Fall 2012, Volume 13

Art by Christine Gedeon

For Alternate Non-Flash Gallery


  1. OSH, Brooklyn (Plot re-visualized), thread, fabric and paint on raw black canvas, 54" x 32”, 2012
  2. Plotting Chelsea, thread, fabric and paint on raw black canvas, 35” x 35”, 2012
  3. Governors Island Revisited, thread, fabric and paint on raw black canvas, 74” x 66”, 2012
  4. Surrounding Dumbo, thread, fabric and paint on raw black canvas, 30” x 35”, 2012
  5. The Yankee Stadiums, thread, fabric and paint on raw black canvas, 64” x 56”, 2011
  6. The Grand Concourse (once removed), thread, fabric and paint on raw canvas, 62” x 56”, 2011
  7. Plot 6, thread, paint and fabric on raw black canvas, 54” x 60”, 2009
  8. Plot 8, thread, paint and fabric on raw black canvas, 58” x 54” 2009
  9. Plot 7, thread, paint and fabric on raw canvas, 56” x 58”, 2009
  10. Plot 3, thread, paint, and fabric on raw canvas, 52” x 60”, 2008

 

Artist Statement:
As humans, we define ourselves partly in relation to the built environment around us. Buildings in the urban context interact with one another and allow individuals to create a narrative of who they are-past, present, and future. Our memory and identity are forever changed after buildings and monuments are destroyed through war, natural destruction, and urban planning. The subsequent rebuilding both “as it once was” as well as a complete modern reconstruction ultimately suppresses memory seemingly creating a sense of utopia.

Using a sewing machine, fabric and paint on raw canvas, and inspired by aerial view landscape drawings and maps, I invent ‘plots’ that are neither true abstractions, nor complete landscapes but navigate between interpretative poles. With a limited palette and through an improvisational approach, these works are large in scale and hint to an unfamiliar impossible space, a space that allows viewers to detach and contemplate their relationship to the external world. I seek to connect the dichotomy of the cold, analytical masculine subject with the appropriation of traditional feminine materials, adopting a sewing machine as a mechanically precise drawing tool.

My most recent stitched works are inspired by the evolution of urban landscapes and how it ties to memory, focusing recently on New York City’s topographical evolution. I use Google Earth and archival images to collect my data and use this information as a starting point to create this invented series of urban renewal projects. The works are still done through improvisation pointing to a heterotopic, neither here nor there vision of New York; an unreality based on a utopian inspired ideal.





Detail of "OSH, Brooklyn"
thread, fabric and paint on
raw black canvas        

 

 

 

BIO: Christine Gedeon was born in Aleppo, Syria, raised in northern New Jersey, and is based in New York City. Her work was exhibited in the Bronx Biennial at the Bronx Museum in 2011, after being selected for the the Artist in the Marketplace program (AIM 30). She also had a solo show at A.I.R. Gallery in 2006 as part of an Emerging Artist’s Fellowship. Other solo and two-person shows include: Chashama, Harlem, CAS Arts Center, Livingston Manor, NY, And/Or Gallery, Dallas, TX, and the The New Art Center in New York. Selected group shows include: The Old Stone House, Brooklyn, Field Projects, New York, Kulturmöllan, Lövestad, Sweden, The Arlington Museum, Fort Worth, TX, Vertex List, Williamsburg, and DIVA Fair Miami. Her work was featured in an article on female artists in Art in America in July 2007 and reviewed in Hyperallergic, The Dallas Morning News, and The River Reporter in Livingston Manor.

Residencies include the THE WYE, Berlin, Germany, in 2012-13, Fundacion Valparaiso in Mojacar, Spain in 2012 where she worked on a site-specific installation, and a 2-month residency on Governors Island in 2011 through galleryELL. Gedeon received a BA in Fine Arts and Art History from SUNY New Paltz in 1995.