NATURE ATTUNED
Simone Couto & Lina Puerta
September 13, 2018 – January 5, 2019
SARAHCROWN is pleased to present Nature Attuned a two-person exhibition conceived for the public spaces at The Yard–Columbus Circle as part of the Art In Lobbies program. The installation will feature a selection of recent works by Simone Couto and Lina Puerta.
The works by Couto and Puerta are born out of an attentive analysis of flora, fauna, nature and landscape and our physical and emotional relationship to them. Made with organic materials, found objects and a systematic arrangement of geo-constituent resources, the drawings, paintings and 3-dimensional wall-installations, amongst a large wall drawing, will represent an invitation to tune in with nature even from the working/living environment.
Lina Puerta examines the relationship between nature and the body. She utilizes a wide variety of materials in her sculpture — concrete, clay, resin, wood, foam, fabric, artificial plants, paper pulp and handmade paper; craft and recycled items. With these materials she creates textural forms and compositions that blend the human-made world with the natural, exploring notions of control, consumerism and life’s fragility. Her artistic process is in great part guided by the physical qualities of the materials, their textures, forms and colors; and informed by concepts of femininity, fashion, and artificiality.
Simone Couto’s private and collective practices explore communication and the relationship between place and identity both in nature and urban settings. She is interested in the biographical shifts and speculation of new sites where the body veers and twists, cohabiting. Her performative and community engagement is contingent and situational rather than site-specific. The artist re-orders her social-political and environmental explorations tying them to history, time, philosophy, science, and language, exhausting the multiple possibilities of every single element. Thanks to Couto’s works it is possible to rethink the relationship between place and humans as knowledge devices in the construction and reconstruction of one’s identity and sense of belonging.
For more info please contact: info@sarahcrown.com / +1-347-3934911
The Yard: Columbus Circle
33 W 60th Street, New York NY
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
LINA PUERTA (born in NJ and raised in Colombia) lives and works in New York City. She holds an MS in Art Education from Queens College/CUNY and is recipient of several residencies and grants including: the 2017 NYFA Fellowship, 2016 Dieu Donné Workspace Residency, Artprize-8 Sustainability Award, 2015 Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant, 2015 Kohler Arts Industry Residency (WI), 2014-15 Keyholder Residency at the Lower East Side Printshop, 2013-14 Smack Mellon Art Studio Program, 2014 Materials for the Arts, 2013 Wave Hill Winter Workspace and the 2010 Emerging Artist Fellowship at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York. Exhibition venues include: The Museum of Biblical Art, El Museo del Barrio, Socrates Sculpture Park, Wave Hill, Geary Contemporary, NYC and Pi-Artworks in London. Puerta’s work has been written about in Hyperallergic, The New York Times, Wilder Quarterly, Sculpture Magazine and Artnet News among others.
SIMONE COUTO (born in Brazil, 1975) received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts Art Practice Program, New York, a BA in Creative Arts from the University of San Francisco, and studied Theater Arts at The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Her work has been shown in the United States and internationally, including Gwacheon National Science Museum, South Korea; and Pioneer Works; Invisible Dog Art Center; Electronic Arts Intermix; El Museo de Los Sures; all New York.
In 2018, she has been in residency at the Studios of MASS MoCA in the Spring, receiving a grant to develop her work with the Berkshires Immigrant Community and is now in residency at ISCP, International Studio and Curatorial Program.