PAST PROJECT

Judith Page

Judith Page was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and studied art at the University of Kentucky and Transylvania University. Early influences were her father, an amateur historian, photographer, and raconteur, who instilled in her a love and respect for history and the creative process; her optometrist, the photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard, who influenced her through his commitment to a Gothic vision; and writers such as Flannery O'Connor, Ed McClanahan, and Carson McCullers who provided her with many potent visual images. Other influences include the Roman historian Tacitus; the politician Cassius Clay; the musician John Jacob Niles; and Southern vernacular artists such as Bill Traylor and Howard Finster. Page says that her "art emerges from a Gothic sensibility, a place where horror and beauty exist in close proximity, where innocence encounters depravity, where the spirit is consumed and revived from moment to moment."

Page lived and worked in Florida until relocating to New York City in 1992, and currently lives in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. She received Individual Artist's Fellowships from the Gottlieb Foundation in 2012 and 2002, from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 2005-06 and 1998-99, from the State of Florida in 1992-93 and 1983-84, and was a Thomas P. Johnson Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Rollins College in 2001. Exhibitions include The Photograph as Canvas, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; I'm Not Like Everybody Else, Teapot, Cologne, Germany; Disarming Beauty: The Venus de Milo in 20th Century Art, Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, FL; and solo exhibitions at Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY; Luise Ross Gallery, New York, NY; Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC; Massry Center for the Arts, The College of Saint Rose, Albany, NY; Lesley Heller Workspace, New York, NY and Hand Art Center, Stetson University, DeLand, FL.

Known for her inventive use of materials and stimulating social commentary, Page's numerous exhibitions and installation projects were written about in Art Papers, Sculpture, The Brooklyn Rail, The New York Times, Art on Paper, Arts Magazine, and Art in America. In September 2008, a sixteen-page artist project was published in the literary/art journal, Post Road. Page's art is represented in numerous permanent collections including the Florida House of Representatives; Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee, FL; University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC; University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City; and Orlando Museum of Art, FL. She is currently on the faculty of the MFA Fine Arts program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

www.judithpage.com

Deborah Schneider

Deborah Schneider studied and received her BFA from SUNY in Stony Brook, NY and her MFA from CUNY Brooklyn / Hunter, NY. During her time in Miami in the 1980s, Schneider taught at MDCC's PAVAC program, the precursor to the New World School of the Arts and exhibited her work at the Gloria Luria Gallery on Kane Concourse in Bal Harbour, FL. Schneider was also included in 1988s Three from Miami: Carlos Alfonso, Deborah Schneider and Purvis Young at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, FL. Currently, Schneider maintains studios where she continues to make her work in Brooklyn and Andes, New York.

Ward Shelley

Ward Shelley works as an artist in Brooklyn, New York. He specializes in large projects that freely mix sculpture and performance. Utilizing eclectic influences and a variety of media, Shelley's installations defy classification. Over the last five years, Shelley has concentrated on bizarre functioning architectural pieces in which he lives and works during the exhibition monitored with live surveillance video equipment.

Shelley also works on a series of diagrammatic paintings, timelines of art-related subjects such as the careers of artists working in de-materialized media and the history of art scenes. The best known of these is the Williamsburg Timeline Drawing and Downtown Body, recently published in Bomb Magazine.

He first exhibited as an artist in Miami. He earned his Masters degree from NYU and has been working and showing in New York since then. He moved his studio to Williamsburg in 1994 and also began exhibiting in Europe at that time.

Shelley has exhibited in more than 10 countries. Among works from the last 10 years are the interactive video-environment "the Cube", the legendary Mir 2 Project, and the Voyage Platform. In 2004 Shelley lived and worked inside the walls of Pierogi Gallery for 5 weeks for an exhibition called "We have mice". Shelley also works with the collaborative artist group BBS and talented young artists such as Douglas Paulson and Alex Schweder with whom he realized the monumental Flatland project at New York's SculptureCenter in 2007.

Ward Shelley's work is in a number of museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Art Museum, and The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Last year Shelley received a painting and Sculpture award from the Joan Mitchell foundation, and has been a fellow of the American Academy in Rome since 2006. He has received NYFA and NEA fellowships in sculpture and new media categories, a Bessie Award for installation art, as well as private foundation grants from the Jerome Foundation and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. He is represented by Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. Before and during his art career he has also worked in advertising, construction, teaching, special events, theater, rock bands, and built a 37-foot sailing sloop.

www.wardshelley.com