HOME BODY
JON KEY & BIANCA NEMELC
Ross/Kramer Gallery
Spring Break Art Fair
March 5 - March 10, 2019
“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” - George A. Moore
Who we are in the world merely echos who we become in the refuge of our own homes. With “Home Body” Ross + Kramer Gallery presents a dual show, curated by Ché Morales, in which two artists deal with mythos identity and what that personally means within the sanctuary of their homes.
The first room titled “The Violet Den” is filled with work by artist Jon Key and is a constructed space of refuge and rest for the recurring character that appears in the majority of his paintings, the Man in the Violet Suit. According to Key, “[the room’s] surroundings simultaneously examine the interior psychology and reality of the Queer Black man.” By deconstructing the Violet Suit pattern and figure with each painting and found object abstractions Key will extend the mythology of the The Man in the Violet Suit’s journey. Within this space we are given a reflection of what one man becomes outside the suited image that embodies who he is in the outside world.
In the second room titled “Motherland”, we come across a space created by artist Bianca Nemelc. This room and the paintings it contains are dedicated to the women that have passed down their ancestry through the home cooked meals in her family’s kitchen. Bianca states, “In any kitchen, the bowl is a vessel to explore the most intimate
parts of our identity with those around us. A bowl gives the ability to share and carry lineage and tradition in its contents as it is passed across the thighs of unknowing company. Sometimes it arrives on your lap overflowing with stories of the kitchen from which it came, and other times bowls stand empty, waiting to filled and spilled by eager hands.” Viewers are encouraged to participate in a fully immersive experience as speakers play audio of women in the kitchen humming and cooking by themselves. With this space Nemelc invites us into the traditions of the culture that created her by feeding her soul literally and figuratively.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jon(athan) Key is an artist, designer and writer. Raised in rural Alabama, he explores the tension and fragmentation of identity in his work. Through photography, installation and painting he creates intimate spaces that recount the experiences of confronting his own queerness, blackness, southerness, and family. Through the themes of love, pain, dislocation and abuse, the work reflects the resolve of the physical and emotional self. Jon is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn.
Jon is a co-founder and the design director of Codify Art, a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist collective whose mission is to create, produce, and showcase work that foregrounds the voices of people of color, highlighting women and queer people of color.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Bianca Nemelc is a figurative painter whose work explores the connection between the female form and the natural world. Born and raised in New York City, Bianca’s work is inspired by her own investigative journey into her identity, paying homage to her heritage through the use of many hues of brown that make up the figures in her work. The world within her paintings are loosely inspired by the tropical and Carribean landscapes where her families are originally from and her roots can be traced back to. Through her work, Bianca aims to highlight the beautiful and symbiotic relationship between nature and the female body.
