Kulczycki and the two new series of paintings by Ian Swanson, never before exhibited in New York. Both artists' works use different techniques and transform their materials into investigations of our humanity. While Tao Kulczycki uses a various assortment of altered objects in order to semi-embody his sculptures with symbols, Ian Swanson's paintings use direct and simple tools of representation to engage the viewer to interpret their inner intensity. The two artists use representation, objects and images we might immediately recognize, and combine them to create a feeling of unfamiliarity.

Tao Kulczycki will be presenting a new series of aggregates; these fabricated ready-mades lend themselves towards a more abstract form where the object per se is transfigured in a way that is not immediately recognizable. The peculiarity of their assembly and modification find a stability not only symbolically but literally where the sculptures seem to balance. Often using a contrasting approach to materials, Kulczycki finds equilibrium between the natural and the fabricated/technological.

The concepts behind Kulczycki’s sculptures extend themselves to the ideas present in Swanson’s paintings. Showing his new “Aging” series, as well as his new triptychs, Swanson engages the numerous micro-histories of painting since the dawn of modernity. Both artists approach their practice from a place of sincerity, allowing cynical, hopeful, humorous or poetic instances to emerge at the forefront of their unique vocabularies.

Ian Swanson’s work spans painting, sculpture, audio and installation; working in territory where the slippage between representation and the ineffable brings figuration and abstraction into vivid conversation. The “Aging” series and the triptychs are some of Swanson’s most sincere paintings, while still being meta-referential and cynical. These works depict anonymous faces, like most of his recent work, though peppered with graphic scars of painterly gestures. Complex human feelings and behaviors have distilled into basic and simple emoji; the paintings reference these blanket pathos, while inferring in the viewer more complex emotive potential. Silent stories of impending dejection.

Ian Swanson (b. 1983, Detroit, MI) is a visual artist living in Brooklyn, NY. He has had solo or collaborative exhibitions throughout the US and abroad, most recently at DFS in New York, Free Paarking in St. Louis, David Shelton Gallery in Houston, WAKE Gallery in Detroit, and Welcome Screen in London. Swanson co-founded artist-run galleries ORG in Detroit in 2009, and hotelart.us in NY in 2012. He currently operates objetosexual.info, a media label and curatorial initiative collaborating between visual artists and audio artists. He also cooperates egodrift.in, an esoteric art and information store, with Wendy Ross.

Tao Kulczycki (b. 1987, France) is an Italian artist. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from Pratt institute in 2013. Before coming to New York he attended Kingston University in the UK (London) and earned a BFA in Live art (Art, Performance and Digital Media). His work has been mentioned in the New York Times, La Voce di New York and Iitaly. His recent shows include a solo show at Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo (NYU) and the Mykonos biennale in Greece.