Synthetic Synthesis is a group exhibition featuring works by Matthew Deleget, Jeff Feld, Molly Heron and John Tallman. Curated by Patricia Zarate in collaboration with Sculpture Space NYC-Projects and Key Projects.

Synthetic Synthesis brings together four artists whose commonality is a synthetic that is ubiquitous to our society - plastic. Incorporating varied approaches to plastics, the artists in Synthetic Synthesis repurpose plastic bags, petri dishes and frames or use plastic as a raw material, to create minimalist objects.

Using found plastic bags, Matthew Deleget reinterprets the lyrics of the Beatles song All Together Now color for color, resulting in a commentary on the commercialization of emotions. Jeff Feld re-appropriates banal objects found in 99 cent stores and hardware stores and transforms them into absurd commodities. Molly Heron accumulates plastic objects, from petri dishes to food containers, and reimagines their aesthetic value creating bold colorful sculptures. John Tallman uses the raw material as an alchemist would, poring liquid compound into a mold - creating humorous, luscious sculptures.

Matthew Deleget is an artist, curator, and arts worker. Matthew has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, including solo and group exhibitions in the US, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. His work was included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. His additional museum exhibitions include MoMA/P.S.1 (Long Island City, NY); Bronx Museum of the Arts (Bronx, NY); Herbert F. Johnson Museum (Ithaca, NY); Bass Museum of Art (Miami, FL); and Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (Indianapolis, IN).

In 2003, Matthew founded MINUS SPACE, a platform for reductive art on the international level based in Brooklyn, NY. Since 2006, he has organized more than 60 solo and group exhibitions at both MINUS SPACE’s gallery in Dumbo, Brooklyn, as well as other collaborating venues on the national and international levels, including in Mexico, Belgium, Australia, and New Zealand.

Jeff Feld lives and works in Ridgewood, Queens. His sculptures and drawings have been featured in both national and international exhibitions, including White Columns, Artists Space, The Drawing Center, The Brooklyn Museum and the Queens Museum of Art in New York, the Rokeby Gallery in London and Dunker Kulturhus in Helsinborg, Sweden. His most recent solo exhibition A.F.O.T.D.T.D. (a failure of the day to day) took place at Fresh Window Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.

Molly Heron is a painter whose work centers on color perception and abstraction in two and three dimensions. She has been Artist-in-Residence at Covello Center, East Harlem, NY; Alice Lloyd College, Pippa Passes, KY; Appalshop, Whitesburg, KY. She received a fellowship to the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA.

Heron has been a panelist in 2014, “Compiled and Composed” exhibit at Maloney Art Gallery, moderated by curator Virginia Fabbri Butera, Morristown, NJ; in 2013, “Positive Feedback Art/Science,” Columbia University’s The Earth Institute, organized in conjunction with Marfa Dialogues and the Rauschenberg Institute, NY, NY; in 2013, “Bacteria in Art and Science,” CUriosity 3, Columbia University School of the Arts, with Christina Agapakis, Shahid Naeem, and Natalie Jermemijenko, NY, NY. She lives and works in New York, NY. In 2011 she received a Masters of Fine Art in Visual Arts from the Vermont College of Fine Art.

John Tallman was born in York, Pennsylvania in 1969. He received a BFA from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA in 1991 and an MFA from University of Washington, Seattle, WA in 1993. Influenced by a vibrant Asian cultural scene in Seattle, John moved to Korea and lived in Seoul for a year and a half, where he met his wife. Since that time, John has lived in Queens, NY, Jeonju, South Korea, Philadelphia, PA and Chattanooga, TN. He currently lives with his wife and son in Nashville, TN.

John has exhibited his art in galleries and museums in various countries and cities, including Sydney, New York, Seoul, Athens and Paris. As a curator he is actively involved in the project “Therely Bare” which is committed to bringing reductive, non-objective art to new audiences.