“Color Matters II”  at The Border Gallery

Participating artists: William Bradley, Noriko Mizokawa, and Pilar Uribe

Curated by Jamie Martinez

Dec 21 – Jan 20, 2019

The Border presents “Color Matters II”, a group show featuring the work of William Bradley, Noriko Mizokawa and Pilar Uribe from December 21, 2018 (opening night 6-8pm), to January 21st, 2019. Color Matters II is the second part of “Colors Matters” which recently closed at Galerie Richard, in the Lower East Side, and gathered seven painters: Koen Delaere, Carl Fudge, Dennis Hollingsworth, Kim Young-Hun, Jamie Martinez, Noriko Mizokawa, and Joseph Nechvatal. Both exhibitions emphasize the diversity of artistic choices and the singularity of each artist in their color decisions. 

With two solo exhibitions at Galerie Richard in New York in 2013 and 2016, the presentation of his works in the collection of the Rema Hort Mann family in Tribeca, William Bradley made his name in the New York art scene. However, this is the first exhibition dedicated to his watercolors on paper. His watercolors are unique and stand for themselves.  Watercolor has regained public interest as its process requests a subtle sensibility to colors and they request a fluid sense of control that the viewers really enjoy nowadays. William is very sensitive in the subtle difference shades of the colors he uses. In his paintings, he frequently presents three shades of each color, when most painters would already be very satisfied with only one. William Bradley’s watercolors fully express his talent for colors but at the same time, his first focus is composition, that he will precisely reproduce in his paintings. His watercolors have rarely been exhibited and this is a real opportunity to enjoy a new aspect of his creativity.

Born in 1984 in London, he currently lives in London and New York. He got an MFA at Wimbledon College of Art, University College of the arts, London, and a BA, Art, and Design at York St John University. In 2011 he got the Catlin prize, Shoreditch, England. His works are part of the Hort Mann Family Collection, the University of the Arts London Collection, and several major private collections in the USA and Europe.

Noriko Mizokawa presented four large vertical paintings of her new series The Origin of the World at “Color Matters”. As Audra Lambert reported in Ante, November 1st, “Mizokawa draws from a homogeneous lexicon of forms: her organic shapes and dots similarly arrange themselves across the surface of all her works The artist’s range of color from bright hues to pastel tones articulates the unique approach she mounts in creating each unique artwork. Congruent, yet surprising, Mizokawa’s compositions delight both long-standing fans of the artist’s work and those new to her practice”.

Noriko Mizokawa studied Japanese calligraphy in Takasago and has collected first national prizes for many years in Japan. She moved to Paris in 2004 and has developed paintings with a calligraphic “abstract” pattern, that she has combined with a representation of a female body with few lines of graphite. She began to draw the colorful new series titled ‘The origin of the World’ in Paris in 2017 and she deliberately wanted to show them for the first time in New York City.

The first step of the colorful vertical paintings is a drawing made with one finger on her cell phone screen. Then she meticulously reproduces it on canvas with acrylic and small brushes. Between abstraction and figuration, her work combines traditional control of calligraphy practice with digital modernity of our daily life. The Border Projects Space presents twelve delicate miniature paintings on wood box standing on a wall shelf, all different in composition and arrangement of colors, combining mat and metallic colors.

Born in Takasago in Japan in 1971, Noriko Mizokawa currently lives there, and in Paris, France. She got a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts at the University in Kobe and she studied calligraphy from 1977 to 1989 at Takasago. She got numerous prizes, the most recent in 2003: First prize Yomi–Uri, Kobe, 2002: Award of Excellence Nichi-You, Ueno no Mori, Tokyo, Hyogo Prefecture Grand Prize, Kobe, 2001: Incentive Prize Nichi-You, Ueno no Mori, Tokyo, Kobe Committee for Culture, Kobe. She exhibits regularly in galleries and in Kobe, Ashiya, Osaka, Paris, Epernay.

Pilar Uribe’s work is inspired by Rimbaud’s Drunken Ship and the Buddha’s Raft parable both of which question what is broken – what is left behind and how we go forward. The Buddha’s Raft is a parable about a man needing to cross a dangerous river. He builds a raft to cross the river. While on the river the raft provides the safety but also the potential for death as any leak or breakage can leave him far from shore. He gets to the safety of the other shore but what of the raft? Does he leave the raft and appreciate the safety it provided, or does he carry it with him adding to his burdens crossing the next unpredictable terrain?

The Bowls are made of Encaustic Medium (Bees Wax with Damar Resin) and they represent, IChing- Heaven. The large bowls all gold, Earth. green bowls, Water. blue/purple bowls.

Pilar Uribe was born in Cucuta , Colombia 1967. She received a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts Degree in 1996. She is a multimedia artist and currently has a studio in Houston and exhibits in Houston and New York.