state that, when expressed physically, dissipates as quickly as it crystallizes. — Brandon Collwes, Brooklyn 2019
