Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present Tangerine, a group exhibition of five contemporary artists presented in collaboration with Canada, a New York artist run space, at its Palm Beach location. Tangerine features the work of contemporary artists Katherine Bradford, Elisabeth Kley, Luke Murphy, Tyson Reeder, and Rachel Eulena Williams. Ranging in age from 27-79 years, the exhibition reflects on Canada’s unique approach to blending artists of widely-ranging generations and practices. 

The exhibition draws its name from the tangerine - both the fruit, the color, and a Johnny Mercer jazz standard, which describes a fictional South American woman who is admired by all. Popularized in the 1942 film The Fleet’s In, the song provided a much needed bit of tropical respite during wartime. 

Rachel Eulena Williams’s painterly assemblages unite canvas, rope, bold pigment and other materials into vibrant, playful wall-mounted structures. Made from raw materials in her studio, the work is characterized not only by a focus on texture and material innovation, but also by its sculptural form. Evident in her work Pierced by Sunbeams, 2021, Williams employs the visual and the tactile through the draped and layered fabric, producing a sense of optimism and play.

Elisabeth Kley draws her motifs from cultural ornamentation, architecture, and design sources that result in vivid, graphic patterns eliciting a variety of emotions. On view in Tangerine is Lotus and Water, 2021, a hand-built black and white ceramic vessel alongside a large-scale silk screened “painting” featuring design elements inspired by Japanese temples, Egyptian Design, the Wiener Werkstatte, and costumes from the Ballets Russes.

Katherine Bradford is known for rich, washy layers of acrylic in purples, roses, and deep blues. In Pool Within a Pool, 2021, pastel figures float in a dark blue plane as a figure leaps off the diving board towards the middle of the canvas, seemingly floating above the swimmers in a light blue sky. 

Line Through Ladder (Fire Exchange) by Luke Murphy prompts curiosity and delight through a large, red LED panel that seems to have pierced through the floor, lifting a ladder that otherwise would have stood on its own legs. The combined effect is simultaneously ordinary yet enigmatic.

Tyson Reeder is known for creating whimsical cityscapes and interiors through clashing pastel shades, layering forms and figures onto his stylized landscapes which depict everyday vistas. In Faygo and La Croix, Reeder continues to explore his fascination with landscape and color. 

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About Canada 

Canada was opened on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 2000 by a small group of artists committed to promoting the work of both emerging and (mostly overlooked) established artists. The gallery was set up as a commercial instrument in order to both compete with and critique the art marketplace of New York City. As an artist-run cooperative, Canada remains unconventional in its structure and divergent in its programming. Canada opened their new space on 60 Lispenard Street in September 2019.

About the Artists

Rachel Eulena Williams (b. 1991, Miami, FL) received her BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York. Her work has been exhibited at venues such as Cooper Cole, Toronto; Ceysson & Benetiere, New York, Saint Etienne & Luxembourg; The Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Journal Gallery, and Turn Gallery, all in New York; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; and Loyal Gallery, Sweden. In 2019 she held the SIP Fellowship at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, New York.

Elisabeth Kley (b. 1956, New York) received her BA from Empire State College and studied at Hunter College. Her ceramics, watercolors, drawings and prints have been featured in an exhibition history spanning over 25 years; recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Garden: Elisabeth Kley and Tabboo!, Gordon Robichaux, New York, NY (2019); Elisabeth Kley, Window on Broad, Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA (2019); Flowers Out of Water, Pierre Marie Giraud, Brussels, Belgium (2017); Ozymandias, CANADA, New York, NY (2016); translucent threads of dawn (with Conrad Ventur), Regina Rex, New York, NY (2015); and A Sign of Eternal Beauty (with Florence Derive), GAVLAK, Palm Beach, FL (2015). Kley lives in Manhattan and works in Brooklyn.

Katherine Bradford (b. 1942, NY, NY) lives and works in New York. She started painting at the age of 30 while living in Maine and was among a group of artists who moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the 1980’s. She exhibited in New York for many years before presenting Fear of Waves, her first solo exhibition with Canada, in 2016. Bradford has exhibited widely at institutions such as: MoMA P.S. 1; The Brooklyn Museum, NY; the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, TX; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, in Bentonville, AR; the Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College, NY; and at the Ogden Museum in Prospect.4: the New Orleans Biennial. Her work is included in collections such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Menil Collection in Houston, TX, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, KS and the Portland Museum of Art, ME. Bradford is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Joan Mitchell Grant. She has taught at institutions such as the Yale School of Art, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Bradford will be the subject of a touring survey show organized by the Portland Museum of Art, Maine.

Luke Murphy is a systems-based artist whose work is loosely bound by common themes of quantifying elements of the psyche and spirit with a particular interest in the Gnostic gospels, religious paintings, and digital languages – codes and systems to make art. He has presented exhibitions and performances at  venues such as: Postmasters, The Kitchen, Artists Space, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, PS122, The Queens Museum of Art, all in New York; MOCA in Jacksonville, Florida; Wynick/Tuck Gallery, Toronto, Canada; and Conduit Gallery in Dallas. His work has been featured in the New York Times and Art Forum. Murphy holds an MFA from the State University of New York at Purchase, a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art And Design and a Bachelor of Science in Physiology and English from the University of Toronto.

Tyson Reeder (b. 1974, Fairfax, VA) lives and works in Chicago, IL. Solo exhibitions include Daniel Reich Gallery, New York; Office Baroque, Brussels; Green Gallery, Milwaukee; Canada, New York. His work has also appeared in numerous group exhibitions at venues such as Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York; Venus over Manhattan, Los Angeles; Peter Freeman Gallery, New York; Karma, New York; Jack Hanley Gallery, New York among others. Reeder has co-organized many group exhibitions and projects, including Drunk vs. Stoned at Gavin Brown's Enterprise, The Early Show at White Columns; The Dark Fair at the Swiss Institute New York and the Köelnischer Kunstverien, Cologne; and the 24-Hour Super Jam at Canada, NY. His paintings are included in the collections of the MoMA and the Rubell Family Collection.

Media Contacts:

For interviews, background and images, please contact:

Abby Addams 

Blue Medium, Inc

Tel: +1-212-675-1800

abby@bluemedium.com

Emily Crowley

Acquavella Galleries

Tel: +1-212-734-6300

emily@acquavellagalleries.com