Winter Street Gallery is pleased to announce Secret Storm, a group exhibition featuring eight artists. On view from August 7 until September 6, the show encompasses artworks of a personal nature, oftentimes evocative of highly individualized experiences. At times diaristic in approach, the works presented variously include family photographs, intimate studies, cosmic ruminations, as well as broader reflections on art-making. The artists included offer wide- ranging positions in terms of subject and medium: contained within the exhibition are collage- based paintings, wooden sculptures, works of glazed stoneware, and graphite drawings. Within this variance, certain thematic parallels are notable throughout the presentation. 

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A shared attitude towards images and photographs may be observed between Ann Weathersby (b. 1970), Erin Jane Nelson (b. 1989), and Chris Martin (b. 1954). Weathersby documents personal objects such as photographs, books and albums, and then reconfigures these ephemera into sculptures, transforming them into highly personal artifacts of desire, fantasy and secrecy. Nelson’s practice is grounded in photography sourced from her personal archive of found and original images. Raised in the American South and based in Atlanta, the artist travels throughout the region to photograph her surroundings and lived experiences. In Martin’s work, glued-on photographs depict galaxies, planets, and ancient artifacts all colliding within a layered painterly landscape. 

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An array of psychologically-charged bodies are to be found in the work of David Byrd (1926-2013), Philip Guston (1913-1980), and Kiki Kogelnik (1935-1997). Byrd — whose work was barely seen or exhibited during his lifetime — worked as an orderly in the psychiatric ward at the VA hospital in Montrose, New York, from 1958 to 1988. There he observed and painted the mannerisms of the patients, conveying a variety of psychological conditions. Guston’s lithograph, Painter (1980), incorporates the vocabulary of his late paintings, containing a mixture of reality and caricature. Works by Kogelnik, who was born and lived much of her life in Austria, typically take their point of departure in the human body, presenting it as variously ebullient, stylized, interchangeable, fragmentary or skeletal. 

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The works of Kenny Rivero (b. 1981) and Christina Ramberg (1946-1995) share a poignant exploration of identity offering a personal symbolism behind everyday experiences. Drawing on his Dominican-American heritage, Rivero’s work appears at times supernatural, while conveying the magical and fantastical elements of human existence. In a repeating motif, Ramberg portrays a female figure in the act of undressing. Listed at the top of her drawing are six soap opera titles from the 1960s, including Secret Storm, which provides the title for the present exhibition. 

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Secret Storm is organized by George Newall. 

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We thank all the artists for their collaboration, alongside the David Byrd Estate and the Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. We are grateful for the support of the artists' gallerists: in particular Alison Dillulio and Nicole Russo of Chapter NY; Anton Kern, Brigitte Mulholland, and Kristen Smoragiewicz of Anton Kern Gallery; Josephine Nash of Mitchell-Innes & Nash; Charles Moffett; and Columbus Taylor of Timothy Taylor. 

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