Rock, Paper, Scissors is a group show presented in partnership with The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (EFA). Featuring the work of C24 resident artist Seçkin Pirim along with EFA member artists Dana Levy, Cheryl Molnar and Suzanne Song, curator David C. Terry has gathered a collection that offers a multi-faceted investigation of materiality as a tool of expression, through the mediums of stone, paper and the technological processes that illuminate and transform them. This exhibition represents the launch of a series of partnerships between C24 Gallery and non-profit arts organizations, with the goal of elevating creative voices that have been traditionally marginalized or underrepresented.

Seçkin Pirim is an internationally exhibited artist living and working in Istanbul, Turkey. His conceptual sculptures explore form, color, and pattern. Working in a variety of media, his artworks examine the relationship between object and space, the dichotomy between nature and culture, and the line between art and design. In this exhibit, we showcase his works on paper that embody both technological processes and manual techniques, resulting in objects that are mesmerizing in their complexity as they simultaneously harken to the tranquility of the lengthy, handmade construction process.

The trio of EFA artists showcased in Rock, Paper, Scissors celebrate the elemental beauty of the natural world as they explore the dynamics of environmental destruction. Depicting both indoor and outdoor locations, the works as a collection lead viewers on a journey to discover our connections to the places we occupy in both time and space.

Suzanne Song’s paintings are elegant forms that incorporate ground pumice stone to add textured, three-dimensional layers to her minimalist, geometric designs, creating tight gestural constructions with a nod to the ubiquitous white and gray color palette common to many walls and floors. Representing notions of duality and how they can be explored and understood through spatial and perceptual narratives, her works conjure different dimensions existing interdependently, appearing in a constant state of spatial flux as they disrupt our visual logic and blur the boundaries between illusion and reality.

Cheryl Molnar creates fictional landscapes inspired by places she’s been, reimagined into exaggerated panoramas that reflect mankind’s alteration of nature. The structures and patterns seem borrowed from an earlier generation, inspired by autobiography and evoking nostalgia. Collaging strips of oil-stained paper with images from vintage magazines and postcards onto natural birch panels, her paintings symbolize the permanent transformation of the natural environment by the development of prefab housing developments, strip malls and industrial parks. Her surreal creations are at once evocative and disturbing, presenting a dreamlike take on the impact of modern development as they collapse both geography and time, giving physical shape to the improbable landscapes of our memory.

Dana Levy is a multimedia artist who works with video, photography, projections and both natural and man-made objects to explore man’s relationship to nature and the tension between the man-made and natural world. She creates liminal spaces where fantasy and reality become blurred, seamlessly integrating moving images with found images and objects, subverting their original function and meaning to create new narratives. Rounding out the show with a series of projections onto and seemingly from rocks, she continues her investigation of the relationship between the domesticated, sheltered and organized world and the one that is wild and uncontrollable.

The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts is dedicated to promoting visual artists across all disciplines. Through its juried EFA Studio Program, EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop and EFA Project Space, EFA provides artists with subsidized studio space, a public platform and a cooperative forum for the development of individual practice. By offering resources and a professional context to a culturally diverse community, EFA embodies a commitment to supporting both underrepresented as well as established artists.