Halsey McKay is pleased to announce a two-person exhibition of new works by Corinne Chase and Miranda Fengyuan Zhang. In ceramics and textiles, both artists work in materials from the advent of object making to explore the formal language of painting. Colors and compositions draw inspiration from nature and the incidental moments between time, that are often neglected and overlooked. Each looks to the inherent properties of their media to embrace the performative gestures between artist and material, leaving idiosyncratic traces of the process that can’t be walked back.

Although her work is primarily ceramic, Corinne Chase also embeds layers of fabric, photography, and plaster, deepening each object’s history. Gestures are drawn from body memory and details from her personal surroundings such as a peach pit, the view from her studio window, or a stage curtain. Some materials surface in final stages of her work, while many function as moments of support. The translucent porcelain is static and hovers over the gallery walls like curtains, while her gestures and marks are kinetic and brought to life by the air caught between surfaces. They have a thin delicate skin, made out of a stone-like material, with a deep archival history.

Vibrating at the borders of abstraction and representation Zhang’s subjects are ephemeral but familiar: extrapolated gardens, layered mountains, volcanoes, rivers and icebergs. Unlike painting, weaving retains intrinsic material precision, in which the warp and weft have to be strategically arranged so that the even distribution of tension among the tread achieves equilibrium. The methodology of weaving offers both restraints and opportunities. The orderly discipline activates Zhang’s consciousness where she is constantly reminded that mistakes are forbidden, and in return provides a degree of coherence and clarity which ultimately liberates the process of creation. Dissecting the retinal reception of her textile pixels, Zhang aspires to capture light, the medium in which physical objects are perceived.

Miranda Fengyuan Zhang has had solo shows at Capsule Shanghai, Shanghai,; Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo/Brussels; Halsey McKay Gallery East Hampton; and Candice Mandy Gallery, New York. Other exhibitions include Sea View, Los Angels; Galerie Marguoa, Paris; Massimo de Carlo, London; Clearing, New York/Los Angeles, and Chambers Fine Art Gallery. New York. She has been the recipient of the La Maison de l’Art Contemporain residency in Asilah, Morocco and the Arquetopia Foundation in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Corinne Chase was born in western Massachusetts and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA in ceramics with a minor in dance from Alfred University New York State College of Ceramics. She has received the Carol Eisner award at Silvermine Arts Center, New Canaan, CT in Art of the Northeast exhibition curated by David Kiehl; Watershed Summer Residency Scholarship in New Castle, ME; Tiffany Mills Dance Company Workshop Scholarship at Mark Morris Dance Center, Brooklyn NY; and Salem Art Works Intercollegiate Iron Pour Scholarship, Salem MA. Her work has been shown at Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton; Turner Gallery, Miller Performing Arts Center and Black Box Theater in Alfred, NY, and The Boston Center for the Arts in collaboration with Kairos Dance Theater as set designer for their performance 'Object'.